“Unpredictable to Myself”: Out Of The Recent Auckland Writers’ Festival…
Of course, I didn’t actually go to the Auckland Writers’ Festival, but my local Christchurch City Libraries sent a team who obligingly put together a list of quotes.
This is my absolute favourite from their list — and no surprises at all (for me, anyway) that it’s from Haruki Murakami. Everytime he is interviewed about his work, I find a new quote to ‘heart.’
Here’s the most recent:
“My stories are always unpredictable to myself.”~ Haruki Murakami
Oh yes, I thought — although I would probably have said that my stories are always mysterious to myself.
They definitely work in their own mysterious ways, their wonders to perform. And are not infrequently shapeshifters to boot — just when you think you’ve got them tied down, there they go, shifting again: not unlike Menelaus and the Old Man of the Sea…
As I said in my March guest spot with Gillian Polack, I would counsel anyone having dealings in the Realm of Story to “retain a cool head, invest in robust footwear, a compass (since both maps and GPS oft prove fickle in the writing realm), and a butterfly net…”
The better to catch that errant, shapeshifting tale, of course!
To read the Christchurch Libraries’ team’s full report on Haruki Murakami’s festival session click on: