#146: Online Writing, English Literature, Ernest Hemingway and Essayful with Dylan O'Sullivan
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我今天的嘉宾是 Dylan O'Sullivan。Dylan 是 OSV 的媒体专家，Write of Passage 的客座讲师，几家主要媒体的专栏作家，以及专注于写作品牌 Essayful 的创始人。

探索我们对阅读和写作的最初热爱，以及我们最早的写作记忆。 在不同国家学习英语文学的对比经历。 曼联和曼城球迷之间的友好对话。 深入探讨欧内斯特·海明威的生活和作品。 检视在线写作的过程以及在纸上写作的美。 作家们为了实现写作目标所采用的技巧和特质。 天气和环境对作家工作的影响。 反思作为作家的最充实的方面。

Write of Passage 都柏林三一学院英语学院 爱尔兰足球 杰克·凯鲁亚克 艾伦·金斯堡 莱尼·布鲁斯 亚瑟·科斯特勒 阿尔道斯·赫胥黎 阿尔贝·加缪 《感知之门》 《正午的黑暗》 《创造的行为》 《像海明威一样写作》 《自私的基因》 布朗特牧师博物馆 鲍勃·迪伦谈创造力的超凡脱俗 At Desk（写作背景音乐） 费尔南多·佩索阿之家 在推特上关注 Dylan

<raw_text>0 Kia ora, ni hao and hello. Welcome to the Chiwi Journal podcast. I'm your host, Camille Leung. My guest today is Dylan O'Sullivan.

Dylan and I are colleagues at O'Shaughnessy Venture. He is also a guest lecturer at Write on Passage, columnist at a few major media outlets, and the creator behind the writing-focused brand, Essifo. In today's episode, Dylan and I talk about our experience majored in English Literature.

online writing, a few our favorite writers including Ernest Hemingway and Dylan's current writing project, Exitful. I hope you enjoyed our conversation.

Since we just finished our OSV monthly meeting, so shall we start with how did you join the OSV and how we become colleagues? Yeah, yes, it's kind of it's a weird circuitous route that we'll probably come back to it in the story as well. So basically, so I'm from Ireland, rural Ireland, so in the middle of nowhere, where it's kind of just fields and Guinness, etc. So my kind of

My contact to the world of creative people in general was kind of limited to Twitter and things like that. So one day I just saw a tweet from a person called Dave Perel. He's kind of a big writing guy. I think that's literally in his Twitter bio. It says the writing guy. I think that's his nickname. And it was like some 15 fellowships to a cohort he runs called Rite of Passage. And they were being funded by this guy called Jim O'Shaughnessy, who I'd never heard of.

So basically I kind of applied to that. It was meant to like, uh, the results are meant to come back on a Friday. I didn't hear anything. So I kind of just, oh, okay. Well, I guess like I kind of forgot about it. I didn't expect to get it anyway. And then on a Saturday it came through city. Okay. So you've been selected. So I think it's like, it's just normally quite expensive. It's like well outside my, uh, I don't have any money. So all things are outside my financial range at that point. So then it was like, um,

A month and a half kind of intense writing sponsored by Jim.

So then that was kind of rounding up and I'd just come out of doing a master's in new media. So I emailed from my supervisor that I was kind of had yet to reply. He's trying to get me to go down the PhD route. But then this kind of gave me a taste for writing online. And I kind of saw, OK, there's like a kind of saw the edge of a different world at that moment. OK, I kind of want to explore that. So I just sent Jim an email at the end of the cohort and I said, you know what?

is there ever an opportunity that I can kind of help you out with anything or come on board in any way? I'd love to do so. And then little did I know, he said, as a matter of fact, I'm starting a company in like two months. You probably already knew about it at that stage. It was like November time, something like that. So then I was kind of just waiting around for a couple of months, not sure what to expect. And then from January onwards, so I think what we're

seven months in now six months in yeah so then that's how uh i can't remember when we first met i assume it was one probably in those introductory calls uh for osb yeah probably i think that's the first time when i was in china i got a shitty wi-fi there and i think from your side yeah my side i was like i was staying with a friend in las palmas in spain so

But we were both doing calls all the time. So I didn't, it was his kind of apartment. So I had to do my calls. I got to be creative, but where I could do calls as I was like on the beach and kind of just running around trying to find quiet spots around the place.

Yeah, so that's kind of my weird, random, kind of serendipitous path to OSB. I see. That's good. Yeah, I also joined the rite of passage and also got a scholarship. Two cohorts before you. And what was it, a gym scholarship as well? No, it's like two years ago. Yeah, David, he did the scholarship, probably 10 people.

So I applied, then I got in. So it's a very interesting timing. And it also started my way of writing in English. Because before, I always write in Chinese. It's in my comfort zone, writing in my native language. But after I joined Rite of Passage, I started to write more in English. So I wonder, how did your love affair with reading and writing begin? Do you remember your very first...

first writing experience very first writing experience I don't I don't think I do I had a very weird uh childhood so my mother was she's like the best person ever but she's also a bit uh

Stalin-esque, quite authoritarian. She's like a dictator hippie type person. So I was homeschooled until the age of 11. So we were, me and my sister, at home all the time. TV was like, you know, 25 minutes a day and then you were done with like a

cook code on the tv so it was just kind of boring so then books were like allowed to read as much as we want so that's kind of it kind of begrudgingly that's kind of what got me into it and then it kind of became a habit without me even noticing it it was kind of my normal it's like you know a fish doesn't know it's wet i was like it was just everywhere around me she used to do weird things as well

Like she's super creative. So for example, if we didn't want to do the dishes, she would say, okay, you don't do dishes if you practice piano for 20 minutes. And I was like, okay, okay. So then it's like, I didn't want to do piano either. And I was like, okay, it's the best of a bad option. So then she used to do things like, okay, you write like a poem or write like a story or draw something. And then you don't have to do this chore and things like that. Or you get like an extra 20 minutes of TV tomorrow. So it was kind of this kind of point system. So I think that's kind of when it, it developed.

