Recently, with the publication of the new book "Half Wings" and "Meet the Warmth", Zhang Danuo's voluntary counseling for people with disabilities has reached 39 books. Zhang Danuo spent 26 years helping nearly 40 people with disabilities write, which is a unique and warm presence in the history of domestic publishing.
Over the years, Zhang Danuo often looks at the wanjia lights outside the window, he said, there may be disabled children in the wanjia lights, and there are parents who do not know how to help their children, "I always silently say in my heart, children don't worry, the book your parents bought for you will accompany you for a lifetime." And he's been working on the book that will accompany "you" for the rest of his life.
Books by people with disabilities
A letter turned him into a writing teacher
In Zhang Danuo's bookcase, 39 books such as "If I Can Walk for Three Days", "Grandma on the Clouds", "Dream above 110 centimeters", "My Left Hand Holds Your Right Hand" are neatly arranged, of which "If I Can Walk for Three Days" won the "Five One Project Award", "Dream above 110 centimeters" has been adapted into an inspirational movie, and "Grandma on the Cloud" has won an award after being made into a movie.
Zhang Danuo has a variety of identities as a journalist, editor, writer and since 1996, a chance to make him a writing teacher for people with disabilities. At that time, Zhang Danuo was still the editor of Heilongjiang Radio and Television News, and a letter from a reader made him nervous. The letter writer, Zhang Yuncheng, was only 18 years old and suffered from a variety of diseases, including muscle weakness. He mentioned in the letter that he was going to die, but had a regret and wanted to write a book as a writer. Zhang Yuncheng revealed the idea of taking his own life in the letter, Zhang Danuo decided to stabilize him and coax him first, in the reply letter, Zhang Danuo said that he could tutor and write books.
Zhang Danuo
Zhang Yuncheng only went to school for half a day, went to catch a cold in the morning, and returned home in the afternoon, but his brother taught him Hanyu Pinyin, so he used the Xinhua Dictionary to learn to recognize words, and it took several months for a newspaper to recognize words, and this tenacity is what Zhang Danuo values. What shocked Zhang Danuo even more was that when Zhang Yuncheng spent an hour climbing from under the kang to the kang, he also wrote a sentence: "At that moment, I felt that I conquered the whole world." Zhang Danuo then began to help sort out the writing materials, such as the scene when Zhang Yuncheng first learned Hanyu Pinyin, the moment when he picked up the pen for the first time, and so on. Zhang Yuncheng finished writing a part, Zhang Danuo revised it again, and so on, and completed the 170,000-word "If I Could Walk for Three Days" in 5 years.
The book was later published by Lijiang Publishing House and won several awards such as the "Five One Project Award". What Zhang Danuo did not expect was that many families of patients with muscle weakness regarded this book as an important spiritual support, and a Shandong boy changed his idea of taking a life after reading this book, and he decided to live like Zhang Yuncheng. At this time, Zhang Danuo also found that many disabled people with cerebral palsy and paralysis were trying to find books written by people who had the same fate as themselves, but they could not find them. At the same time, those life warriors who have overcome physical disabilities are subject to limited writing skills and lack of systematic training, and many inspirational stories have been buried in the human world.
Zhang Danuo decided to help people with disabilities systematically publish books from 2008, first from cerebral palsy, blind, deaf, albinism, paralysis, dwarfism and other different fields to find an author. Later, he found that some disabled friends did not dare to think about going to college, so he specially instructed the author to write how he was admitted to college with a disabled body, and some did not dare to fall in love, so he looked for disabled friends to write a book to guide marriage. Gradually, the writing topics tutored by Zhang Danuo began to become more and more abundant.
The process of getting out of the pain is the focus of the writing
For 26 years, Zhang Danuo has guided writing through telephone, QQ group and WeChat group. From 2008 to 2012, he said, he said, he spent six to ten p.m. every morning as his tutoring time, with only four or five days off throughout the year.
Zhang Danuo officially began to accept students from 2003, and by the end of 2008, he had established a student team of nearly 40 people, at this time his respective works had written nearly half or more, "If I guide them throughout the process, these books may all come out in 3 to 5 years, forming a scale of 5 million words, which is very tempting for me." So, at the end of that year, Zhang Danuo resigned from his career as a reporter for the Xinhua News Agency's International Herald after two months of choice and concentrated on tutoring his students in writing.
The average education level of these students is only primary and junior high school, but Zhang Danuo did not reduce the text requirements because of this, "the individual manuscripts were typed back 15 times, and finally passed only 800 words." He also explored a unique experience in his years of "teaching": students suffered from diseases, and they could not stop writing sad things at the beginning. Zhang Danuo said: "You wrote these books to save people, and readers do not value the process of your pain, but the process of how you came out of the painful state." So he laid down unwritten rules: write at most 20,000 words for painful processes, and 50,000 or 60,000 words on how to get out.
Zhang Danuo said that his students look back at the process of getting out of pain, but also the process of self-salvation again, "A person in nearly a year or two, combing how strong they are, how powerful, how to get out of pain, the writing process, will make them strong again." ”
Zhang Danuo did not just communicate with the students through voice and text, he also walked into the real life of these students, and was touched and shocked by one scene after another, "I accidentally watched them come out of the painful process, felt their lives, and felt that their little thing was not called a thing at all." He said he had gained tremendous nourishment and joy from it.
39 books hold up their piece of the sky
The power that writing brings to people with disabilities is truly enormous. 39 books, holding up their piece of the sky, their lives have never been the same.
Li Zhanbin, from Nong'an County, Jilin Province, suffered from cerebral palsy sequelae and met Zhang Danuo around 2015 and became a student studying writing. He recalled that Teacher Zhang first asked him to dictate a chapter, the content is feasible, and then he began to write, and after continuous revision, he moved on to the next chapter. Li Zhanbin once counted that Zhang Danuo had made 1500 minutes of counseling calls before and after, and in the end, he spent a year and a half to complete "Dream, Starting with the Left Hand".
Li Zhanbin
Ding Chuanhong, from Tonghua, Jilin Province, was paralyzed in both lower limbs due to illness when she was 14 months old, and the 46-year-old said: "Before I was in my 30s, I relied on my mother's back, and then I got into a wheelchair. At the end of 2008, Ding Chuanhong learned that Zhang Danuo tutored disabled people to write books, and went to his email address, "I don't even know why I wrote this letter, because I have not had any communication and connection with the outside world for many years." But she quickly received a reply, and also received a phone call from Beijing, and Zhang Danuo would call her every day for those days, life, family, daily trivialities, everything. Five or six days later, Zhang Danuo showed her cards: "Have you ever thought of writing a book, I can guide you." Ding Chuanhong went to school for several years, but because her sister was married and could not carry her to school, she had to drop out of school at home. As a child, she was alone and had vague dreams of writing, so she happily agreed.
Dante Chuanhong only went to the third grade of primary school, and did not understand anything about paragraphs, punctuation, and themes. She said: "I never cried when I was growing up because I couldn't walk, but I cried several times because I couldn't write well. After continuous training, Ding Chuanhong has published two books, "Living, Such a Happy Thing" and "Meeting Warmth". Her life has also been changed by writing, the local government gave her a low-cost rental house, Ding Chuanhong left the cottage that did not see the sun for many years, "My home, now the bed is full of sunshine." ”
Ding Chuanhong
Qian Mindan from Suzhou suffered from spinal muscular atrophy and could only lie in bed all day and only go out in a wheelchair. But she's working on her second book, which she says she's been writing about over the past decade of speaking and counseling clients. Zhang Danuo is still the tutor of her new book.
As early as the end of 2009, Qian Mindan wrote under Zhang Danuo, one morning, she could not write out a text message to the teacher, she still remembers the teacher's phone call, there is the sound of the car station, and the heavy breathing sound when walking, "I thought, how can I meet such a good teacher." Qian Mindan has since published "100 Reasons to Live", and her life has since been radiant, she has worked hard to pass the national second-level psychological counselor, received many visitors whose hearts have been suffering, and passed on the great love that Zhang Danuo passed on to her to more people.