Sugaru Miaki's Three Days of Q&A
[Fafoo, pen name Sugaru Miaki, did a series of Q&A's on Twitter. He answered like a hundred questions. Here goes!]
As part of a campaign, I decided, let's do something for Three Days of Happiness day! So I'll be doing a question-and-answer on Twitter. For the three days from now to December 20th, I'll answer all your questions. Go right ahead.
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Q. Is there a book that changed your life?
A. There are many. In fact, I dare say I feel my life changing every time I read a book. Depending on your perspective, maybe it's more rare to find a book that doesn't change your life.
Q. Are you ever going to improve Azure and Claude and make it a book???
A. I get this question occasionally. To tell the truth, even my editor asks me the same thing. However, I personally just don't feel like rewriting that story. At least for now.
Q. Where did the names Miyagi and Kusunoki come from?
A. I don't remember most of the details, but I believe I looked at a map, and those names stood out to me. I'm extremely poor at thinking up names for my characters.
Q. Miaki-san, what do you think is the happiness in daily life? It can just be a small thing, of course.
A. When I'm able to present something incredibly ordinary in my writing in a way that feels like "there's nothing better," I feel a little happiness. It's not something I can do often, though.
Q. What do you value in writing stories?
A. I write things which I feel I'd like to read. Even if it's a little shoddy, if you write a book that answers your expectations 100%, surely someone with similar sensibilities will enjoy it.
Q. Who is the author you respect most?
A. Haruki Murakami. He said that when he first read Raymond Chandler, it left a deep impression of "You can have fun writing!" And I got that very same impression from A Wild Sheep Chase.
Q. Out of every book I've read in my life, Three Days of Happiness is the one that sticks most in my heart. How was such a story born?
A. Thank you very much. I think the reason Three Days of Happiness is the most esteemed of my books is because it's an earnestly "compelling" story. In short, I wanted to sell my lifespan too.
Q. Are there are female characters in your commercial works who are modeled after close friends, celebrities, or other real people?
A. I try to write characters without a real-life model. But I'm certain there must be unconscious influences from others. Maybe I don't want to admit I'm modeling a character after a person.
Q. Does "writing talent" exist, I wonder? Is there any work you feel influenced you most in writing, or you learned a lot from?
A. I think there's always talent not only for writing, but for all things. As far as literary talent, I think it's largely based on whether or not you naturally take a careful look at everything.
Q. Including Genfuukei-era stories, what's your favorite line you've written?!
A. I very quickly forget the things I write, so I'll just quote from my latest book: [Minor Spoilers for The Place I Called From] "I would probably be a happy slave to these memories until the day I died."
Q. Have you listened to Bremen (Kenshi Yonezu)? If you have, please tell me your favorite song.
A. The one I listen to most frequently right now is Metronome. By the way, besides just Bremen, I listen to Urban Playground, One Stale Bus, and Town a lot.
Q. How did you come to like writing?
A. Come to think of it, we're taught in such a way that makes us hate writing. Perhaps the only way to be freed from that curse is encountering writers who make us think "I'd want to read anything this person wrote."
Q. When was the last time you cried?
A. When I watched the movie Death Proof. Though it was crying with laughter.
Q. I've come from Iwate to Tokyo, and I'm uncomfortable here. If you got familiar with this place quickly, please give me guidance.
A. I did get used to it so quickly it even surprised me, but the lack of any smell of greenery is a little lonely. I realized I liked nature more than I thought.
Q. Do you plan on releasing more short stories online as "Genfuukei"?
A. I'm not considering it at the moment. I wrote online at the time because that was how I could get the most people to read, so now that the medium of books is open to me, I don't really feel much necessity to write online.
Q. Luckily, someone else asked the question I wanted to ask. To avoid overlap, what's your favorite movie or anime?
A. I can't narrow down an answer if you include all movies, so I'll just stick to favorite anime. Cowboy Bebop. I feel like all of entertainment is packed within it.