And then reading came along way before writing. I didn't really write anything outside of what I had to, like in school, probably until I was like maybe 19, 20.

maybe so I was a late bloomer I wasn't like sitting at home filling up notebooks like like a lot of people were. But you chose English literature as your major in university right like why you make this decision free time reading? Yeah because I kind of I love books not writing them per se but reading them so I kind of thought okay and then I wanted I wanted to go to college

just because it opens so many doors it kind of doesn't matter what you do so then i thought okay i'm already reading all the time so so what can i do in college that like won't affect my life in any way or add any extra work to my day-to-day and so then i went up and i did english lit in trinity college dublin which uh kind of left me a bit scared in academia in general kind of like you know probably high expectations in my mind and when i arrived it didn't exactly meet up so my um

My vagrancy got pretty bad pretty quick. Also, I don't know. It's like I kind of lived a dual life. Sport has always been my main thing and kind of going out and like quite a social person, which isn't like necessarily the stereotype for me.

kind of a writer I spent lots of time you know and things like that so I didn't really like the people I didn't really they were nice but like I didn't vibe at all with the people in my university course as well so all my friends were doing like business and doing like law and other things so it was like a convergence of different incentives that kind of led me just to not go

pretty soon. So how it used to work, it used to be like two semesters of 12 weeks used to be how it was worked out. So then on week one, they would tell you what all the 12 weeks were. And then at the end, you did an essay. So there's no, there's some written examples, but very few. So I used to go on week one and then I go, okay, which

Which thing am I going to do my essay on in week 12? So then I go, okay, week eight is what I'm going to do. So I would only attend like one or two weeks per semester in college. But then I saw that, but then I, what I did all the time, I was using the facility. So I was in the library kind of reading my own stuff, kind of basically do my own curriculum and

and kind of avoiding anything that I was being told to do. So I managed, I got the paper. It was kind of like, you know, quite quitting. Quite quitting, okay. It's like in the workforce, like when people just stop going to work and they keep getting paid for what. So I think I kind of quite graduated. So I kind of just, I snuck through and I got the paper, but like, yeah, I did less than the bare minimum, but somehow I managed to scrape through it.

I think pretty similar, yeah. I also majored in English literature because I just enjoy reading. But all the curricular my school design, I've already read.

read everything when I was young. So they're all like a repeating stuff. So I start to read other stuff. Like you, I always say, okay, what's this semester I need to do? Then I finish early, enjoy the rest of time partying in university. No, yeah, exactly. I also found that's kind of a nice experience. I've actually heard this interesting thing where English literature now is way better in foreign countries than English.

than English speaking ones because places like India, was it in China where you went and did your undergraduate? Yeah, I did undergraduate in China and in New Zealand as an exchange student. So I experienced two different English literature courses.

Oh, I'd imagine. It's very interesting. Pretty much, it's hard to imagine two opposite countries than New Zealand and New Zealand in a lot of ways. Yeah, because the theory is, and I've kind of heard this, people have kind of like sent me random DMs and stuff on Twitter in the past that the non-English speaking countries, they've kind of stuck to classics a little bit more because they assume the students haven't read them and then they're kind of

Isn't that like, you know, kind of anti-colonial, anti-canon sentiment in those countries? Because they were so far away from that kind of unfortunate side of history. But then in places like Ireland and England and America as well in a big way, there's this kind of sense that, you know, the canon is elitist and problematic is a good word that they like to use. So they prefer to go on like niche authors and it's a lot of kind of sociology, a lot of

political stuff. And I said, like, I went there and I thought it would be like, you know, 95% Faulkner and 5% Foucault. And then it was the opposite. Okay, so it was kind of all secondary reading stuff like that. So that's why I really didn't vibe with the curriculum. But then I hear it again, that in a lot of different countries, that's not the case.

So you actually probably, if you want to get an English degree, don't go somewhere where they don't speak English as their main language. It's kind of a bizarre turn of events. True. Yeah. In China, I started all Shakespeare, even Churchill, Winston Churchill, those all the classic speeches. We did zero Shakespeare for four years. How's that even possible? Okay. That's so interesting. Because you did one in Paris, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. In Paris, I was in the Sorbonne. That was the best of my four years was English in Paris.

which is kind of again it doesn't it doesn't make a whole great deal of sense but like that that university is like so i don't know how trinity managed to like get that exchange set up because that university is like beyond good so like everyone in there was like okay i kind of thought like okay i'm you know native speaker i kind of flow through this this would be easy and it was like jesus christ no it was like their level was like yeah i think

probably a lot of like you know English mom French dad type stuff but like yeah again that was that was better than any of my three years I hope my old professors don't listen to this that was yeah the best of the four okay cool

We all have childhood heroes and idols. So can you share who yours were? Are they majority of writers or not really? No, no, zero. So yeah, for me, software, again, I'm going to...

