對于寫作者來說，寫什么主題，是一個永恒的話題，江郎才盡是很頭疼的問題。牛津寫作指南指出，寫札記(Commonplace Book)可以幫助我們積累平日的點點滴滴。有一位資深簡書作者如是說“我個人經(jīng)驗是平時不忙時，好文好句及靈感全部分類放在私密里，隨時補充修改做為日更儲備。既能環(huán)游世界，又能筆耕不輟。” 你看，寫札記這個好方法是跨越語言、文化和時空的。
這次節(jié)選的牛津寫作指南第四章，除了介紹Commonplace Book這個做法之外，還提到了另一個重要的工具——“Journal”（日志/手帳）。那么Commonplace book和Journal在寫作上有什么異同？如何實踐？我們一起來精讀《牛津寫作指南》的第四章吧。此書沒有中文版，因個人興趣，通過精讀和翻譯來學習，特此和簡友們分享。本貼末尾附有截止目前已完成學習的前四章內(nèi)容。
本文你將看到“原文欣賞”、“精讀解析”，以及“參考譯文”三部分；英文原篇節(jié)選經(jīng)過逐字逐句校對確保無錯漏；精讀解析會穿插對文章本身的分析和背景知識引用；最后的參考譯文則是將節(jié)選這本書的第四章完整翻譯分享。
原文欣賞：
Looking for Subjects
People write for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's part of the job. A sales manager is asked to report on a new market, or an executive to discuss the feasibility of moving a plant to another state. A psychology student has to turn in a twenty page term paper, or a member of an art club must prepare a two-page introduction to an exhibit.
In such cases the subject is given, and the first step is chiefly a matter of research, of finding information. Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. Which is not to dismiss such writing as easy. Being clear and concise is never easy. (To say nothing of being interesting!) But at least the writing process is structured and to that degree simplified.
At other times we write because we want to express something about ourselves, about what we've experienced or how we feel. Our minds turn inward, and writing is complicated by the double role we play. I am the subject, which somehow the I who writes must express in words. And there is a further complication. In personal writing, words are not simply an expression of the self; they help to create the self. In struggling to say what we are, we become what we say.
Such writing is perhaps the most rewarding kind. But it is also the most challenging and the most frustrating. We are thrown relentlessly upon our own resources. The subject is elusive, and the effect can be a kind of paralysis. And so people say, "I can't think of anything to write about."
That's strange, because life is fascinating. The solution is to open yourself to experience. To look around. To describe what you see and hear. To read. Reading takes you into other minds and enriches your own. A systematic way of enriching your ideas and experiences is to keep a commonplace book and a journal.
The Commonplace Book
A commonplace book is a record of things we have read or heard and want to remember: a proverb, a remark by a writer of unusual sensibility, a witty or a wise saying, or even something silly or foolish or crass:
Sincerity always hits me something sleep. I mean, if you try to get it too hard, you won't. (By W.H.Auden)
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the . . . power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.(By Virginia Woolf)
I hate music - especially when it's played.(By Jimmy Durante)
Shrouds have no pockets. (By English proverb)
All this - and perhaps.(By Yiddish proverb)
To keep a commonplace book, set aside a looseleaf binder. When you hear or read something that strikes you, copy it, identifying the source. Leave space to add thoughts of your own. If you accumulate a lot of entries, you may want to make an index or to group passages according to subject.
A commonplace book will help your writing in several ways. It will be a storehouse of topics, of those elusive "things to write about." It will provide a body of quotations (occasional quotations add interest to your writing). It will improve your prose. (Simply copying well-expressed sentences is one way of learning to write.) Most important, keeping a commonplace book will give you new perceptions and ideas and feelings. It will help you grow.
The Journal
A journal - the word comes from French and originally
meant "daily" - is a day-to-day record of what you see, hear, do, think, feel. A journal collects your own experiences and thoughts rather than quotations. But, of course, you may combine the two. If you add your own comments to the passages you copy into a commonplace book, you are also keeping a kind of journal.
Many professional writers use journals, and the habit is a good one for anybody interested in writing, even if he or she has no literary ambitions. Journals store perceptions, ideas, emotions, action - all future material for essays or stories. The Journals of Henry Thoreau are a famous example, as are A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf, the Notebooks of the French novelist Albert Camus, and "A War-time Diary" by the English writer George Orwell.
A journal is not for others to read. So you don't have to worry about niceties of punctuation; you can use abbreviations and symbols like "&." But if a journal is really to help you develop as a writer, you've got to do more than compose trite commonplaces or mechanically list what happens each day. You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within. And that means you have to wrestle with words to tell what you see and what you feel:
July 25, Thursday. . . . Today: clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.
