THE WAR OF ART

WHAT I DO

I get up, take a shower, have breakfast. I read the paper, brush my teeth. If I have phone calls to make, I make them. I’ve got my coffee now. I put on my lucky work boots and stitch up the lucky laces that my niece Meredith gave me. I head back to my office, crank up the computer. My lucky hooded sweatshirt is draped over the chair, with the lucky charm I got from a gypsy in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer for only eight bucks in francs, and my lucky LARGO name tag that came from a dream I once had. I put it on. On my thesaurus is my lucky cannon that my friend Bob Versandi gave me from Morro Castle, Cuba. I point it toward my chair, so it can fire inspiration into me. I say my prayer, which is the Invocation of the Muse from Homer’s Odyssey, translation by T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, which my dear mate Paul Rink gave me and which sits near my shelf with the cuff links that belonged to my father and my lucky acorn from the battlefield at Thermopylae. It’s about ten-thirty now. I sit down and plunge in. When I start making typos, I know I’m getting tired. That’s four hours or so. I’ve hit the point of diminishing returns. I wrap for the day. Copy whatever I’ve done to disk and stash the disk in the glove compartment of my truck in case there’s a fire and I have to run for it. I power down. It’s three, three-thirty. The office is closed. How many pages have I produced? I don’t care. Are they any good? I don’t even think about it. All that matters is I’ve put in my time and hit it with all I’ve got. All that counts is that, for this day, for this session, I have overcome Resistance.

生词：

crank up：启动
cuff link：袖扣、链扣
plunge in：投入
make typos：拼写错误
diminishing returns：收益递减

翻译：

我起床，洗澡，吃早餐。看报纸，刷牙。如果我需要打电话，我就去打电话。我现在要喝咖啡了。然后我穿上幸运工作靴，系上我的侄女梅雷迪思送给我的幸运鞋带。我来到办公室，打开电脑。我的幸运连帽运动衫披在椅子上，带着我从Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer的吉普赛人那里得到的只有8美元的幸运符，而我幸运的LARGO名字标签来自我曾经拥有的梦想。我戴上它。在我的辞典上的是我的幸运大炮，我的朋友Bob Versandi从古巴莫罗城堡给了我。我把它指向我的椅子，所以它可以激发我的灵感。我进行我的祈祷，是荷马奥德赛中缪斯的召唤，由阿拉伯的劳伦斯TE劳伦斯翻译，我亲爱的伙伴保罗林克给了我，我的架子附近有我父亲的袖扣和来自Thermopylae战场的幸运橡子。现在大概是十点半。我坐下来投入。当我开始拼写错误时，我知道我已经累了。那是四个小时左右。我已经达到了收益递减的程度。我为今天的成果做备份。我将我所做的任何内容复制到磁盘上，并将磁盘存放在我卡车的杂物箱中以防火灾，我必须这么做。我去关闭电源。现在是三点半了。办公室已经关了。我做了多少页？我不在乎。他们是否足够好？我甚至都没想过。重要的是我已经充分利用了我的时间。所有重要的是，在这一天，为了这一部分，我已经克服了抵抗。