wanted the chance to end a little book by Julio Camba in Madrid, spending time in the cafeteria of the Círculo de Bellas Artes, where the Galician journalist went daily to play dominoes with the ease of a gambler. Its titled ‘Ways of being a journalist’, and it was published years ago by the publishing house Libros del KO I keep reading them, one and the other, in case something sticks, because it’s been five months since I fell on my feet in the bucket of the (almost) daily article and I’m still in the adjustment of nuts, rhythms, doubts, sighs. Camba knew what he was talking about. Some notes on the fly:
Newspapers don’t need geniuses. The wonderful people who still read newspapers want accuracy, speed, clarity.
Do not be sad. Sometimes, the column flows fluidly like a silk thread; others, it must be extracted from the rock with the hammer. But it always comes out.
She is omnivorous, she eats everything: cold or heat, politics or literature, yesterday’s event or Einstein’s theories. If the muse doesn’t come down, light the charcoal stove by hitting the blowtorch.
Apollinaire said that the gods give the first verse to the poets, but “columnists don’t get anything.” (This is not from Camba, but from Raúl del Pozo. It doesn’t matter).
Put a German in your office. Little is achieved without method and discipline. Yes, I know, the letter-joining bohemia tends to prefer spontaneity and ‘flow’. You will often dream of strangling him, but sit the German at your table for a while, very first thing in the morning, before the world breaks in.
Make profitable what happens to you, to the reeds with friends.
The text will end up becoming the thermometer of the day. “If the column comes out spirited, moved, structured, alive and harmonious», you are almost saved. «I don’t care anymore dragging myself all day between the beds of pain and the beds of love». (This is not from Camba, but from Threshold).
You have to knead the bread with the certainty that it will turn out well. You have to knead the bread with panic “to burn, to come out raw, to not like anyone.” Write or knead the bread. There’s no difference. (This is not from Camba, but from Leila Guerriero).
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“A columnist is a potter: at first, you try to make a botijo and you get a churro But, with practice, you get the hang of it.” He learns by reading the best. Some bright day you manage to make the botijo look like ceramic from Sargadelos. (This is not from Camba, but from Rosa Palo).
The good thing about writing (almost) daily is that you dissolve in time, in the mighty river of life. No one will remember tomorrow the nonsense written today. And so on.