I don't even want to bring it up with you because it could derail the whole thing. That's alright. Yeah, die hard match to United fan since I was three. How come? Did your family influence? It's weird. So there's like me...

I live in the middle of nowhere. So it's like a 20-minute drive from even a shop. And then for some reason, some weird quirk in evolution, that it was three boys. There's only three houses, and there are three boys, and they're all my age, and we're all best friends. The three of us. So we could see each other's bedrooms from each other's windows, and then there's no one else.

So then we all love soccer. So interesting you mentioned soccer. I thought you should say football. So yeah, we say soccer because in Ireland we have our own football. Oh yeah, true, true, true. Yeah, so we have Gaelic football which I played when I grew up which is horrendous. Well, no, it's fun. Irish sports are quite violent.

so I kind of for the sake of my head I kind of stopped playing those around 20 maybe I think I was 21 I stopped so yeah so soccer between us so then the oldest of us he's like a 10 months older he supported Manchester United when he was he decided when he was four that he supported Manchester United so then I said okay when I was three I said okay that sounds like a good one and his dad is Wolves and my dad is Liverpool so like I don't know where the seed of that began um

So yeah, so heroes were Roy Keane, Ryan Giggs, all these like, you know, Eric Cantona, the classic soccer players. I don't think literary heroes came into the picture until I was maybe 15, 16. And even at that, I think went through the classic beat phase. So it was like Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, people like this. They were the first, I think, maybe the first writers that I thought were cool.

I think maybe the comedians then I'm not sure if they if that came first maybe comedians came first actually so like people like Bill Hicks and Lenny Bruce are these kind of cool comedians from like the between the 60s and the 90s again I don't know where that came from either I've always had like a insatiable kind of appetite for what I wasn't allowed to

To watch or wasn't allowed to read. So my parents would often hide books that I wasn't like, I was too young to be reading or I would like, I would always want to watch the thing that I wasn't allowed to watch. I remember like South park when I was, I remember it's funny. I was like, I used to watch South park with my dad and,

until I was like five and then I wasn't allowed to watch it anymore because I was getting old enough to like understand what was happening so then all of a sudden I'm like it's like a reverse so I think yeah those kind of comedians and then those kind of beat poets and those were I think my first kind of

heroes that weren't wearing a Manchester United jersey. That's cool. Yeah. You know, there was a Chinese player who joined Man City. That's how Man City is getting so popular in China market. That's how I started to watch it. Okay. Is that a recent? No, no. 2002. Sun Jihai. Back then, Manchester City was so bad.

almost a wreck yeah we had a we had our fun in the derbies for a long time but that fun has kind of disappeared recently yeah after 20 years finally it's my city's time now I know I know and for the foreseeable future I'm afraid to say

It's looking good for you. Really? Mason Mounts are just joined, I think. Yeah, Man United are going to have some good young players. I think there's a player called Hoyland. He's a striker from Atlanta. He's a Norwegian, I think. He's like the quote-unquote the next Haaland is looking like. So I think we're putting in a bid for him. So I think we get a striker. Strange things could happen. You never know.

That's good. Okay, okay. Back to writing. Cliche question. Who's your favorite writer? It's too many, right? My favorite... Yeah, I think it's...

it changes and then you can have like you've loads of different ones for different reasons i've been reading a lot of hemingway yeah so on your ic4 yeah so i'm really really liking the kind of man he was as he's kind of inspiring in a way that nothing was ever for money

he's he's like openly competitive with writers like and like you know call them out publicly yeah i love that kind of like back and forth it's almost like boxing type thing which i really like openly very very hostile to critics which i kind of like that i think people are kind of scared to say things nowadays it's always like no maybe we'll do a movie together in 10 years so like it's kind of constant politicking and stuff but he didn't compromise ever on that um

Didn't like his writing at first because I thought it was boring and basic. Well, a bit boring and basic. But then I really come to know because you kind of realize when you kind of, it's the second and third reading, you realize there's a lot of stuff going on under the scenes. Like a lot of theories going on about kind of, he saw something as like, so some kind of combination of poetry and prose that could like transcend them both. So he was kind of going for this

uh type of like balance between what's said and what's not said and how the reader can kind of fill in these gaps i think it's really interesting uh but i don't think he's a good storyteller per se so that's why i think his short stories are really good because it's kind of like it's nice and concise but in his novels i don't think if he struggled to like really keep people hooked um for a long series so i don't think on that point he'd be a bit disqualifying

For someone I just love to read because I love to read them. I think generally non-fiction would be my genre of choice. But kind of non-fiction by people who really, really wrote. As opposed to, it's not like a science book. So people like Arthur Kossler. He wrote a lot. People like Camus. I love that.

people like Aldous Huxley, Brave New World. He did loads of cool nonfiction. You've probably read The Doors of Perception. Yeah, yeah. So that kind of very experimental nonfiction, I think, is definitely... If I wasn't reading towards a purpose, which unfortunately I generally am, because I have so much reading for things that I want to write about or things that I feel I need to read for a given reason, there isn't much things that I just pick up and just do...

you know, just for the joy of that 10 minutes of reading as opposed to nothing. Arthur Costler, I think he wrote a really famous book called Darkness at Noon, which is a novel, which I've embarrassingly never read, but he's written, he wrote loads of nonfiction books.

