Although I’ve only read one book by Haruki Murakami, ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’, that I found just a bit confusing, particularly the ending (in my defense, I found out later that Wild Sheep Chase was the last book in a trilogy – the novel might have made more sense to me if I knew that and had read the other two novels first), I have been drawn to his work and bought ‘Novelist as a Vocation’, his latest. Not his usual fiction novel but a non-fiction book (he does have other non-fiction books) it is packed full of useful information that every writer could use, particularly if you are not a traditional author, the category I find myself in since I write in a variety of genres and don’t seem to have a fixed style (think of James Patterson).
Every author could use a companion like the one I found in Murakami. He not only shares his life as an author and how he got here, a stranger in a strange land, and the work he did before becoming an author, but so much more to encourage us along the way. I think the key is to find friends in influential places and he did, particularly at the New Yorker.
But you have to be good, that is the most important lesson for any writer to learn – keep writing, keep learning your trade, keep sending your work out and getting feedback. Although we each have our paths to follow, a little guidance from one of the masters can only help.
I rate “Novelist as a Vocation” 4.5 out of 5 stars