A Love Letter to Writing (Part 1)

foreword

 At the end of 2022, the editor of a certain platform in China suddenly sent me an interview outline, Thirty-six Soul Questions, asking about my relationship with writing, saying that it would be included in a book on non-fiction writing funded by a certain university. Although I don’t know the logic of interviewing someone like me who can’t find works in official Chinese publications, maybe it’s because of the end of the end of the university’s research funding, and it’s urgent to get a partner? But because I often conduct interviews with people, I will compare my heart to heart (repay grievances), and I always think about life when I say goodbye to the old and welcome the new, so I pretend to be serious, answer seriously, and finally condense it into 25 questions and answers and post them in Matt City. The author who has been late for these years blew himself up. The diction was originally aimed at readers inside the wall, but after writing the full text of nearly 20,000 words, I didn't have the effort (too lazy) to change it to the outside version. You are welcome to ask and answer these questions for yourself, think for yourself, and entertain yourself. This article is the first.

1. When did you first start writing? What was the occasion?

If you start writing, it should be the first grade teacher of elementary school who asked me to write a diary. I remember writing the date and the weather and not knowing what to write. So I copied a sentence from the comic "Snow White", which I still remember: "Vanity and pride are not desirable, only kindness is the truly beautiful and long-lasting thing." I don't understand this sentence, I can't even recognize the characters, and the pinyin is noted, but I think it is very advanced. Then my first elementary school Chinese teacher, Teacher Li Qiufang, here I must mention her name, although she is just an unknown Chinese teacher in China, retired for many years, living in silence, but she is the person I want to thank for the rest of my life . After reading my diary, she wrote a sentence on it, which is the most precious writing education for me until now. She said, "Speak for yourself!"

Later, I have been keeping a diary since elementary school, and published some tofu articles in the tabloids of my hometown from time to time since middle school. I remember winning an essay award once, standing among a group of award-winning old gentlemen when I was fifteen or sixteen, and the prize was a set of purple clay teapots.

I studied literature in college, but as a result, my interest in literature was completely disillusioned, and I took the road of social science without looking back. Later, during the social research period, there were many stories, and I couldn’t put them in the paper, so I just jotted them down. I just saw that there was an essay competition, and there was a word limit, so I wrote a part and participated in it. Later, the first part won an award. It was published, and I was blinded throughout the process. Since it was published, many people have written to me to encourage me to continue writing, so I feel that I can try to write something, try it for ten years first, and don’t fail. So I officially took writing as a thing. Actually, it was very late. It started at the age of 29, and I experienced a black hole in my life at the beginning. I stopped for two or three years, and it’s actually only a few years now. So in the writing world, I am still a kindergarten kid, and the ignorant are fearless. But no matter what, I started to write again after making a big circle. In the final analysis, it is still "unavoidable encounters in narrow roads in one's lifetime".

2. Since you started writing, what have you been writing about? According to your own feeling, what changes have been made in the writing content during the writing process? Over the years, how has your mentality changed during the writing process?

In fact, before returning to the world of writing, I had already started writing poems at the age of twenty. I kept my childish poems hidden and did not dare to show them to others. When I wrote my first book, I started writing what you call non-fiction stories. I didn’t know what I was writing at that time, I just wanted to write down the stories in social research. Later, when I was 31 years old, I wrote a short story for the first time. It took me a long time to put it away before I dared to publish it. I won a small prize and made a little money. I felt as if I could write a novel. When I was writing a story, my poetry writing paused a bit, and I only resumed my poetry writing frequency in 2022, probably because the old woman was chatting with a young girl. But I still basically hide it, poetry is too much privacy. I've always believed that it is the highest form of language. Novels may be more like the delicate art of brain layout. I have to continue to develop my brain in all aspects before I can write good novels. Among them, there is a category that is a little easier for me, that is, fieldwork methods in the social sciences can help me complete a large part of the task, which is what I often write, and you will see it from time to time.

