Novelist as a Vocation: The master storyteller on writing and creativity
One rule of thumb is to ask yourself, “Am I having a good time doing this?” If you’re not enjoying yourself when you’re engaged in what seems important to you, if you can’t find spontaneous pleasure and joy in it, if your heart doesn’t leap with excitement, then there’s likely something wrong. When that happens, you have to go back to the beginning
... See moreHaruki Murakami • Novelist as a Vocation
Rising at five thirty to write a thousand or more words before beginning the day’s labor became an entrenched habit, unbroken to this day. Each day’s writing ended with four or five short reflections on subjects then occupying my mind. By the late ’90s, my writing had grown to five thousand pages containing several thousand of the short reflections
... See moreDee Hock • Autobiography of a Restless Mind: Reflections on the Human Condition Volume 1
the first task for the aspiring novelist is to read tons of novels. Sorry to start with such a commonplace observation, but no training is more crucial.
Haruki Murakami • Novelist as a Vocation
Having discovered the curious effect of composing in a foreign language, thereby acquiring a creative rhythm distinctly my own, I returned my Olivetti to the closet and once more pulled out my sheaf of manuscript paper and my fountain pen. Then I sat down and “translated” the chapter or so that I had written in English into Japanese. Well, “transpl... See more