um like the act of creation is a book of his which is like on creativity uh and humor and science and how they're all kind of interrelated so again it's like covering bringing in so many cool sources and citations and things like that um so he has loads of obscure weird books that kind of touch on like you know mysticism and

psychedelics and science and stuff. It's really, really cool. Need to add to my reading list. Yeah, definitely start with The Act of Creation is a really cool one to start. I can link you after as well. He'd be up there. I think he's maybe who I've read the most of. I think I've read almost everything at this stage, which is like 20 non-fiction. I still haven't read his fiction. I don't have a reason to. I'm very like

because you know you probably experience this as well when you're kind of always trying to put out writing and you kind of have creative projects going on you're always kind of reading they take up so much of your reading time that you don't kind of have you're kind of reading uh straight ahead all the time you don't have kind of time to read horizontally sometimes for the sake of it yeah escape reading yeah yes yes exactly so yeah no he definitely i think he'd be i'm trying to wrap my brains now is there anyone else

I loved Ginsburg for a while. Like how that poem is read that all the time. It's kind of weird. Like I love the, cause I love Kerouac and I love those guys early. And I still think they're kind of, they get a lot of hate from,

because it's kind of seen as like they didn't really try and stuff like that but I read them when I was young and I thought they were intoxicating I think a book is best I think when you only kind of understand like 85 to 90% of what's going on there's kind of this weird part like oh my god what's you kind of don't understand um

Yeah, I'll stick with Costner. I can't think of anyone to knock him off. Yeah, in different stages, you have different favorite writers, for sure. I think Hemingway is...

most well-known American writers in China because his book is so easy to translate into other language because the language is so simple and clear a story is short yeah I've been doing research for the series I'm doing on him now it's like it was like a sensation in places like China and India and Russia they were like all this stuff like it's like

all the kids were like reading it again like 1939 and people people didn't understand like what's going on it was like they just kind of cut through everything yeah again it's because that's simplicity which is kind of it's a great starter book for any for like kids can access it on one level and enjoy it and then when you're older you can kind of get a different sense of it but it's still you can come back to it so it kind of transcends all yeah i read his book when i was in primary school and i was

I was so motivated by the old man and the sea story. Like, yes, never give up. Yeah, I know. You can be motivated for all kinds of reasons because it's like, I think, 27,000 words and won an Nobel Prize. So it's like, yeah, so you're not that far away. You're never that far away. That's like, what? You can get that done in two months. Which I think is also an inspiring thought. Later on, I kind of have this question, why Hemingway choose to commit suicide?

Because he has such a strong mind, like a never-give-up spirit. So what's your opinion on that? That's a good question. I think he was intensely lonely. I think he went through a few wives. I thought he never had a lack of girls around him. Yeah, I know. It was constantly transient. So there was very few lasting relationships, which is why he probably developed because he went to like a...

Italy in the war when he was 18 got blown up came back then he was like you know correspondent in Spain for so many years traveling around and then they obviously all his books in France then he came back to America for a while kind of lived in the limelight and then immediately kind of you know set off to Cuba and then Spain was there for a while kind of alone you know you're an English speaker I don't know how much English was spoken in Cuba back then especially

And then he died ultimately in some kind of Midwestern state in the US. So I think he just kind of literally he gave his all to writing at the expense of absolutely everything else. And then, you know, that kind of run out. He probably got like, you know,

he's probably like a 90 year old in writing years even though he committed to somebody's young because he just put like the hours he used to do per day religiously and things like that it's like um again it's a beautiful uh analogy here for you it's like uh wayne rooney like there's a reason because he started so hard so quick he was 16 england united

playing every week so then when he was like 26 27 he'd already had like the career of a normal 33 34 year old so then things just began i think you kind of you only have so much in the tank and then if that thing that you're pursuing is the only thing that you ever wanted to do and whether you dedicate your whole life to like hemingway i think you literally you wake up and you're like okay i can't do that anymore and because i've done that all the time i can't do anything else yeah you're kind of like you're completely uh you're at a loss

I see. Yeah, that's a very good interpretation. Because for me, I thought he probably can't bear the physical pain. I mean, because he got two airplane crashes and he got injured in the war when he was a war correspondent. Yeah, they probably played in as well. I think...

他就像，你知道的，十足的硬汉。所以即使不是痛苦，我敢肯定也有痛苦的成分，但关键在于他有点像，你知道的，被阉割了，他无法成为他习惯的那种行动派，这是他看重的东西，你知道的，他晚年还拳击什么的。他看重这一点胜过写作。他只是想被看作是，引用一下。我想我在上一篇文章中提到了。他就像一个，

他不是一个试图成为作家的运动员，而是一个生来就是作家，然后拼命想成为运动员的人。他一直想被看作是那样的人。所以我想，是的，

两次空难之类的事件，我认为可能是，你知道的，或者他只是，你知道的，那天心情不好。我不知道最终原因是什么，但我认为这可能是其中一些事情的共同作用。你知道的，它们以一种奇怪的方式堆积起来。这是一个非常悲伤的故事。因为有时候我只是觉得，好吧，即使是像海明威这样的人，他也会自杀。我是否有足够的毅力来支撑我疯狂的头脑？是的，我知道这是，

是的，瞬间的想法，但有时我觉得我的脑海里想法太多，如果我不写下来，我会辜负自己，我会辜负我的潜力，你有没有过这种想法，你有一个目标，我现在就有这种想法，很好，那么你的写作习惯是什么样的？我知道你目前正在为Essayful写文章，你能分享一下你的写作过程吗？是的，当然。我有点

