On Writing A Novel: Haruki Murakami
“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. Sometimes I feel like I’m sitting all alone at the bottom of a well. Nobody will help me, and nobody’s there to pat me on the back and tell me I’ve done a great job. The novel I produce may be praised by people (if it turns out well), but no one seems to appreciate the process itself that led to it. That’s a burden the writer must carry alone.”
— Haruki Murakami
I know I’ve quoted Haruki Murakami before, and I’ll link to some of those other examples at the end of this post, but when I read this particular I did think, “Ah, yes.”
The process, or reality, he describes is what I call ‘the loneliness of the long-distance writer’—being just a little tongue in cheek, obviously. Tongue in cheek or not, though, I have frequently felt like I am sitting at the bottom of that well, or descending into the darkened room he describes in another quote on the writing process.
The caveats I would enter are two. The first is that readers do frequently write and tell me that I’ve done a great job on preceding books, feedback and affirmation that does help with the work-in-progress.
The second relates to where Mr Murakami says that “no one seems to appreciate the process itself that led to it.” As his subsequent sentence suggests, that’s because unless you’ve been there, you can’t know, so of necessity it’s a road the writer must walk alone—and not infrequently, build all the bridges while traversing them. 😀
My caveat is that I believe this is entirely as it should be . The reader shouldn’t have to understand the creative process, any more than we need to take the back off the clock to see how everything is put together before we can tell the time. As the Louise Glück quote put it a few weeks back, everything the reader needs to comprehend the work “has to be right there on the page.”
Nonetheless, I agree that “writing a novel—especially a really long one—is…extremely lonely work.” A main reason, I believe, is because nothing is done until the whole is done. So no matter how good an early chapter may seem, the writer can’t know until the end whether it will remain in the manuscript.
Similarly, a book also works, or not, on the strength of the whole manuscript, irrespective of how good a single chapter may be.
So the author really has no choice but to “write alone” (à la AS Byatt), until the entire work is done, no matter how long the road. And hope, for the three weeks to three months of the standard release period, that it’s pats on the back and not brickbats. 😀
I should add that I really do like Haruki Murakami’s writing, as well as his quotes on the writing process, so if you haven’t read his books yet, then maybe give them a try. As you can see, I’ve featured a few titles with the post.
