Remettre les auteurs à leur place

Stéphane Dompierre ne fait que ça sur son blogue de parrain (ou que sais-je) du concours Nouvel Auteur d'Archambault.

Ce genre de concours-là me dégoûte un peu par ce que ça a de Star Académie de la littérature, et bien que Dompierre ne me soit jamais apparu comme appartenant à la "sphère de production restreinte" de Bourdieu (autrement dit, à la littérature pas particulièrement populaire), c'est une joie de le voir remettre à leur place les auteurs en puissance. Surtout quand on en une soi-même.

Mon coup de coeur : son billet "Sors la langue", qui dit en gros que, pour écrire, il faut maîtriser sa langue. Ça ne va pas autant de soi qu'il n'y paraît : les étudiants en littérature, qui ont la langue comme objet d'études, ont souvent du mal à comprendre ce principe. Et que dire des auteurs de manuel scolaire! Ce billet-là est très certainement venu chercher la réviseure en moi...

Ça se passe ici, et je vous offre du même coup un texte de Bukowski qu'il a inséré dans un de ses billets, pour vous donner le ton :

SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER

if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it comes unasked out of your heart and your mind and your mouth and your gut, don't do it. if you have to sit for hours staring at your computer screen or hunched over your typewriter searching for words, don't do it. if you're doing it for money or fame, don't do it. if you're doing it because you want women in your bed, don't do it. if you have to sit there and rewrite it again and again, don't do it. if it's hard work just thinking about doing it, don't do it. if you're trying to write like somebody else, forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of you, then wait patiently. if it never does roar out of you, do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife or your girlfriend or your boyfriend or your parents or to anybody at all, you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers, don't be like so many thousands of people who call themselves writers, don't be dull and boring and pretentious, don't be consumed with self-love. the libraries of the world have yawned themselves to sleep over your kind. don't add to that. don't do it. unless it comes out of your soul like a rocket, unless being still would drive you to madness or suicide or murder, don't do it. unless the sun inside you is burning your gut, don't do it.

when it is truly time, and if you have been chosen, it will do it by itself and it will keep on doing it until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.