Novelist as a Vocation(29)

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. Their comments are valuable. 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. Given the circumstances, therefore, it is perfectly acceptable to be deranged as long as you are aware of that fact. For like it is with all crazy people, the opinions of the sane are really important to you.

That does not mean, of course, that you must swallow whole whatever others tell you. Some of their opinions are bound to miss the mark or be entirely wrong. Nevertheless, since they are uttered by those of sound mind, they carry a certain meaning for you, whatever they are. They will cool you down to a more proper temperature. Such opinions are nothing less than those of the world at large—in short, those who will read your book. If you ignore them, you can bet that they will probably ignore you. Some of you may say, “That’s perfectly all right with me.” I have no problem with that. If, however, you are a writer who wants to maintain contact with the outside world (and I think most writers do), then it is important to ensure that you have one or two people near you who will read your work, “fixed points” that you can use to orient yourself to your surroundings. Naturally, those fixed points should be able and willing to communicate with you in a frank and honest manner. Even if you flip out every time you hear criticism!



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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. I mark the galleys up in pencil until each page is covered in black and send them off, then mark them up again when the clean copy is returned. Over and over again. 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. I like looking at the galleys being covered in black, and the ten or so No. 2 pencils wearing down to stubs on my desk. I don’t know why, but I can’t get enough of it. I could go on like that forever and not get tired.

Raymond Carver, a writer I love and respect, also enjoyed tinkering. He wrote, about another writer, that “he knew he was finished with a short story when he found himself going through it and taking out commas and then going through the story again and putting commas back in the same places.” I know that feeling exactly, for I have had the same experience many times. You reach the limit. If you tinker any more you will only damage what you have written. It’s a subtle point, easy to miss. The bit about replacing commas hits it right on the head.



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So that’s how I go about writing my novels. Some people really like them, and others don’t. It takes all kinds. I myself am far from satisfied with things I wrote in the past. I am keenly aware of how much better they could be if I wrote them today. That’s why I pick them up only if I absolutely must—they contain so many weaknesses!

All the same, I am sure they were the best that I could do at that time. That’s because I know the absolute effort that went into them. I spent as much time as I needed and exerted all the strength I had to bring them to completion. It was the equivalent of all-out war. That satisfaction of having given it my all remains with me even now. My novels have never been written on request, so I have not been hounded by deadlines. I have written what I wanted, when I wanted, in the way I wanted. I can state that much with confidence. Seldom have I had to look back and say, “I wish I’d done that differently.”



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There’s another aspect of time one must take into account when writing a novel. That is the “gestation period,” something especially important when writing a long work. The “quiet time” spent germinating and cultivating the seeds of what is growing within you. Through this internal process you build up the zeal to tackle the novel. Only the author knows for sure if enough time has been invested in each step of the process: completing the initial preparatory work, giving the ideas concrete shape, letting them fully “settle” in a cool, dark place, exposing them to the natural light when they are ready, carefully inspecting them, and then tinkering. The quality of the time spent doing these things will manifest itself in the persuasiveness of the completed work. It is an invisible process, but the difference it makes is huge.

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. I think most Japanese will know what I am talking about. When we enter a hot spring we heave a deep sigh of contentment, for we immediately feel the difference on our skin. If we try to explain that feeling to someone who has never visited a hot spring, we find ourselves at a loss for words.

I think great literature, and great music, follow a somewhat similar pattern. While the temperature of the bathwater at home and at the hot spring may be similar, soaking our naked bodies in them yields different results. We know this through our skin. Yet that “physical” knowledge cannot be expressed in language. The best we can do is “Yeah, the heat seeps in somehow—can’t really explain it.” If someone counters, “But the temperature is the same—it must be psychological,” then we (especially someone as ignorant of science as I am) can offer little in reply.