You know, some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed. Literally. However, despite the day’s lack of discernible income, we rose and shone. Briefly. Shining takes a lot of out of a person, and we wanted to save our energy in case something interesting happened. Probably that’s not likely, and we’ll start hacking away at the novel in a few minutes (in some regions, this is also known as editing and polishing; we prefer precise description). Yes, despite the fact that we’re clearly past our prime:
Masahiro Mita also started young. His first novel, “M no Sekai” (The world according to M), came out when he was still in high school, and 11 years later, he won the Akutagawa.
Mita says: “Your first novel is fresh, an explosion, as if all the energy you’ve been holding is released at one go. Your second and third novels lose impact. Your power is spent. It’s a pity current publishers do not provide their young writers with guidance. Young people are being used up.”
Pardon our cynicism, but, hello?, young people are being used up? More guidance? What is this, day care? Does he not understand that to write is to suffer? Oh, maybe not:
In an age when record-breaking young writers are in abundance, the publishing industry’s image of the “novelist” needs to change.
[Manami] Kawasaki says, “Writing a novel isn’t something you sacrifice your whole life for.”
Well, yeah, you say that when you’re only fifteen. Wait until you’re twenty and trying to make sense of high school. the good news is the husband’s thinking of building a time machine; the bad news is, well, reliving any of the years between thirteen and twenty-five…no, we won’t even imagine it. Too much. Far too much. (Via The Literary Saloon at The Complete Review)
