Novelist as a Vocation

by Haruki Murakami

Dance Dance Dance,

apartment in Rome,

London,

Still, I couldn’t go on sighing and shaking my head forever. So I pulled myself together and tried to resurrect passages that I had sweated over several weeks before.

What this story shows is that, no matter what you have written, it can be made better. We may feel that what we have turned out is excellent, even perfect, but the fact remains there is always room for improvement.

During my many years as a novelist there have been editors with whom I have not seen eye to eye.

On one occasion, when we were at the manuscript stage of a novel, I did a rewrite of all the sections the editor had queried.

What’s crucial, in short, is the physical act of rewriting. What carries more weight than anything else is the resolve to sit down at one’s desk to improve what one has written. Compared to that, the question of which direction to take in those improvements may be of secondary importance.

At any rate, I spend as much time as I can on the rewriting process. I listen to the advice of the people around me (even if it makes me angry) and try to bear it in mind as I rework my novel.

Anyone who has just finished writing a long novel is bound to be in an emotional, overstimulated state. In a way, we are out of our minds. This makes sense, since anyone in their right mind would never undertake to write a novel in the first place.

How many times do I rewrite? There is no specific number. There are countless rewrites at the manuscript stage, and I ask for new galleys many times during the proofreading process, much to my editor’s dismay.

As I said before, writing is a profession that requires stamina, and in truth, I don’t mind. The fact is, I have a deep-rooted love for tinkering, so I have no problem reading a passage multiple times to check its rhythm, or fiddling with its word order, or making tiny adjustments to its expression.

Raymond Carver,

So that’s how I go about writing my novels. Some people really like them, and others don’t.

All the same, I am sure they were the best that I could do at that time.

There’s another aspect of time one must take into account when writing a novel.

“gestation period,”

A fitting metaphor for this might be soaking in the tub at home versus doing the same thing in a hot spring.

Even if the water in the hot spring is tepid, the heat seeps into your very bones and stays with you long after you get out. A bath at home, by contrast, doesn’t penetrate so deeply, and no sooner have you gotten out than you start feeling chilly.

think great literature, and great music, follow a somewhat similar pattern.

This is why I am able to shrug off harsh—sometimes unbelievably harsh—criticisms of my work with an “Oh, well, what can you do?”

Raymond Carver

These are harsh words from the usually gentle and genial Carver, but I totally agree with what he is trying to say.

In my opinion, using your willpower to control time is what makes it your ally. You mustn’t let it go on controlling you. That just makes you passive.

I have no idea if my work is any good, or if it is, to what degree. As the author, it’s hardly my place to voice an opinion.

Forget all the chatter—we should trust in our felt experience above all else. For the author, and for his readers, that alone is the ultimate standard.

Writing fiction is an entirely personal process that takes place in a closed room. Shut away in a study, you sit at a desk and (in most cases) create an imaginary story out of nothing and put it in the form of writing.

Hatonomori Hachiman Shrine

Hear the Wind Sing

Pinball, 1973.

Norwegian Wood,

Greece,

Rome

Essentially, I believe people don’t write novels because someone asks them to. They write because they have a personal desire to write.

But the fact remains that novels are written on the novelist’s own initiative, out of an inner motivation.

But no matter what triggers the writing, once a novelist sits down to write a novel he’s utterly alone with the task. No one is there to help him (or her). Some novelists might have help from researchers, but all they do is gather materials helpful to the novelists.

For example—and this is based on my own case—writing a novel means sitting alone in my study for over a year (sometimes two or even three years), diligently writing away.

It’s kind of a cliché to say it’s a lonely process, but writing a novel—especially a really long one—is exactly that: extremely lonely work.

“One day at a time,”

stamina.

stamina?

I have but one answer, and a very simple one: you have to become physically fit. You need to become robust and physically strong. And make your body your ally.

However, if you try writing yourself, you’ll no doubt understand that sitting at a desk in front of a computer screen (or even at an empty orange crate with manuscript paper on top, there’s no difference) every day for five or six hours, focused solely on creating a story, requires an extraordinary amount of physical strength.

physical strength

dynamic strength

sta...

physical strength

Mental agility

emotional flexibility

metaphoric fat.