不幸的是，我非常擅长赶ddl，这有点……所以我知道这基本上已经成为我依赖的拐杖。所以，为《旁观者》(The Spectator)和Ario这样的在线出版物写作时，我通常会先投稿，然后它会被接受或被拒绝。如果它被接受，就会有一个时间表。

然后一旦有了时间表，我就会浪费大部分时间不去做。总是事先读得太多。所以这是一种我无法避免的拖延症，因为我觉得如果我在应该写进去或之前应该有所贡献之后再读一些东西，我会崩溃的。所以像我的大使论文一样，花了10个月的时间阅读，然后3周后才开始写作。

这完全是疯狂的，也是错误的做法。但我知道，我必须在真正开始写作之前阅读所有内容。然后我在8月31日还剩11分钟的时候完成了我的论文。我很幸运，我设法完成了它。你的论文的标题和主题是什么？我的学士论文是关于，你知道理查德·道金斯的那本书《自私的基因》吗？

是的，《自私的基因》。所以我学的是文学。我写了一篇关于……所以这个关于模因的想法也在其中。我写的是关于英雄模因的。那么英雄主义是如何……它的心理和进化基础是什么？经典的高大、强壮、勇敢，诸如此类。然后这个模因是如何通过希特勒发展而来的……

多个故事和亚瑟王，这个模因，所以就像有一个中心原型，就像有很多衍生作品，甚至从第一个开始，它被称为《La Quest》，这是一本古老的法语书，它是第一个亚瑟王的故事，然后突然之间它就传播开来，几乎就像，你知道的，像基因一样，然后它们就像互相生育一样，这就是我本科研究的内容，然后我的硕士论文是关于亚马逊的推荐系统

以及它与行为主义和人类能动性之间的关系。更像是一门社会科学。是的，我的本科专业是，或者我的硕士专业是新媒体和数字文化。所以，在我的硕士阶段，我从文学基础转向了媒体和技术。哦，好的，好的。都是算法、大数据，诸如此类的东西。是的。

是的，我忘了我们说到哪里了。是的，我们正在讨论你的写作过程。你擅长赶ddl。是的，擅长赶ddl，擅长拖延。所以我不是很擅长每天写作。即使我知道那是你应该做的事情，我也倾向于……斯坦贝克说，他过去常常说，我有一天会写得非常多，然后第二天……或者我写一天，然后第二天我就不写了。

所以你有一天写很多，然后，你就会感觉很好。然后第二天你就会想，好吧，我昨天写了很多，所以我真的，你知道的，今天很难激励自己。然后第二天你又会因为昨天没有写作而感到内疚。所以这是一种持续不断的起伏，又是内疚。又一次，有一种巨大的感觉，

羞愧，我没有进步，诸如此类。我把事情搁置了。我27岁了。明天我就67岁了。我为什么？这些想法在我的脑海里盘旋。所以和写作的关系并不健康，但这有点像去健身房。我知道总有一种需要去做它的感觉。

以及如果你不做就会感觉不好的感觉。而且在那一刻你真的不太享受它，除非事情进展得相当顺利。再说一次，好吧，没有人喜欢前10分钟。所以这有点像，如果我能进入状态……

有时会进入心流状态，这可能来自于，我最近已经离开了电脑。所以我现在又开始用手写了，只是因为我读了很多现在出来的研究，它就像，它是一种阻碍，作家的障碍，让手动起来。它有时比你的头脑动得更快。你有点，你进入了一种节奏，这对电脑来说很难。而且在纸上也很容易融入结构，

你不能在文字处理软件上真正地构建结构。你不能横向移动东西，甚至不能画箭头之类的东西。它没有这个功能。所以在纸上，你可以开始画画，并且知道这个和那个想法是相关的，你可以很凌乱。甚至卡米尔·帕格利亚也说过，除非她能够真正地划掉，否则她无法写作

如果她看到一个不好的想法，仅仅擦掉是不够的，因为你会忘记那里曾经存在过的坏想法。她需要看到那些消失的坏想法，诸如此类。所以在过去的几个月里，我又回到了这种状态。是的。我发现这使得开始变得容易得多，当我能够坐在桌子旁，用笔和纸。因为你可以涂鸦，你不需要，你不是立刻就进入，好吧，第一个词是什么？这是正确的第一个词吗？所以是的，所以它经历了紧张的工作时期。

写作。我倾向于在Twitter上经常点名批评自己。所以这有点像给自己设定人为的ddl。我会说，你知道的，文章会在那天发表，即使我还没有开始写。然后我知道，哦，该死。是的，所以我必须在那天完成它。所以这是一种让我诚实的方式。但总的来说，我相当糟糕。也就是说，我大约有三个文章的投稿被三个不同的地方接受了。

它们已经被接受了一段时间了。问题是，它们不是时间紧迫的。所以他们会在我把它们交给他们的时候发表。然后我可能需要，你知道的，人为地让自己开始至少其中一篇。是的。所以是的。你是一个经常写作的人吗？对你来说是每天的事情吗？还是说，它会经历高峰期吗？我的写作过程，我也喜欢K-pop日记。