3. What motivates you to continue writing?

At first, it was the manuscript fee, but under the heavy reward, there are courageous men, no matter whether it is soliciting papers or submitting manuscripts, it takes a lot of money to participate. In fact, I want to get money to travel far to do social research that I am interested in. Although it is a bit ridiculous, as if I will definitely win an award and publish something, but I really thought so at the time. At that time, there was no financial support for the topics I was interested in, so I found money to do it myself, but I would not do the topics they were interested in, so I had to rely on even more unreliable manuscript fees.

Later, I lived in a black hole for a while, trying to prove that I am not a useless person.

Then I thought it was love.

4. Have you ever experienced professional writing training, can you share your experience at that time? How do you think this kind of experience has influenced and inspired your own writing?

Although I have studied literature in university, I was a scumbag when I was studying literature. I still feel embarrassed to mention that I still have this experience. The Department of Literature waited until my confidence in literature was completely destroyed. Instead, I went to the Department of Social Sciences every day to minor in other majors. So I didn't have any professional writing training. Didn't they say that the Department of Literature doesn't train writers? Later, readers said that I had no writing skills, so I found books on writing on the market and read them. When I wrote, I had a bad memory and completely forgot them. Recently, I read a book with a very simple but meaningful sentence called "Work hard and live seriously". In fact, if you think about it, writing training is in these two sentences. will teach you by itself.

5. What is the story you write mainly about? Why do you pay attention to these experiences or stories and want to write about them? In other words, what factors and what kind of stories aroused your desire to write? Most of the manuscripts you have published are memories related to childhood and adolescence. What was the opportunity for writing at that time? Why do you want to write these stories?

If we talk about the stories you see in China now, it is that people are prone to nostalgia when they reach middle age, and the world is too chaotic.

However, why do you have to write more stories that you can't see in China? I have also thought about this question for a long time. In 2022, I wrote a poem. There are a few sentences in it that I overcome a lot of psychological discomfort and share. It can be roughly regarded as my current answer. I mustered up 12 percent courage to explode, actually thinking, if there is someone like me among the readers of this interview, I hope he (she) will not be so lonely after reading it.

• Learn to protect my most dangerous innocence with my pen, like a beast defending its territory;
• Learn to use the eyes that are gazing at the Milky Way, gaze at and remember the pairs of eyes that wailed and bleed all night on the train heading to the concentration camp of the future of mankind;
• Learn to hold the last sage's heart in poverty and famine with the hands that should hold your lover tightly.

6. Do you take the initiative to recall or pay attention to a lot of your own experience and the stories of people around you because of writing, or do you only record after experiencing some special things, hearing about the experiences of people around you, or feeling some special emotions And what about writing?

If you take your writing religiously, the story comes to you in a different way, you are a room with windows open on all sides, and the winds of the story come and go in and out of you. If you're strong enough to start writing, capture a story, close the window, and let it go when you're done. But the story never belongs to you, it just flows through you. It seems a bit mysterious.

7. As a non-fiction writer, how do you feel about authenticity in your narrative? For the things you describe, especially your own memories or old events over the years, how will you ensure the authenticity and restoration of the details? During the communication process, what suggestions and requirements does the editor have for the authenticity of the manuscript?

I want to emphasize that I'm not a nonfiction writer, I'm just a writer. But if you insist on sticking to the word, then I will expand on it.

Let's start with a story. Many years ago, I participated in a social survey and compiled the audio recordings for the interviewers. More than two years later, in order to publish these interviews, I found the interviewers again and asked them to sign a letter of authorization to agree to the publication of the audio recordings. When I found the original interviewer, he lost his temper when he saw the manuscript, saying that you are also highly educated and educated people, why did you write me so uneducated, would I say such unlevel words? I said, brother, that’s what you said in the recording at the time. If you don’t believe me, let me listen to the recording. He still looked aggrieved, and asked me to cross out his words and rewrite them to become level. Telling this story is actually in response to the word "non-fiction" that you are obsessed with.

For me as a social science practitioner, what kind of situation is called a "real" interview? Is it the version recorded in the original recording, or the educated version that the interviewee will modify later?

When the hand of time works on human experience, experience changes, and people have their own ways of interpreting how experience changes, and these ways also change. But in most cases, we cannot see clearly the trajectory of the hand of time acting on you and me. Just like today when you read this paragraph, you will laugh and feel that it is a bit real; tomorrow you will learn a new word called "non-fiction", and then you will ask me, is the interview story you told true? What year, and with whom, is the evidence? So, of the two feelings of reading this story, which one is true for you? Both, if I ask you anything.

