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| 你是否常常抱怨生活对你不公？是否常常为自己无法成功寻找各式各样的借口？是否常常将 “No, I can’t”挂在嘴边？那么请你读读这些故事…… The Manager Who Couldn't Write By Gary Sledge What launched Amy Tan’s career was not a big break, but a kick in the butt. Before the million-copy sales of The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God’s Wife and The Hundred Secret Senses, Amy Tan was a writer. A business writer. She and a partner ran a technical-writing business with lawyer-like “billable1) hours”. Her role with clients was largely that of account management—but this daughter of immigrants wanted to do something more creative with words, English words. So she made her pitch to her partner: “I want to do more writing.” He declared her strength was doing estimates, going after contractors and collecting bills. “It was horrible stuff.” The very stuff Tan hated and knew she wasn’t really good at. But her partner insisted that writing was her weakest skill. “I thought, I can believe him and just keep doing this or make my demands.” So she argued and stood up for her rights. He would not give in. Shocked, Tan said, “I quit.” And he said: “You can’t quit. You’re fired!” And added, “You’ll never make a dime writing.” Tan set out to prove him wrong, taking on as many assignments as she could. Sometimes she worked 90 hours a week as a freelance2) technical writer. Being on her own was tough. But not letting others limit her or define her talents made it worthwhile. And on her own, she felt free to try fiction. And so The Joy Luck Club, featuring the bright, lonely daughter of Chinese immigrants, was born. And the manager who couldn’t write became one of America’s bestselling, best-loved authors. 不会写作的经理 加里·斯莱奇 使谭恩美开始写作生涯的并非是好运气，而是她遭到的一次冷嘲热讽。 谭恩美的作品《喜福会》、《灶神之妻》和《百种神秘感觉》都达到数百万的销量，但在此之前，她不过是个写手，一个商业写手。她和一位合伙人经营着一家专业写作公司，像律师那样按工作时间计酬。 谭恩美与客户打交道时的主要工作是协调和管理——但是作为移民的女儿，她想用文字——英文——来做些更有创意的工作。 于是她就把自己的想法告诉了合伙人：“我想多写点东西。”但是合伙人断言她的强项是做评估、找承包商和收账。“这种活儿很烦人。”谭恩美讨厌这种工作，也清楚自己并不擅长于此。可是她的合伙人坚持认为写作是她最薄弱的技能。 “当时我想，我要么相信他的话，继续干本行，要么就得提出自己的要求。”于是谭恩美据理力争，坚持自己的权利。 合伙人不愿妥协。 谭恩美感到十分惊愕，于是说：“那我就辞职。” 合伙人说：“你不能辞职。你被开除了！”他补充说：“靠写作你连一毛钱都别想赚到。” 于是谭恩美行动起来，尽自己所能接了很多活儿，以证明合伙人是错误的。她当上了自由职业写手，有时候一周要工作90个小时。自立门户还是比较艰难的。不过，与其任由他人对自己或自身的才能施加限制，还是这样比较值得。既然已经单干了，她也就放开手脚写起小说来。《喜福会》就这样诞生了，其中主角是一个聪慧但孤独的中国移民之女。这位不会写作的经理于是成为了美国最畅销也最受喜爱的作家之一。 Too Shortto Dance By Nancy Coveney Couldn’t she smile? If only she were taller. They loved her kicking, but... Like thousands of other young women, Twyla Tharp came to New York City with big dreams. The self-described Indiana farm girl enrolled at Barnard College to get a degree in art history. But her real passion, her real obsession3), was dance. To meet the college’s phys ed4) requirement, she studied dance with the legendary Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Soon she was fitting her schoolwork in between two or three dance classes a day. A dream was born. But dance is not exactly a surefire5), lifelong profession. When she graduated in the mid-1960s, she auditioned6) for commercials and tried out for roles — but she just didn’t seem to fit in anywhere. She lacked the technical skills to be a ballerina7) and she discovered in a big audition that she was too short for the Rockettes. They “loved my kicking and 52 fouett on pointe,” she wrote in her autobiography Push Comes to Shove8), “but couldn’t I please smile?” And she also learned she was too small in every direction to work as a Latin Quarter show girl. “But I still tried.” And Tharp wondered, “Will I ever be a dancer? Do I have any business dancing?” The only way to find out, it seemed, was to form her own troupe9) and create her own style of dance. |
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