是的，我会给你看。我一生中从未写过日记。这是我一直喜欢的事情。我买了好多本，想开始写日记。从未，从未做过。我想自从我……

六七岁以来，我每年至少有两本日记，是的，我喜欢用手写，就像你说的那样，这是一个好的开始，你只需要涂鸦一下，然后以后所有的想法都会涌现出来，我更喜欢在纸上写作而不是在电脑上，但是现在我们需要在电脑上打字，是的，这增加了工作量，因为你必须转录，是的，这就是问题所在，而且你也没有访问笔记和其他引用的权限，所以你有点

我经常会像前女友一样，用引号括起来。我想，好吧，我想我知道我想用哪个引用，但我记不清逐字逐句的内容了。真的。对于我的中文写作，我每周都会给我的读者写新闻通讯。所以我每周写大约4000字。而对于英文写作，我仍然……

顺其自然。我等待缪斯女神来找我，这样我才能写作。我不知道我大脑是怎么工作的。是的，我也有类似的情况。

我很少住在作家附近。所以，这，我确实有点，我非常，非常受到启发。就像我在巴黎的时候，我去过，我做过伟大的，你知道的，就像那个著名的，我不知道它叫什么。它是一个非常著名的墓地。是的。吉姆·莫里森，你知道的，他们都被埋在那里。我认为像T.S.艾略特之类的人，他曾在索邦大学工作，诸如此类。所以我受到了那种方式的启发。我是一个非常注重环境和氛围的人。

在我的写作中，所以一切，我需要有氛围，错误的咖啡馆或任何东西，我都不行，我无法开始，我需要选择合适的户外桌子，我也经常在音乐的伴奏下写作，但各种各样的，我实际上有一个播放列表，是At Desk吗？是的，你在Slack上分享过它，是的，我分享过它，很好，是的，我很喜欢它

所以是的，现在有200首歌了。所以我只会把它放在随机播放上。这只是稍微减轻了开始的打击。我知道。而且，有时我会觉得，一首随机的不错的歌还不够。我会想，哦，不，我需要，我需要《星际穿越》的配乐才能开始，诸如此类的事情。这很酷。是的。因为对我来说，我喜欢在写歌时反复播放一首歌曲。

所以我可以进入心流状态。它帮助我集中注意力。绝对的。是的。不，我认为我试过。我认为在YouTube上，有一个《星际穿越》循环播放60分钟。哦，好的。我做过。太激烈了。是的。这取决于哪一首。有些很激烈。这是真的。是的。但我试过白噪音。哦，好的。我不喜欢那些。不，我只是说它让情况更糟了。就像我实际上开始写得更糟了，因为它有点烦人。是的。

是的，什么类型的音乐？古典音乐，我喜欢现代古典音乐，像马克斯·里希特这样的人，是的，菲利普·格拉斯，是的，菲利普，我喜欢菲利普·格拉斯，是的，那种类型的音乐，古老的古典音乐对我来说不太管用，感觉有点俗气，好吧，有点像，你知道的，《侠盗罗宾汉》那种感觉，我只是觉得它对我来说一点都不管用，嗯，所以是的，那种类型的音乐真的……

通常会让我进入状态。是的。那么，作为一个作家，你想要探索哪些具体的写作类型呢？我认为虚构对我来说是遥不可及的。它只是，它永远不会发生。这是它的可能性。它只是……

你知道的，就像，你知道的，这可以有上千种方向，每一句话都可以继续下去。然后，你知道的，这会加剧。然后，写了三句话，你本可以走上千种不同的方向。我想，我知道我做不到。嗯，在我的能力范围之内的是，呃，戏剧，呃，

剧本，电影剧本，同样有很多留白。你不需要太担心选择，因为你只是在给出骨架，让很多东西隐含在其中。所以我，我一直在写一个喜剧系列

系列，哇，不，我说一直在写，我开始写了，大约六年前我取得了很好的进展，然后停滞了大约四年，我计划在有时间的时候重新开始，所以这基本上是我尝试过的唯一一种虚构类型，对我来说，它几乎总是

一直是非虚构的，像你现在的Essayful，诸如此类的事情，以及做一些文化方面的事情，嗯，比如为《旁观者》写关于《伊尼舍林的报丧女妖》之类的东西，我有点喜欢那种分析性的写作，然后加入各种各样的

来源和引语之类的东西，这将是一幅织锦，这就是我真正想做的，我认为非虚构类书籍，就像我之前说的那样，我想在30岁之前出版一本，我有点对自己说出了这个想法，我认为它会关注散文，关注形式，然后借鉴蒙田，他发明了这种形式，然后通过不同的人的散文结构和

开头和结尾，所有那些东西，所以就像一本关于写作的书，关注散文，这就是我现在脑海中浮现的，这可能会改变，这可能会在明天改变，我还没有开始写，好的，我能看到自己在一生中写几本非虚构类书籍，很好，你写过两本虚构类书籍了吗？

一本虚构类，另一本更像是我的散文、诗歌、短篇故事的合集。你感觉如何？写虚构类书籍很难吗？不，真的不难。因为我有很多想法。每一分钟我的脑海里都有很多想法。所以我认为可能有数百个想法在等待我去写下来。我有一个想法页面。

关于所有我需要写下来的短篇故事的想法。但是，你不会，它不会变得像索菲的抉择一样困难，像在想法之间做出选择一样吗？这不是困难的部分吗？太多了。这就是为什么我发现很难集中注意力。我应该从哪一个开始？我想，如果我选择这个，这意味着我会牺牲其余的，因为我的时间有限。所以有时候我觉得很挣扎。这，