In fact, for me, a literary scumbag, "fiction" and "non-fiction" are created by you to analyze and comment on works, and they are related to your literary practitioners and the literary industry behind them, and have nothing to do with the creators. Li Bai would not admit that he was a romantic poet in ancient China, and Ellen Poo would not say that he was a thriller author.

If we go further, I really don’t like the current way of classifying literature into genres, which is also a vocabulary created by your literary industry and economic games. It's like stuffing a cloud of hard fortress into a few boxes. If the creator is not strong enough and uses the words of contemporary literary practitioners as his own creative guidance, he will be taken away by the box, and the clouds he creates will most likely be square. In artistic creation, I think the most important thing is freedom, absolute freedom, no preconceived concepts at all, speaking directly to people's feelings, that is, I feel that today I have the intuition and impulse to create clouds, and then I will directly create clouds with my hands, and let him create them in the end. What shape is it coming out.

What shape you see is up to you to see the cloud man, and how to make it is up to me to make the cloud man. Cloud watchers don't make cloud people out of the shape you see. You ask how to ensure the authenticity of the feeling, so what should I say, take a scientific scalpel to dissect a cloud, and then dissect me, and also consider the role of the hand of time? If I don’t say it, you will say that my feeling may not be true, and you will ask me to prove that every drop of water in the cloud I created is real. I can't do such a thing, because fundamentally I am still a literary scum who wants to make a good cloud.

But after saying these words, I seem to have offended many people and will be beaten up...

8. After finishing writing, will the person you describe read your published manuscript? How do they evaluate them and your works in your pen? In addition, will you interview people around you or ask for details of events for writing purposes? Did you encounter any difficulties in the process? Can you share any similar experiences you have.

Nine out of ten I will read the ones I published in China, including the contact information. But the people I most want them to see either can't read at all, don't read, or aren't with me anymore.

In terms of evaluation, some people came to scold me, saying how to write this for everyone to see, but I couldn't figure out how I actually looked at him in this way, and ruined his image. Some came to thank me, saying that they were thanking me for helping him preserve this beautiful memory. Some came here purely to gossip, ah, and this kind of thing, I didn't know it at the time. Someone came to comfort me. I didn't know this happened at the time. If I knew, I would do better. Of course, there are still some people who have become my eyes and ears, providing me with materials and story clues from time to time, hoping that I can help them write them down and write them down.

An interview will be conducted, or details will be asked. The difficulty encountered in the process is that if it is someone close to you, they will think that your inherent image is a friend, family member, not a writer. It is difficult to change the inherent image. You can do it. You can ask people to say What's the point of asking, why don't you go out to pick up a courier, buy some vegetables, let's have a hot pot, or ask someone to turn on the TV and watch it. Of course, what is even more tragic is that you will be counter-killed if you ask, not only what are you doing asking this, but the boss is not too young to worry about your own affairs, when will you get married? When will the baby be born? Killed in one move. So the difficulties I encounter with strangers are far less than those close to me. On the contrary, strangers or people who are not so familiar are willing to share with me the very private stories of life without reservation. Maybe they think that they will never see me in the future. I am like a tree hole. But it’s not good for people close to you. If you share very private things, you will be embarrassed next time you see them. For example, a friend told me about his cheating, and at the end of the story he specifically told me not to write it out, then the story was blocked. So the closer people are, the more of a mystery to me. So at present, I basically don't write stories about people close to me, unless they take the initiative to find me, are willing to confide, and are willing for me to share with others. If my friend is a foreigner, I would ask him if he would mind sharing the story with Chinese netizens. In most cases, they are very happy, and they will use Google to translate my article to read and save it for themselves. But some people said that you can write it, but I am the protagonist, so if you make money from my story, I will share how much, but I think he seems to be joking, but I am not sure. But it does seem like a question worth exploring.

9. Generally speaking, how long does it take you to complete a manuscript? Do you have any special writing habits, pre-writing preparations or writing environment requirements?

It depends on physical strength, but also inspiration and timing, but mainly physical strength.