I myself am the vessel of tragic experience. I muse not enough on the mysteries of Oedipus - I, weary, resolving the best and bringing, out of my sloth, envy and weakness, my own ruins. What do the gods ask? I must dress, rise, and send my body out. (By Sylvia Plath)
But journals do not have to be so extraordinary in their sensibility or introspection. Few people are that perceptive. The essential thing is that a journal captures your experience and feelings. Here is another, different example, also fresh and revealing. The writer, Rockwell Stensrud, kept a journal as he accompanied an old-time cattle drive staged in 1975 as part of the Bicentennial celebration:
Very strict unspoken rules of cowboy behavior - get as drunk as you want the night before, but you'd better be able to get up the next morning at 4:30, or you're not living by the code of respectability. Range codes more severe than high-society ideas of manners - and perhaps more necessary out here. What these cowboys respect more than anything is ability to carry one's own weight, to perform, to get the job done well - these are the traditions that make this quest of theirs possible.(By Rockwell Stensrud)
精讀解析
精讀解析分為：原文、自譯、解析
Looking for Subjects / 尋找寫作主題
原文-01：
People write for lots of reasons. Sometimes it's part of the job. A sales manager is asked to report on a new market, or an executive to discuss the feasibility of moving a plant to another state. A psychology student has to turn in a twenty page term paper, or a member of an art club must prepare a two-page introduction to an exhibit.
自譯-01：
有各種各樣的原因讓人們不得不寫東西。有時，寫東西也是工作的一部分。一位銷售經(jīng)理被要求寫一個針對新市場的報告、或者一位高管要寫東西來研討將工廠遷至別國的可行性、一位心理學專業(yè)的學生不得不提交一份一百二十頁的學期論文、某個藝術俱樂部的成員不得不為某次展會撰寫一份兩頁紙的簡介。
解析-01：
這里是第四章開頭部分，上來就用排比句式舉了一系列的例子來說明現(xiàn)實中，人們?yōu)槭裁床坏貌粚憱|西，理解這里是指寫應用文。英語詞匯角度，此段行文用詞比較大白話，并無深奧或不常見的單詞，朗讀時可以娓娓道來，屬于用大白話來演講的風格。
原文-02：
In such cases the subject is given, and the first step is chiefly a matter of research, of finding information. Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. Which is not to dismiss such writing as easy. Being clear and concise is never easy. (To say nothing of being interesting!) But at least the writing process is structured and to that degree simplified.
自譯-02：
在以上場景舉例中，寫作的主題是被指定的，寫作的第一步主要就是研究工作，或者尋找信息。甚至如何組織行文的問題也經(jīng)常被簡化成只要遵循常規(guī)的寫法即可——類似寫科學論文、商業(yè)信件這些東西。但這并不意味著我們可以輕松對付這種看起來容易的寫作主題。清晰和簡潔絕非易事，更不用說還得做到有趣了! 但至少這些寫作主題的寫作過程是結構化的、一定程度上是簡化的。
解析-02：
本小段也用的平實的詞匯，繼續(xù)分析命題作文/應用文的特點，承上啟下，引出接下來的話題。有一個長難句是第二句" Even the problem of organizing the information is often simplified by by following a conventional plan, as with scientific papers or business letters. "要注意此長句翻譯為中文如何表達。
原文-03：
At other times we write because we want to express something about ourselves, about what we've experienced or how we feel. Our minds turn inward, and writing is complicated by the double role we play. I am the subject, which somehow the I who writes must express in words. And there is a further complication. In personal writing, words are not simply an expression of the self; they help to create the self. In struggling to say what we are, we become what we say.
自譯-03：
其它時候，寫作是為了想表達一些我們自己的東西，關于我們的經(jīng)歷或我們的感受。 我們反求諸己、扮演雙重角色，寫作因此而變得復雜。“我”成了主題，寫作的我必須用文字來表達主題的我。 更復雜的是，在個人寫作中，文字不僅僅是對作者自我的表達，它們其實創(chuàng)造了自我。在掙扎著說出我們是什么的過程中，我們其實變成了和說的一樣。
解析-03：
英文方面，"Our minds turn inward"這個表達值得背下來（自譯為“反求諸己”，如你讀到此處，覺得中文有更好的表達，請不吝在評論區(qū)留言，感謝！）。內(nèi)容方面，好好體會下，可以和本書序言說的這段聯(lián)系起來想一想：
Writing is a way of growing. No one would argue that being able to write will make you morally better. But it will make you more complex and more interesting — in a word, more human. 寫作，是一種成長的途徑。沒人能保證寫作能讓你有更好的道德良知。但是寫作，寫點兒東西，能讓你更有內(nèi)涵，更有趣： 一言以蔽之，更有人味兒。
原文-04：
Such writing is perhaps the most rewarding kind. But it is also the most challenging and the most frustrating. We are thrown relentlessly upon our own resources. The subject is elusive, and the effect can be a kind of paralysis. And so people say, "I can't think of anything to write about."