然后，好吧，好吧，我不做决定，我只是不写任何想法，我会把它们放在那里，因为我觉得它们就像我的孩子一样，我需要平等地爱它们，这可能是一个折中办法，你足够愚蠢，一个月只有一个好主意

但你足够聪明去执行它，然后你就会不断地，你知道的，我不知道，像塔伦蒂诺一样，你只需要一部电影的一个好点子，花五年时间去做，你发布它，它就成为经典，然后你继续这样，而不是一直试图做很多事情，我也为此而挣扎

是的，是的，那不好玩。好的。例如，如果我明天死了，有很多故事的想法会和我一起埋葬。有时我会感到内疚或羞愧。我需要写更多。减少我的社交生活。是的，哦，是的，我也是。尤其是我的父母，因为他们不可能更好地让我去追求某种创造性的生活，只是为了……

这是他们从一开始的计划，如果我找到一份公司的工作，他们会真的改名换姓，搬到另一个国家，所以我有点觉得，该死，我没有借口，没有借口不去，至少你知道，以某种方式偿还他们，这是一种好的，拥有这种内疚和羞愧是好的，我认为这是一种，我前几天听到一句好话，是什么呢，他就像，你是在被驱动还是被拖拽

所以所有这些灵感都在推动我，或者你感觉自己正被拖向某事。这几乎是违背你的意愿的，你只需要去做。所以我认为我肯定是被拖拽的。这并不是因为我想，你知道的，我没有任何愿望，我想这样做是因为我会得到这个或者我会成为那个。就像，我必须这样做。这样我才能不成为我现在的样子，基本上。是的。

是的，很多人说不是你有了想法，而是想法有了你。所以我觉得我需要履行这个角色。否则，我会失败。不，绝对的。我认为那里有一些非常深刻的东西。根据你的经验，你对那些想成为作家的人有什么建议或技巧吗？我曾经听说过一个好东西，如果你想要灵感……

成为一名作家，尤其是在今天。只要走进一家书店，然后看看畅销书，然后打开它，看看它有多糟糕。然后你就会意识到门槛并不高。门槛非常，非常，非常低。有很多糟糕的作家靠写作过着富足的生活，他们并不致力于这项技艺。他们就像，你知道“NPC”这个词吗？NPC，是的。在电子游戏中，你是主角。然后还有这些其他的角色。他们是玩家之外的角色。所以理论上，在现实世界中，实际上存在NPC。他们没有内在的大脑。他们基本上只是四处游荡的僵尸。这些人中的一些人正在写书，并且出版了。他们从未有过原创的想法。而且这很糟糕。所以门槛很低。再说一次，就像我们说的那样，海明威，27000字。

诺贝尔奖，就像约翰·博恩，我们前段时间在Twitter上与他有过互动，《穿条纹睡衣的男孩》，他做了一些编辑，但这只用了三天左右的时间，而且它不知从何而来，所以就像，你不需要像

这不像体育运动，你只有在你三岁的时候开始训练，并且一直训练到长大后才能成功。就像没有人会在21岁时偶然成为足球运动员，而之前从未接受过训练或进入过体系。这非常罕见。但是写作，你现在就可以做，它可能会发生，你真的不知道为什么。而且你几乎对此不负责任。但你所要做的就是坐在那里等待，然后不要动。

卡夫卡说过，就像有一句引言，我不知道确切的措辞，但它就像……类似于在寂静中坐着，世界就会在你面前打开，或者诸如此类的东西，这是对他实际所说内容的一种曲解，这是一个不错的引言，但你所要做的就是带着笔和纸在寂静中坐着，然后让自己无聊到做点什么，然后不要让自己动

然后我认为海明威也说过，这就是全部。是的，流血。是的，流血。这就是唯一的原因，每个人都能写出我写的书。他们付钱给我是因为我可以坐在书桌前这么长时间。就是这样。仅此而已。除了这一点之外，没有什么特别的。只是在书桌前的时间。真的。有趣的是，你提到了卡夫卡。我两周前或上周在布拉格。

上周，我不记得了，是的，我在那里，是的，是的，我在那里，我觉得如果我是卡夫卡，我也许也能写出《城堡》，因为当我身处那种环境时，我觉得

你会写关于城堡的故事，因为你可以看到它就在你面前。就像那个想法向你招手一样。你需要写下来。我不知道，我的脑海里可能已经有他的故事了。所以我觉得对我来说写类似的故事很熟悉。那种环境，几乎是黑色的建筑，加上，你知道的，苏联的控制，像俄罗斯。所有这些都与故事完美地契合。是的。

这几乎是在描述他的现实。真的。是的。我觉得如果我是他，是的，我会把它写下来。是的。只是那些地方，非常鼓舞人心。当你在那里的时候，你会把它写下来。否则，你会觉得，我不知道，你有了那个想法，你需要表达它。你对我的这个理论怎么看？我认为炎热国家的好作家比……

西班牙很棒，西班牙有一些优秀的作家，但不足以与其人口相匹配，南美洲也有一些令人难以置信的作家，但也不够

<context>#146: 在线写作，英语文学，欧内斯特·海明威与 Dylan O'Sullivan 的 Essayful 我今天的嘉宾是 Dylan O'Sullivan。Dylan 是 OSV 的媒体专家，Write of Passage 的客座讲师，几家主要媒体的专栏作家，以及一个以写作为中心的品牌 Essayful 的创始人。