Q. What should I do to become an adult like you?
A. I suppose keep chasing the things you like, and keep running from the things you dislike. I can't recommend it.
Q. Are you happy now, Miaki-san?
A. By way of addition I'm unhappy, by way of subtraction I'm happy. Because I live a very quiet life.
Q. What's your motive for writing stories?
A. An aspiration for "other lives." I feel people will put aside the question of whether they're satisfied with their current life and aspire to "other lives," and that's especially strong for me.
Q. What's your favorite phrase or motto?
A. "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was music." From Kurt Vonnegut.
Q. Personally, I get a different impression from the original Three Days of Happiness and the book version. Do you prefer one or the other?
A. I did spend more time on writing it, so I prefer the book version. I do think the lack of detail in the web version engenders a poetic feeling, and the limited characters per line give it a sense of rhythm, but the book is where I wrote what I wanted to without excess.
Q. I'm suddenly curious. Where did your name come from, Miaki-san?
A. I don't really remember either. I think I found that many of my favorite authors had pen names starting with M, so I looked for a good-sounding one starting with M.
Q. Many novels have been published throughout history. Readers may think "this is like ___" or "this is ___-esque," but I think it's inevitable you'll be influenced by others. So my question: As an author, where do you think originality is?
A. I don't much trust the idea of "originality," and think that most works people write, it wouldn't be too odd if they were written by someone else. In the same way that if Newton hadn't discovered universal gravitation, someone else would have.
Q. When thinking up stories, do you get sudden inspiration from daily events, or do you have to think about it?
A. Both. I think the core of a story is inspiration that suddenly comes to mind, but the way you make that inspiration into a story is with ideas you have to "think up."
Q. Miaki-san, what do you think unhappiness is?
A. Wouldn't it be a state of "I'm not doing what I want to be doing"? As I'm often told, unhappiness is relative, and everything is subjective.
Q. What storybooks did you like as a child?
A. Then and now, I like The Cat That Lived a Million Times.
Q. Do you have any favorite games?
A. My Summer Vacation, I suppose. Also, I was way into Resident Evil and Parasite Eve in high school. Looking back now, it's not horror games I liked - rather, I liked games where you wandered around a dead town.
Q. Hello. I don't read many books, but I've been a fan since you were "Genfuukei." So I want to know authors who write books like yours. Please tell me if there's anyone who influenced you or has a similar style.
A. I feel like a lot of people who say they like my books say they also like Otsuichi. I personally remember thinking when I read Rendezvous in a Dark Place in middle school, "Aren't there more authors like this?"
Q. I'd like to know any movies you'd recommend to a reader who loves your books.
A. It's a famous one, but I recommend Buffalo '66. Though it's a story only hopeless men can emphasize with.
Q. I love Kotaro Isaka and Yukito Ayatsuji's mystery novels. Do you have any favorite mystery writers, or books to recommend?
A. I'm honestly not very good at solving true mysteries. I guess I'd say I like "mysteries with questions included," like what Otaro Maijo and Yuya Sato do.
Q. Hello, Miaki-san. You're my favorite author. I write books as a hobby, but I can never write exciting or climactic scenes. What do you pay attention to when writing those?
A. I think it's natural that things get cold if you follow a pre-written outline to the letter. I suppose developments that slightly deviate from the plot and unexpected sentences are part of the trick to "surprise instead of bore."
Q. What do you do when you can't work up any motivation, or feel like you're in a slump...?
A. I believe we should study not "how to work up motivation," but "how to do it even without motivation." Having no motivation isn't the problem; I think the conviction that "I can't do it without being motivated" is the enemy. So start by discarding that.
Q. Your writing style strikes me as being like the protagonist is writing what happened after they've experienced it. Why do you do it like that?
A. There are various reasons, but a large part of it is "to have a detached viewpoint." Maybe it's a means of confirming that when even sad, or lonely, or embarrassing things are put in the distant past and looked back upon, they can be deeply interesting, that's not a one-time phenomenon.
Q. Do you like to study? And if there's any meaning to studying, please tell me.
A. Just an opinion, but in all subjects, I think studying is necessary for the viewpoint of understanding "how things came about." When you study one thing, it makes studying other things easier. Through that chain, people can study how life came about, can't they?
