During the writing of my dissertation, I realized how my writing process works. This observation has been extended and is an intriguing exercise, as well as a useful one, because from it it may be possible to avoid demands that go beyond or below me.

I'm spacious. As a left-hander, several times I had/have to add another desk or table to the left so that I could write. And many times I also gathered one on my right to spread my things, occupying, in the end, three chairs. In my writing, something similar is happening, I spread out in countless "tabs", I make small notes on post-its, mark pages in books, reproduce quotes, etc. Then, I go from one tab to another, from one draft to another, from one news item to another, from one reference to another, from one text to another, usually almost in a flash, at synaptic speed. Thinking is faster than hands and I try to handle it. Almost always flawed.

One of the things that sometimes happens is that I start a text thinking about a theme, aiming at some subject that I want to deal with, but writing it is, for me, unpredictable. I end up dwelling on what I might call a process, I find myself hooked much more by the path that led me there than by the destination. Almost as if I was doing a constant retrospective, trying (unconsciously) to say how I got there, wanting to talk about that subject.

I begin to delve into what would only be the preamble, I begin to narrate a small story of the trail. And then, almost without realizing it, I write the entire text only about this path and the blessed theme that I was initially looking at is as if thrown aside, thrown on another paper, waiting, in suspense. I don't know when, or if I will return to it. Now it's too late, I took another course, a detour, something from the beginning of the path captured me and I can't go back.

I realize that there in fact the text seems to take on a life of its own, it takes its own direction, reaching a destination that I, who thought it would guide, could not even have imagined before. One of those works comes to mind in which there are several nails glued to a surface, like a map, for example, and in which a line is tied, which goes from one nail to another, drawing a web, a tangle of lines, in a chaotic, disordered path, but which in the end forms a drawing.

But, as I said earlier, the head is faster and I also imagine a kind of hybrid puzzle, in which I try to fit one piece to another and then I make a sewing effort, an experiment with the thread that pierces the fabric and comes out on the other side, joining two fragments. A tight seam that almost does not allow us to imagine that they had already been two separate and independent pieces. When I come across this puzzle-fabric, I can then look at it as a whole. But probably, in another text, at another time, I will make associations with this previous one; almost as if I were writing a single text.

And when the pieces of the puzzle don't seem to fit together? When is the thread not able to pierce the fabric? I remain sprawled, sometimes in two, three different texts, which seem to talk to each other. I feel like they're talking about the same thing, but they haven't really met yet to the point of coming together. I look for an adverb, about to complete the sentence, the adverb comes to the edge of my thought, but without slipping into concreteness. It's almost as if I see the word in a blurry way, or as if it echoes far away inside me and I can't expel it.

A momentary detour

This text was written, until the previous paragraph, about two months ago. It remained unpublished because I simply did not find, in my sewing, the finalization, the finish. I tried to end it with a phrase that was formulated in my head, but that seemed forced, disconnected. Maybe there is no end to it, maybe I will continue to write small drafts, fragments of this "single text" to which I referred before.

It was then that, when I least expected it, I came across the following paragraph of Boxing My Library by Alberto Manguel (about which I commented here ), with which I choose to conclude:

(...) I can't think of following a straight line. I digress. I find it impossible to start with factual starting points and climb a well-lit staircase, stepping on logical steps, to reach a satisfactory conclusion. No matter how strong my initial intention is, I get lost along the way. I stop to admire a quote or listen to a little story; I am distracted by issues that have nothing to do with my purpose, I am carried away by a flow of association of ideas. I start talking about one thing and end talking about another (p. 17).

We are holding hands, Alberto.