探索我们对阅读和写作的最初热爱，以及我们最早的写作记忆。 在不同国家学习英语文学的对比经历。 曼联和曼城球迷之间的友好对话。 深入探讨欧内斯特·海明威的生活和作品。 检视在线写作的过程以及在纸上写作的美。 作家们为了实现写作目标所采用的技巧和特质。 天气和环境对作家工作的影响。 反思作为作家的最充实的方面。

Write of Passage 都柏林三一学院英语学院 爱尔兰足球 杰克·凯鲁亚克 艾伦·金斯堡 莱尼·布鲁斯 亚瑟·科斯特勒 阿尔道斯·赫胥黎 阿尔贝·加缪 《感知的门》 《正午的黑暗》 《创造的行为》 《像海明威一样写作》 《自私的基因》 布朗特牧师博物馆 鲍勃·迪伦关于创造力的超凡脱俗 在桌前（写作背景音乐） 费尔南多·佩索阿之家 在推特上关注 Dylan

<raw_text>0 首先是人口，你会想到像德国这样的小地方，那里有哲学家，还有爱尔兰，虽然不想自夸，但我们是一个小国，产生的数量是荒谬的，仅仅因为下雨、寒冷，你待在室内，无法社交，可能这现在已经平衡了，因为你现在可以上网了，但在那时你没有其他事情可做，你的邻居大约在10英里外，在雨中。

所以你所能做的就是写点东西，是的，另外，现在住在西班牙，我感觉每天都是这样，从周一到周五，很难坐在桌子前，你能听到人们在下午1点喝酒，所以你就像...

很容易就被吸引进去，然后突然间你就70岁了。确实是，当我住在伦敦的时候，我写了很多，尤其是在疫情期间，我写了我的第一部英文小说，因为我无事可做。是的，疫情会这样。是的，我完成了，但自从我搬到里斯本后，我发现每次看到阳光明媚的日子，我就想出去，不想写。

是的，这很有道理。可能我需要搬到一些乡村地区。像俄罗斯也是。看看他们那些杰作，真是深刻。是的，像索尔仁尼琴在古拉格中，心中写作。你知道，这种事情，是的。所以，因为我知道你经常搬家。你是如何选择你的地点的？你的标准是什么？我的标准通常是西班牙。这是我的主要标准。我爱西班牙。所以...

所以我现在住在北部的吉伦，我在瓦伦西亚待了一年，好的，差不多八年我在西班牙度过了一个月的夏天，哇，工作，所以像这些大型营地，有50个西班牙学生和50个爱尔兰学生去西班牙，我们教他们英语，大约一个月。

所以你们住在一起，类似这样的事情。所以这很疯狂。我为此工作了很长时间。从那时起，像塞维利亚、塔拉戈纳、巴塞罗那、马德里，我有点……所以基本上是爱尔兰到马德里。我有点来回走。但我想我可能会进一步探索一些地方。好吧，在十月，我会去...

纽约第一次，所以这会很有趣，是的，我觉得你会喜欢它，是的，纽约有不同的氛围，是的，像所有的，我爱喜剧，所以我听说这是一个很大的，你知道，喜剧场景，所以我在播客和其他地方听到它，听起来真不可思议，是的，我已经计划好了我在纽约的所有爵士乐俱乐部的访问，是的，我非常喜欢爵士乐，所以是的。

我说，是的，纽约，那是最好的地方。最后，作为作家，最有成就感的部分是什么？首先，有些事情，这对你真的很好。它使你的思想，脑海中有很多想法，半个想法并不是真正属于你的。如果你试图解释它们，你实际上是无法做到的。所以它们有点……所以它巩固了你的思维，让你以一种很好的方式变得更聪明。有一句话说，画家喜欢绘画。

而作家喜欢写作后的感觉。所以这个过程并不总是，不能说是最有趣的，但拥有一些东西。如果你能达到那种感觉，直接为你脑海中的想法获得报酬，这是一种非常奇怪的事情。没有实体产品。所以你可以字面上，你知道，你感觉到你通过想出东西在赚钱或创造价值。然后，这样，你知道，人们可以在其中找到一些东西，你并不是在给他们像手机或科技产品那样的东西，这种事情真的很酷。我认为这只是帮助我，

变得不那么疯狂，因为我可以把我的想法写在纸上，感觉它们不会在我脑海中困扰我。是的，真的很真实，是的，很多作家都是这样的，我想不起来那些名言，但我记得听到过很多不同人的类似名言。是的，我认为我搬到葡萄牙的原因是因为那位葡萄牙作家费尔南多·佩索阿，他说过类似的话，每次我读他的书《不安之书》

我都觉得，哦，我的天，我写过吗？- 这本书我已经列在我的书单上很久了。- 真的？- 我从来没有读过？不，我必须读。- 我认为人们要么爱它，要么觉得它荒谬。- 我认为这总是好书或伟大书籍的特征。- 是的。- 我认为好书每个人都喜欢，而伟大书籍则有一些两极分化的东西。- 如果你有机会来里斯本，我会带你去费尔南多·佩索阿的博物馆。- 好的，是的，好的，绝对的。

我会尽量围绕这个安排一个截止日期。好的。非常感谢你的时间，我们再见。完美。谢谢你，卡米尔。