For a 10,000-word manuscript, the first draft can be finished in five to ten days if it is fast, or one or two months or even two or three years if it is slow. I am only talking about the first draft. If it is revised, the manuscript will be calculated on a monthly and yearly basis. It is more difficult and time-consuming to revise than to write. Completion is a very mysterious concept. What is completion? For me, Jesus said on the cross, it's finished, that's the end. People's works are just suspended and not written, unfinished to be continued.

When I write most of the manuscripts that can appear in China, I actually listen to Chopin while writing. If you find peace in my stories, thank Chopin. If you read sadness in my stories, blame me.

In terms of writing environment, score, if you only have fragmented time, write with your mobile phone, write while fishing at work (shh, don’t tell my boss), write while walking in the park, and the most common place to write is in public transportation. For some reason, I always When riding the light rail, my inspiration explodes, and I often write poems. I think it is because we are all turbulent and unruly in nature, but after writing happily on the light rail, it is easy to miss the stop.

If you have a chunk of time, the place where you write the most pre-COVID is in the library. After the epidemic, I got used to being at home. At home, they are more solemn and perverted. Take a shower, brush your teeth and skin care before writing, wear comfortable and tidy clothes, and respect your story. If the story is too powerful, I feel that I can’t handle it, and I feel guilty, I will put on makeup, wear jewelry, and wear beautiful clothes to make myself feel beautiful, as if I am going on a date. At this time, the author’s momentum must be overshadowed. The story, otherwise the story will bully you when it sees you. People must have a sense of ritual when writing at home. Even if they live in a shabby room, they must distinguish between daily space and sacred space. Writing is to enter the sacred space. Sitting at the table, turning on the computer, there must be plants next to it, flowers and fruits are the best, if you are unlucky, your life is extremely bad, and you have no money to buy flowers, you must be surrounded by plants, even vegetables, just like sitting To have all my sad memorial services in the jungle. Plants are the necessities of life. Modern people often cut off the connection with nature, but plants will bring us back to the original state of innocence and no concept. But fortunately I live alone, otherwise people would think that I, a perverted middle-aged woman, is doing something. In life, I am actually very simple. Apart from the obsession with small shop snacks and personal dishes, I basically have no material desires, but that is what I do when it comes to writing, but it may also be because I don’t have a cat.

In addition, if you write a long novel, a recent insight is that you should cut off your desires and eat less, yes, even the delicious food. "If you don't have desires, you can be strong" is really a very powerful old saying. Eat one to two meals a day. If you don't eat refined carbohydrates, white rice and white noodles, you will be prone to brain fog and sleepiness. Eat more vegetable protein, boiled eggs are very useful. During writing, do not eat desserts and things with a lot of sugar, do not drink coffee, tea, wine or beverages, just drink water, sleep when you are sleepy, do not see people, do not answer the phone, do not reply to emails, close all social media, and even, do not Reading again is just to close the windows, so that only me, the story, and the man named Chopin are in the house. I am tired of writing and go to the park to walk around and come back to continue. Is it like a person who is practicing and retreating, haha. Maybe I've been through bad health, I really don't know how drunks like Hemingway and Bukowski can drink so much and still write soberly, but I know my social barriers and love tragedies How did it come about. In fact, now I feel that the body is the temple where writers place their souls. The physical foundation of all creations cannot be squeezed and exploited to sacrifice it. Otherwise, the tree is strong and easy to break, and the work is easy to perish. The life of writing will wither prematurely, so we must take good care of it. It, take care of it, discuss with it, let it work with your soul for the work. But maybe it's also because people don't want to die when they reach middle age, so they start to keep healthy.

10. What is your most impressive writing experience? Why is it so memorable?

When I was writing a story for my first book, I was in the library, on a February night, when it was dark, and the huge glass window in front of me reflected my computer and my face above it. Instead of writing, and then sinking into the story, back to the scene of interviewing that person. At that time, I was interviewing a rural woman on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Her fate was simply the Qinghai-Tibet version of “the world and God don’t want me anymore.” During the interview, it was the first time I lost control of my emotions. In fact, I have to control my emotions during the social investigation, but that time I couldn't control it anyway. Facing such a miserable life, I am not a dead person, I am a woman whose fate is connected with her. In fact, my later writing and professional study were greatly influenced by that interview. This woman may never know that she changed me. At that time, when I opened the story revision, all the texts called me to flash back the scene of the conversation with her, and also added a lot of sentimentality about the fate of myself and other women in time and space, so I changed and changed and suddenly burst into tears.

