Writers are now tense
Today, I recommend an interview with Xu Xiaoya in the second column of the fifth issue of Novel Monthly In 2022, "Writers Now".
Xu Xiaoya, born in 1987 in Nanning, Guangxi, is a doctoral candidate. He won the first prize in the New Concept Essay Competition. His works have been scattered in publications such as "Zhong Shan", "Southern Literature", "Contemporary Literature", "Youth Literature", "Yuhua", "Guangxi Literature" and other publications, and some works have been reprinted in selected publications. Published the novel collection "The Girl and the Titanic" and "Innocence".
Q: Novel Monthly A: Xu Xiaoya
Q
Please describe what you have just finished or are working on.
A: I just finished a novella called The Deep Sea Hotel. I wrote a novel of the same title in the summer of 2021. I tried to write it as an allegorical story, but I was not very successful and not satisfied, so I only left the image of the "octopus" in the novel. Before, most of the novels I wrote were related to family life: mother-daughter relationship, father-daughter relationship. I hope to make some new changes through "The Deep Sea Hotel" and leave the original theme comfort zone. "The Deep Sea Hotel" is about two women who reflect on an event in their lives that has a deep impact on them, and in the process of reflection, they realize that they are like "octopuses", predators who occupy high positions of power. This "plunder" not only hurts others, but also casts a lingering shadow on itself. I also try to think through the dialogue of the protagonist: when we become a power person in a sense, how can we avoid the original "desire to conquer" in our hearts and thus obtain true inner freedom.
Q
Do you have a fixed private writing habit?
A: For a while I liked handwritten novels, which were typed into the computer after they were written. This allowed me to make changes during the process of entering the computer, but this method was time-consuming and laborious, and I did not stick to it. Now I'm used to writing with my phone memos. When I have inspiration, I write on my phone memos and write novels directly on my memos. There are several advantages to writing this way: first of all, my mobile phone memos and computers are synchronized, and everything written on the memos can be seen directly on the computer; secondly, because the mobile phone memos have a reading function, I will use the reading function in the writing process to consider whether there is harmony between the words and sentences in the novel. I pay great attention to the harmony of "sounds" between words and sentences, which is a very important part of the language art of fiction.
Q
Do you think writers can be trained?
A: Writers can be trained, especially for young writers. Young writers may rely on their own intuition when they are new to writing, how to set up stories, characters, and how language is used, which may all rely on the experience accumulated by long-term reading. Writing requires a certain degree of talent, but how to maintain talent is the task of "cultivation". Everyone's understanding of literature is limited or even biased, the way of writing may be stubborn and stubborn, through some specific training methods, writers can broaden their horizons, and may also change their cognitive way, out of the original comfort zone, and into the new literary wilderness.
Novel Monthly, No. 5, 2022, covered column II
eye
record
short story
This is not the case with Qiushan Mountain
(From Chinese Writers, No. 3, 2022)
Often small amber big dog
(From Beijing Literature, No. 4, 2022)
Ms. Fan Xiaoqing Feng Tsuen
(From The Writer, No. 3, 2022)
Pan xiang Li Lan Tinghui
(Selected from People's Literature, No. 3, 2022)
Li Hao was like a shadow, like something else
(From Jiangnan Journal, No. 2, 2022)
Kim In-soon causes
(From Zhongshan, No. 2, 2022)
Fan Yiping became a soldier
(From Xiangjiang Literature and Art, No. 2, 2022)
Zhang Ce moved the sun over the top of the mountain
(From Woodpecker, Issue 2, 2022)
Wei Sixiao's spouse
(Selected from Hunan Literature, No. 3, 2022)
novelette
Zhu Chaomin when the raven roosts
(From Hibiscus, No. 2, 2022)
Meng Xiaoshu hunting
(From October, No. 2, 2022)
Yang Zhihan delicious medicine
(Selected from Shanxi Literature, No. 4, 2022)
The story of Shi Shuqingtao
(From Flower City, No. 2, 2022)
Liu Xiaozhen our relatives
(From The Writer, No. 3, 2022)