Murakami Shares His Thoughts

Came across an e-mail forwarded by a friend back in 2001. (I'm a magpie collecting all kinds of things about writers and the writing process.) It contained an article by Anita Patil of The Observer following a student dialogue with the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami at Tufts University. I decided to retype part of it for the more sceptical participants on my creative writing course who can't quite believe that your subconscious will find you all the stories you need if you just allow it to let go. It lends a little much needed authority to my cause - if a highly respected and prolific writer says this ... it might just be true that writers can and do work this way.


“I write spontaneously,” Murakami said. “I don’t think about anything when I write, I don’t know anything when I write.”

He related his writing to computer games, saying that when he writes he is like the programmer and the player at the same time; the mind is divided in half.

Murakami discussed how we are living in a world that is reality but underneath, he strongly believes there is an “underground”. In addition, there is a kind of underground within his mind. “I have things in the back of my mind that are lying beneath my conscience. Writing for me is a passive way to get these thoughts inside of me, out.”

Murakami strongly emphasized that there is no underlying meaning beneath his works, and he does not want his work interpreted.

He does not plan anything; he just writes. “If I choose to write about sheep, it is because I happened to write about sheep. There is no deep significance.”



And I loved his advice to aspiring fiction writers, which really says it all:

“Don’t think too hard.”