The 4 Most Important Things I Learned From Haruki Murakami’s Writing Philosophy
By: Casimir Mura
Tags: Fiction, Writing, Japanese, Creativity, Books

The 4 Most Important Things I Learned From Haruki Murakami’s Writing Philosophy Casimir Mura Follow Oct 4 · 7 min read

These are the gems I unearthed from his ‘memoir’.

Haruki Murakami | Source

Haruki Murakami is a novelist. And although he may not exactly look like it, he’s also a marathon writer. In his book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running, he discusses his journey as a marathon runner and how this impacted his writing philosophy.

In the foreword, Murakami mentions a mantra that he had read in the International Herald Tribune in an article about running.

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 4)

The majority of the book is just Murakami talking about running. However, at certain moments, Murakami talks about how his thought process behind running bleeds into writing. Since running and writing can both be painful to certain extents, this isn’t too surprising.

Anyone who has written anything knows the feeling of being stuck or writer's block. They know the pain associated with writing. Within a few moments of this book, Murakami points out some of the pains with writing and how to alleviate the suffering that’s attached to them.

Pay Attention to the World Around You

A big factor of appeal for Murakami’s writing is that he takes us to worlds where the border between reality and supernatural is hard to distinguish. It doesn’t surprise me then that Murakami values his experience of running a bar in Tokyo over anything he learned while he was at university as a source of inspiration for his writing.

Sometimes we are so caught up in our own lives that we forget there are always people around us with their own inner lives. Of course, all life experiences are not equal. Murakami had the good fortune of encountering all sorts of strange people.

Running a service-oriented business means you have to accept whoever comes through the door. No matter who comes in, unless they’re really awful, you have to greet them with a friendly smile on your face. Thanks to this, though, I met all kinds of offbeat people and had some unusual encounters. Before I began writing, I dutifully, even enthusiastically, absorbed a variety of experiences. For the most part, I think I enjoyed these and all the stimuli that they brought. (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 17)

Although we are not all owners of bars or places of intermittent chaos, I believe Murakami brings up a very important point about how a writer should live his life. He seems to be pointing out the importance of embracing the things you encounter instead of avoiding them.

As anyone else has, I have had my fair share of painful life experiences that I’ve tried to sweep under the rug. However, I realized that I was only able to deal with and process these experiences after I had written them down. In the process of writing them down, I had finally resolved the matter in my head and unmapped a little bit more of the world.

The experiences I’ve successfully written down have turned out to be great sources of inspiration for my fiction writing. Whenever I’m struggling with a scene or a particular chapter, I tend to think back on my own experiences and if any of them are particularly relevant to the section that I’m working on.

Forget about Pleasing Everyone (In All Aspects of Life)

Any writer who has received criticism on a written work will not be surprised at all by this point. The fact of the matter is that you can’t impress everyone with your work. So, you should strive to reach your target audience.

Murakami held this stance when he was running a bar during his 20s and he still holds it during his 50s. Evidently, his philosophy of running his bar transferred over well to his writing.

I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing, not associating with all the people around me. I felt that the indispensable relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers. (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 20)

While we’re writing, we may be tempted to consider how we can alter the content to make it applicable to as many people as possible. This creates a misalignment with our goals for the work and our idea of what we think the public wants. If we’re constantly striving to reach everyone, we might find that we haven’t said anything worthwhile to keep anyone around.

We’ve seen this countless times before with authors that didn’t reach critical acclaim until they’ve passed away. We’re not guaranteed anything by sticking to our resolve and motivation when it comes to writing, but this brings us to an important question: Why did we start writing in the first place?

Most people start writing for themselves. The medium can vary wildly, but the spark is always the same. They have something that they want to create, share, or investigate through writing.

I went on writing the kind of things I wanted to write, exactly the way I wanted to write them, and if that allowed me to make a normal living, then I couldn’t ask for more. (What I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 21)

Balance Your Writing with Outside Activities

In a way, this entire book is Murakami talking about how he’s utilized running as a way to stay fit while being a novelist. Given that being a novelist requires long hours at a desk, it doesn’t surprise me that most people and media have the perception that being a writer is an unhealthy activity. Murakami addresses this point head-on.

Basically, I agree with the view that writing novels is an unhealthy type of work. When we set off to write a novel, when we use writing to create a story, like it or not a kind of toxin that lies deep down in all humanity rises to the surface. All writers have to come face-to-face with this toxin and, aware of the danger involved, discover a way to deal with it because otherwise, no creative activity in the real sense can take place. (What I Talk About When I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 46)

Writing, whether from experience or from external sources, can be a way of bringing the dark and hidden to the surface. By taking certain stances in writing, a writer is throwing their thoughts and feelings at the mercy of the rest of the world. Murakami also mentions that prolonged exposure to this ‘toxin’ can eventually lead to burnout.

Although he doesn’t offer a clear cut solution in the book, he mentions that a writer must develop an immunity to this ‘toxin’ by developing their physical body. This clearly connects to his stance and opinion on the importance of running for his own fiction writing, but I think the meaning is multi-faceted here.

Writing is especially important to a lot of us, but it cannot be the foundation that we lay our entire being on. By doing so, we are placing ourselves at risk of pretty much having the carpet pulled away from underneath our feet. There has to be another way. Of course, writing will always be one of your top priorities, but you should also strive to balance your life with other purposeful activities, social interactions, and exercises.

Personally, I feel that making music allows me to focus on something else entirely while keeping the narratives of my stories running in the back of my head. Even though I’m not thinking of them directly, I uncover things I hadn’t thought about before. In a way, it helps me to sharpen my dedication when I am actually writing without worrying so much about my craft.

Realize the Importance of Developing Focus and Endurance

The final piece of advice from Murakami revolves around his assertion of the most important qualities for a novelist to have. He mentions that the first and most important quality is talent. The following two are focus and endurance.

You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee the results will come. (What I Talk About When I Talk About When I Talk About Running pg. 37)

Concentration is a skill like any other. It has to be developed over time. The only way that we can develop it is by integrating it into our writing practice. Relying on a muse is unpredictable, unreliable, and will not satisfy the intended output of most writers.

By having faith in the process, we can cast away our worries around our external goals and focus on the craft of writing itself. Although, like training a muscle, the results are not immediately self-evident, over time you start to see the effect that sticking to something can have.

To return to the mantra that was mentioned at the beginning of this article, writing can be a painful process at times. However, like most activities, we have a choice in how much we have to suffer. By constantly looking for new sources of inspiration in the world around us, realizing that we are at the heart of our written work, reminding ourselves that there is life outside of writing, and having faith in the writing process, we can relinquish some of that suffering and continue to develop as writers.