自譯-04：
上面說的這種寫作，也許是最有價值的，沒有之一。但這種寫作也最具挑戰(zhàn)性、最令人有挫敗感。我們無情地、無休止地壓榨著自己資源。這個主題是難以捉摸的，它帶來的后果可能是一種江郎才盡后的麻痹。人們常說，“我想不出來還能寫什么了。”
解析-04：
自譯耍調皮，用了最...沒有之一。想法是原文是most，不是one of the most bla bla bla...）。 反思正規(guī)譯法的話，此處還是不要畫蛇添足的好。英文詞匯重點是"relentlessly"、"elusive"、"paralysis"這些詞，要把被動詞匯量轉換為自己的主動詞匯量——掌握怎么用這些詞。
原文-05：
That's strange, because life is fascinating. The solution is to open yourself to experience. To look around. To describe what you see and hear. To read. Reading takes you into other minds and enriches your own. A systematic way of enriching your ideas and experiences is to keep a commonplace book and a journal.
自譯-05：
江郎才盡這種事就奇了怪了，因為生活本身就是豐富多彩令人著迷的啊！解決之道就是放開自己，去體驗、去觀察自己的周圍，描述你的所見所聞。還有就是，你得讀書，讀書會帶你進入別人的思想，從而充實你自己。（在此推薦）一個系統(tǒng)化的方法，可以充實你的想法和閱歷——那就是使用札記和日志（手帳）。
解析-05：
本段行文如流水，再次承上啟下，最后一句自然引出接下來要討論的內(nèi)容，也是本章的重點推薦。
The Commonplace Book / 札記
背景知識："Commonplace" 來自拉丁語 locus communis (這個拉丁詞又來自希臘語 Greek tópos koinós) 意為“”一種通用的或共同的主題"，例如一些充滿智慧的諺語之類。圖片發(fā)自簡書App
原文-06：
A commonplace book is a record of things we have read or heard
and want to remember:a proverb, a remark by a writer of unusual sensibility, a witty or a wise saying, or even something silly or foolish or crass:
自譯-06：
札記本，用作記錄我們讀過的、聽到的，并且想要記住的東西，例如： 一句諺語、來自不同尋常的、敏感的作家的評論、一句機智或智慧的諺語，或者甚至一些傻事、愚事，或麻木不仁的事，舉例如下：
Sincerity always hits me something sleep. I mean, if you try to get it too hard, you won't. (By W.H.Auden) / 真誠總是讓我昏昏欲睡。我是說，如果你太費勁地去顯得真誠，這其實一點兒都不真誠。（W.H.奧登）
背景補充：Wystan Hugh Auden(1907-1973) was an English-American poet. Auden's poetry was noted for its stylistic and technical achievement, its engagement with politics, morals, love, and religion, and its variety in tone, form and content.
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the . . . power of reflecting the figure of a man at twice its natural size.(By Virginia Woolf) / 幾百年來，女人們一直透過一種眼鏡來觀察男人的形象，這種眼鏡可以把男人的形象放大一倍。（弗吉尼亞·伍爾芙）
背景補充：Adeline Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and also a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device.
I hate music - especially when it's played.(By Jimmy Durante)
我討厭音樂——特別是當它沒被演奏的時候。（吉米·杜蘭特）
Shrouds have no pockets. (By English proverb)
裹尸布沒有口袋（英國諺語）
All this - and perhaps.(By Yiddish proverb)
所有這些——也許。（依地語諺語）
背景補充：James Francis Durante (1893-1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian, and actor.
關于Yiddish語：
圖片發(fā)自簡書App
解析-06：
在漢語中，“札記”，指隨時記錄下來的讀書心得或見聞。感覺和本章一直在說的"commonplace book"的意思頗為意合。
原文-07：
To keep a commonplace book, set aside a looseleaf binder. When you hear or read something that strikes you, copy it, identifying the source. Leave space to add thoughts of your own. If you accumulate a lot of entries, you may want to make an index or to group passages according to subject.
