• Café Life is the Colony's main hangout, watering hole and meeting point.

    This is a place where you'll meet and make writing friends, and indulge in stratospherically-elevated wit or barometrically low humour.

    Some Colonists pop in religiously every day before or after work. Others we see here less regularly, but all are equally welcome. Two important grounds rules…

    • Don't give offence
    • Don't take offence

    We now allow political discussion, but strongly suggest it takes place in the Steam Room, which is a private sub-forum within Café Life. It’s only accessible to Full Members.

    You can dismiss this notice by clicking the "x" box

A Literary Agony Uncle

Invest in You. Get Full Membership now.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Paul Whybrow

Full Member
Joined
Jun 20, 2015
Location
Cornwall, UK
LitBits
0
Haruki Murakami, the Japanese novelist became an agony uncle earlier this year. He had a website dedicated to answering questions and problems put to him. His experiment in offering counselling last three and a half months, with some humorous answers that showed his unusual take on the world.

haruki_murakami_cat.jpg


http://www.welluneednt.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/books/20...ses-readers-writing-adultery-cats-agony-uncle

If you haven't read any of his work, I recommend that you do, as it will make you reconsider how a book is structured and paced. I read ‘The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle’ a couple of years ago, and though it’s narrative flowed easily not a lot appeared to be happening in the story – except that it was all going on beneath the surface, literally in one part of the plot. It was very clever and memorable. I loved the book cover design, and there have been scores of others for this novel, such is the cult of Murakami :

HM-WindUpBirdChronicle(2010HarvilleSecker%20limited%20edition).jpg


Does writing come naturally? I like what he has to say on the subject :

Writing is like “chatting up a woman”, Japan’s superstar novelist Haruki Murakami has said: “You can get better with practice to a certain degree, but basically, you're either born with it, or you're not.”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Further Articles from the Author Platform

Latest Articles By Litopians

  • Then Someone Said
    . I thought I’d play the rapping game: words in rhythm (no chance of gain). . Shyness prevailed, b ...
  • The Language Of Place
    Pimp, dick, bumfit admittedly sounds well dodgy. Or at least it does if you don’t live in these pa ...
  • If the Protagonist Had Slept in
    The PROTAGONIST’S room. Chapter One’s bloodstained clothes still cover the floor. The DIRECTOR s ...
  • A Fresh Start
    There comes a point in life* when you must admit that you were wrong. A story is trundling along at ...
  • The Book They Actually Wanted
    Writers need feedback, and I have found the perfect focus group*. It offers raw, physical reactions, ...
  • People Like Those: Aigneis
    Aigneis is a diminutive lady in her 80s, still sharp of mind, though frail of limb. She moved to Bir ...
  • Where it all started
    When Alphonse de Lamartine said “music is the literature of the heart,” I’m pretty sure he was ...
What Goes Around
Comes Around!
Back
Top