Later, everyone in the library looked at me when I cried, so I hurried out and splashed cold water on my face to calm myself down, then came back and continued to revise and write. My whole body was shaking, that kind of trembling with very strong emotions, and finally I finished writing with trembling hands. Because it was the first time such a thing happened, I had no experience, and my health was so bad at that time, I thought I was seriously ill and died. Later, similar situations happened several times in writing, and I knew that this was originally called the upper body of the story. Writing can be psychic. I believe that when this story meets you at some point, you may feel it.

But then I was even a little obsessed with perversion and even wanted to summon this feeling, that is, if a story can make me laugh, cry, and feel creepy when writing, then its atmosphere must be successful. My writing concept may be very elementary, that is, to write with life. If you don't respond yourself, how can the reader react? But this actually consumes a lot of vitality, which is equivalent to the author's body being a superconductor. But the story needs to go up, there is no way to do it, only to welcome, accept, write, and then send it away. I don't know if others have similar experiences.

Then when I was writing the story, I encountered a bit of a supernatural experience. It was just after I finished writing the story and went home, a French mental patient came up in the light rail car. I was the only one standing in that car, and he said loudly to me I saw your story, I saw the poetry, and I thought to myself how did he know I wrote the story and spoke it like a prophet. Then he suddenly jumped to my side and said in that rather ferocious voice, I saw fear, fear... This article is "Shou Sui", my first short story, which started my experience of writing novels. , Among all the comments I received, only this mental patient hit the core, he didn't read it.

I feel that since writing, when some important things happen, or when you meet a very special person in your life, there will be a strange plot around it.

Sometimes I feel that writing has turned me into a witch, bringing about many miraculous events that Liao Zhai dare not write like that, but it may also be that I am a witch, but writing has inspired it even more.

11. Whether it is for the writing of a certain manuscript or for your entire writing experience, have you encountered any difficulties in writing or fallen into a certain predicament? What was the situation? What is it like? How do you deal with it? Do you still have a similar experience now?

When I was short of money for a while, I said that I would write manuscripts to earn more money, but when this idea became the only idea and motivation for writing, I couldn’t write at all. There is still a period of time to seek fame, thinking that I must write well so that the work will be published in some journal, what book will be published, and what award will be won, but the result is the same, and I can't write it. Then I resigned to my fate.

Later I learned that if you are short of money, you should learn how to make money, and don’t hold back the throat of your work; if you want to be famous, you should go out to socialize, and don’t count on your work. Don't ask what writing can do for you, you're taking it, abusing it, making it unhappy. To love it means to ask more about what you can bring to writing, what to dedicate, or even what to sacrifice. If it is happy, you will be happy too.

So since I was written and took these classes, I gradually changed myself, and now I seem to have reached a more comfortable state with it. I can write whatever I want, regardless of whether it will be published or not, whether it will make money or not, and whoever wants to see what, whoever is happy to read it, and regardless of what the mysterious and irresistible force will do to me. I write seriously, write as if I have never written, and write what I want to write. I want to write happily, enjoy myself, be free, and be unrestrained, and when a person gives it his naked self, writing will become a very beautiful lover. I especially enjoy every moment of being with it, even though such moments may not be easy or even seem to outsiders to be very poor and lonely or even self-abuse, but there is that kind of happiness that is priceless. (How to put it a bit like love, haha)

I think it is the same reason to love writing and love people wholeheartedly. It's just that if you love writing, writing will definitely love you, and if it doesn't bring you any other gifts, it will definitely bring you freedom and happiness. However, if you really love someone, whether they love you or not, whether your love can continue in the time and space you are in, at least for me, it is still a human metaphysics... It seems to be far away. But no matter what, love is to love with all your heart, seriously, patiently, and give all your true self. Being assimilated to death in a world where love is impotent.