自譯-07：
為了保存札記，可以留出一本活頁夾。 當你聽到或讀到一些打動你的東西時，抄寫下來，找出來源。 頁面留出空白用于添加你自己的想法。如果你積累了很多條目，你可能想要做一個索引，或者按照主題分類來對摘錄的文本段落進行分組保存。
解析-07：
這說的很像小時候語文老師教導我們要準備一個好詞好句的摘錄本？網(wǎng)絡時代，有很多可以做札記的工具應用Apps可以用了，你用過么？
原文-08：
A commonplace book will help your writing in several ways. It will be a storehouse of topics, of those elusive "things to write about." It will provide a body of quotations (occasional quotations add interest to your writing). It will improve your prose. (Simply copying well-expressed sentences is one way of learning to write.) Most important, keeping a commonplace book will give you new perceptions and ideas and feelings. It will help you grow.
自譯-08：
札記對寫作有幾個方面的幫助：這將是一個寫作主題倉庫，尤其對那些難以捉摸的“要寫的東西”來說。它會提供引用素材(時不時引經(jīng)據(jù)典會增加文章的吸引力)。它會提高你的文筆辭藻的水準。(僅僅復制表達良好的句子，就是學習寫作的一種方式。) 最重要的是，保存札記會帶給你新的感知、新的想法、新的感覺。它會助你成長。
解析-08：
天下文章一大抄，看你會抄不會抄！做好詞好句摘錄本/札記本的好處，趕快用起來！
The Journal / 日志
背景知識：Journal是指日志、日記、手帳，衍生有期刊、雜志等含義圖片發(fā)自簡書App
延伸相關：*Bullet Journal is a method of personal organization developed by designer Ryder Carroll.[1] The organizes scheduling, reminders, to-do lists, brainstorming, and other organizational tasks into a single notebook. *
圖片發(fā)自簡書App
原文-09：
A journal - the word comes from French and originally meant "daily" - is a day-to-day record of what you see, hear, do, think, feel. A journal collects your own experiences and thoughts rather than quotations. But, of course, you may combine the two. If you add your own comments to the passages you copy into a commonplace book, you are also keeping a kind of journal.
自譯-09：
日志(Journal)——這個詞來自法語，最初的意思是“每天的日?！薄且粋€每天都要做的，記錄你的所見所聞、所思所感。日志用于收集你自己的經(jīng)歷和想法，而不是引用（別人的）。但是，你當然可以把兩者合二為一。如果你在札記(Commonplace Book)中，插入自己的評論，那這也是一種形式的日志(Journal)。
解析-09：
理解是：札記摘錄來自別人和外部世界的東西，日志記錄自我的東西。
原文-10：
Many professional writers use journals, and the habit is a good one for anybody interested in writing, even if he or she has no literary ambitions. Journals store perceptions, ideas, emotions, action - all future material for essays or stories. The Journals of Henry Thoreau are a famous example, as are A Writer's Diary by Virginia Woolf, the Notebooks of the French novelist Albert Camus, and "A War-time Diary" by the English writer George Orwell.
自譯-10：
很多職業(yè)作家有使用日志（日記）的習慣，對寫作感興趣的人不論有沒有文學抱負，保持這個習慣都有好處。而日志存儲個人的感知、想法、情感、行動——這都是對未來的文章/故事的素材積累。亨利·梭羅的《日記》是一個著名的例子，弗吉尼亞·伍爾夫的《作家日記》、法國小說家阿爾貝·加繆的《筆記》、英國作家喬治·奧威爾的《戰(zhàn)時日記》等等，這些都是著名的例子。
解析-10：
《瓦爾登湖》就是亨利·梭羅隱居在瓦爾登湖畔的日記整理出來的。
原文-11：
A journal is not for others to read. So you don't have to worry about niceties of punctuation; you can use abbreviations and symbols like "&." But if a journal is really to help you develop as a writer, you've got to do more than compose trite commonplaces or mechanically list what happens each day. You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within. And that means you have to wrestle with words to tell what you see and what you feel:
自譯-11：
日志（日記）不是給別人看的。所以你不用拘泥于標點符號是否規(guī)范的小問題。你可以使用諸如“&”這樣的縮寫符號。但是，如果你寫日記真的是為了成為一名作家，你需要做的，就不僅僅是寫一些陳詞濫調，或者機械地羅列每天的流水帳。你必須誠實而帶著新鮮感地觀察周圍的世界和內(nèi)在的自我。這意味著你必須努力地用文字來表達你的見聞和感受，就像下面這些：
July 25, Thursday. . . . Today: clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.
I myself am the vessel of tragic experience. I muse not enough on the mysteries of Oedipus - I, weary, resolving the best and bringing, out of my sloth, envy and weakness, my own ruins. What do the gods ask? I must dress, rise, and send my body out. (By Sylvia Plath)
七月二十五日，星期四...
