NYT職業文字工作者的寫作和讀書習慣

來源於(yu) NYT 的兩(liang) 篇文章

The Case for Writing Longhand: ‘It’s About Trying to Create That Little Space of Freedom’

Molly Young Is Thinking About Buying a Wheelbarrow

第一篇文中說的是兩(liang) 位編輯用手寫(xie) 初稿的習(xi) 慣（大多數還是直接電腦敲的，手寫(xie) 的還是少數）

兩(liang) 位介紹的作者分別是Sam Anderson （a staff writer at The New York Times Magazine ）  和  A.O. Scott （co-chief film critic）

Sam Anderson 的手寫(xie) 工具是

- an extra fine black Pilot Vball pen

- a stylus on a reMarkable 2 digital tablet

A.O. Scott 的手寫(xie) 工具

- a 5-by-8-inch Moleskine notebook and a pen

選擇手寫(xie) 的原因：

1. 感覺和文字更近

... the process slows him down and puts him in touch with his thoughts.

2. 避免用電腦帶來的分心

Composing on a laptop, he said, also presents endless opportunities for procrastination. “It’s hard to get truly quiet or focused,” he said. “Writing by hand takes away 17 million options for distraction.”

另外值得一提的是Sam Anderson 寫(xie) 作不是按照順序寫(xie) 下來的，會(hui) 是分塊來寫(xie) 的，最後再把幾塊排下先後順序，構成一篇文章（He writes scenes in chunks and then spends hours trying to arrange them.）。他覺得這樣的寫(xie) 作可以讓他的文章結構更有特點，文中舉(ju) 例了他六月寫(xie) 的關(guan) 於(yu) NBA 球星 Kevin Durant 的文章。

下麵是前六段的內(nei) 容

Ok, why not, let’s start with the asteroid. Thirty-five million years ago, a giant space rock, two miles wide, came screaming out of the sky and crashed into Earth. It struck the eastern edge of the landmass we know today as North America. And it unleashed an apocalypse. The asteroid hit with the power of many nuclear bombs. It hit so hard that it vaporized itself and cracked the bedrock seven miles down. It incinerated whole forests, killed all life in the area, sent super-tsunamis ripping out across the Atlantic. You can still find remnants of the trauma (shocked quartz, fused glass) as far away as Texas and the Caribbean.Where it hit, the rock left a scar: a giant smoldering hole more than 50 miles across.Eons passed. The world turned cold. Glaciers started crawling down from the north, with irresistible slowness, inching their way toward the asteroid hole, grinding up the landscape, dragging boulders and carving valleys. Then they stopped. They started to melt. The glaciers bled ice water, and little trickles went rolling downhill, braiding themselves into rivers, seeking low places in the landscape.Eventually, inevitably, the water found the asteroid hole. The ancient crater sucked down streams like a shower drain. It flooded and overflowed, expanding its borders, mingling freshwater and seawater, filling up with creatures of all kinds: oysters, fishes, turtles, dolphins, otters, pelicans, newts. Little blue crabs scuttled through its grasses.Today we call that waterlogged space-hole the Chesapeake Bay. It is the largest estuary in the United States, a jackpot of fertility, home now to more than 18 million people — and for 400 years it has been a vortex of American history: Jamestown, revolution, tobacco, the Underground Railroad. Frederick Douglass used to watch sails gliding across the Chesapeake Bay and dream of being free.I could tell you about that asteroid hole forever.But the reason I am telling you now is that Kevin Durant, the basketball superstar, grew up next to it — so close that he can tell you how many blue crabs come in a bushel. On a recent afternoon, when the Brooklyn Nets had a day off, I told Durant the story of the asteroid and the glaciers and the formation of the Chesapeake Bay.

可以看到這篇文章的前5段說的都是asteroid，到第六段才引入文章主角Kevin Durant。

可能就是這種不按先後順序來書(shu) 寫(xie) 的習(xi) 慣，讓他的文字比較有新意吧。

第二篇文章有介紹書(shu) 評專(zhuan) 欄的編輯Molly Young 讀書(shu) 的習(xi) 慣。

因為(wei) 是做書(shu) 評的，所以免不了要同時讀很多的書(shu) （Molly Young often reads three to six books at a time），這時候她會(hui) 選擇每兩(liang) 小時換一本書(shu) 來讀（Under that workload, she says, she likes to spend two hours with one book, then change to another）。

開始讀一本書(shu) 以後，是不是一定要讀完一本書(shu) ？

如果是文字工作者，那當然一定要讀完，因為(wei) 每一本你不喜歡的書(shu) 可能各有各的不盡如人意之處，而隻有讀完以後，才能比較清楚文字到底在哪裏。

如果是休閑閱讀，那沒有必要讀完，生命很短（I don’t think people should feel obligated to finish a book that they’ve started. Life is too short）。

每日的閱讀是如何安排的？

時間：

I basically just read for 10 hours a day, and I take notes.

地點：

（ 因為(wei) 居家辦公，所以說的都是家裏的地點） three places in the apartment where I read. I work either at the kitchen table, the living room sofa or in my little office, which is crammed with books. I like to rotate among these three places throughout the day according to the light. I tend to follow the sunlight, like a cat.

如果喜歡文字，可以嚐試著給閱讀和寫(xie) 作增加一些“怪癖”，也挺有意思。