我自己就是悲劇經(jīng)歷的容器。我對俄狄浦斯的神秘，思慮得還不夠——我疲憊不堪，解決掉最好的東西，把自暴自棄從懶惰、嫉妒和虛弱中救出來。諸神在問什么？我必須穿好衣服、站起來，把我的身體送出去。（西爾維亞·普拉斯）
clear, flung, pine-chills, orange needles underfoot.這些詞的含義未理解透徹，暫時不譯，徹底搞明白后再更新譯文。
解析-11：
寫日記時可以體會下“You have to look honestly and freshly at the world around you and at the self within.”（你必須誠實而帶著新鮮感地觀察周圍的世界和內(nèi)在的自我。）這是本段對Journal(日志/日記）的最精辟的論述了。
原文-12：
But journals do not have to be so extraordinary in their sensibility or introspection. Few people are that perceptive. The essential thing is that a journal captures your experience and feelings. Here is another, different example, also fresh and revealing. The writer, Rockwell Stensrud, kept a journal as he accompanied an old-time cattle drive staged in 1975 as part of the Bicentennial celebration:
自譯-12：
但是，寫日志（日記）這種事，不必在敏感性或自省方面非得顯得如此與眾不同。幾乎沒人有那么敏銳的洞察力。重要的是：日志（日記）能抓取你的經(jīng)歷和感受。這是另一個雖有不同，但是同樣鮮活和發(fā)人深省的例子：作家羅克維爾·斯坦斯魯?shù)?Rockwell Stensrud)當初參加1975年的一場古老的趕牛活動時，一邊趕牛，一邊寫日記，這成了當時200周年慶典的一部分：
Very strict unspoken rules of cowboy behavior - get as drunk as you want the night before, but you'd better be able to get up the next morning at 4:30, or you're not living by the code of respectability. Range codes more severe than high-society ideas of manners - and perhaps more necessary out here. What these cowboys respect more than anything is ability to carry one's own weight, to perform, to get the job done well - these are the traditions that make this quest of theirs possible.(By Rockwell Stensrud)
牛仔的行為規(guī)則是非常嚴格的——你可以在前一晚想喝多醉就喝多醉，但你最好能在第二天凌晨四點半起床，要不然，你的生活就是對牛仔行為規(guī)則的冒犯。游俠們的行為準則比上流社會對禮儀的想法更嚴格——或許是更有必要的。這些牛仔們更尊重能管好自己體重的人、能執(zhí)行任務的人、能把活兒干得漂亮的人——這些都是他們的傳統(tǒng)，使他們的追求得以實現(xiàn)。(羅克韋爾 · 斯坦斯魯?shù)?
解析-12：
本章到此結束，重要的是，寫日記，一定要體現(xiàn)真情實感。
請注意，以下參考譯文來自對上面的每小節(jié)的“自譯”段落進行匯總，如您不方便付費，也可自行匯總以上所有小節(jié)的譯文通讀，當然，如能得到簡書平臺朋友們的大力支持和鼓勵打賞，那會是最美好的事情了，沒有之一。
參考譯文
尋找寫作主題
有各種各樣的原因讓人們不得不寫東西。有時，寫東西也是工作的一部分。一位銷售經(jīng)理被要求寫一個針對新市場的報告、或者一位高管要寫東西來研討將工廠遷至別國的可行性、一位心理學專業(yè)的學生不得不提交一份一百二十頁的學期論文、某個藝術俱樂部的成員不得不為某次展會撰寫一份兩頁紙的簡介。
在以上場景舉例中，寫作的主題是被指定的，寫作的第一步主要就是研究工作，或者尋找信息。甚至如何組織行文的問題也經(jīng)常被簡化成只要遵循常規(guī)的寫法即可——類似寫科學論文、商業(yè)信件這些東西。但這并不意味著我們可以輕松對付這種看起來容易的寫作主題。清晰和簡潔絕非易事，更不用說還得做到有趣了! 但至少這些寫作主題的寫作過程是結構化的、一定程度上是簡化的。
其它時候，寫作是為了想表達一些我們自己的東西，關于我們的經(jīng)歷或我們的感受。 我們反求諸己、扮演雙重角色，寫作因此而變得復雜。“我”成了主題，寫作的我必須用文字來表達主題的我。 更復雜的是，在個人寫作中，文字不僅僅是對作者自我的表達，它們其實創(chuàng)造了自我。在掙扎著說出我們是什么的過程中，我們其實變成了和說的一樣。