Q. What's your favorite scene in Three Days of Happiness? Mine is the vending machine tour, incidentally.
A. Probably the scene when Miyagi sees Kusunoki not even trying to put up an umbrella, so she closes her own. I like that rather than "the kindness of letting you into my umbrella," it's "the kindness of us both closing our umbrellas."
Q. What do you think about electronic books?
A. I think they're handy and wonderful. Occasionally I hear people say "Won't electronic books make paper books go extinct?", but I think people's faith in "paper books" is more intense than we realize, so I don't feel like there's any crisis.
Q. I'm happy to have the chance to send a question to my favorite author. You wrote a number of short stories on Genfuukei; do you ever intend to release a short story collection?
A. If I can afford to do so, I think I'd like to write a compilation of short stories like Rock and Rope and Smoking Town. I love stuff like that, for being stuff like that.
Q. Kenshi Yonezu occasionally comes up in your tweets and journal entries. What kind of figure is Yonezu-san to you?
A. I generally look at other people's works and think "Ahh, that's well made," as if they're just strangers. But when I listen to Kenshi Yonezu's songs, I think "Ahh, so this is what happens if you do what I want to do a hundred times better..." So he's that kind of figure.
Q. Which of Haruki Murakami's short stories do you like?
A. Last Lawn of the Afternoon, from A Slow Boat to China. I've read it dozens of times.
Q. I'm trying to think of what I want to ask you, but I'm worrying way too deeply about being rude. Please insult me.
A. When Kenshi Yonezu was answering questions, I too hesitated to send a question even though I wanted to ask things, so I know how you feel.
Q. It seems like all your protagonists like to smoke. Do you have any personal opinion on smoking?
A. Just recently, when The Wind Rises was airing, there were people complaining there were too many smoking scenes. But smoking, murder, revenge, weapons, drugs - they may be bad things in reality, but the fact of the matter is, they have definite functions in a story.
Q. Hello, Miaki-san. How do you think you can find salvation for things you regret not doing in your youth?
A. I think the things you didn't do in your youth really don't matter. You have two choices: either pretend to forget them, or wage a head-on war with no hope of victory (or gather things similar to what you lost).
Q. Music comes up fairly often in your works and tweets, it seems. I want to know what you like about music and why you're drawn to it.
A. This is just my opinion, but if novels are a medium characterized by freedom and imperfection, music is a medium characterized by lack of freedom and perfection. It's fun going between the two with their contrary natures.
Sorry, but I'll have to cut the questions off here for today. I really didn't think I'd receive this many questions... I'll resume this tomorrow night, so I'll see you then.
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I think it's time to begin the second day of question-and-answer.
Q. What time of day do you like?
A. It depends on the season, but I always like the time just before night. Those dim times are the shortest in the day, so I still haven't gotten tired of that degree of light.
Q. The part of Three Days of Happiness that left the biggest impression was the bookstore owner saying "Don't trust the advice of a failure like me." Are those your own thoughts, Miaki-san?
A. I'm always thinking it. But when you're about to give someone warnings or advice, I think you should ask yourself "Is this advice really for their sake?" If you do, you'll find a fair amount of the time that you just want to feel useful (maybe it's just me).
Q. When did you start writing what you could call stories? And what was the impetus?
A. I've received many questions along those lines. I don't remember very well, but I think I was around 15. The feeling was less that something made me want to write stories, but there being no outlet for my interests in anything except stories.
Q. The characters in your stories have an objective viewpoint on their present selves, like they're aged people looking at their younger selves. Besides that, there's a lot of charm in your contrarian ways of thinking. Was there some event that made you decide to think of things from that differing viewpoint?
A. People often say I write in a contrarian way, but I personally feel I'm writing incredibly naturally. Even to people in my same generation, I wonder if what we consider "natural" is constantly being changed by natural refractions.
Q. What do you think people live for?
A. This will be a very irresponsible answer, but to me, life is like an arcade game you mistakenly insert a coin into. There's no fantastic meaning behind that, but just the sense of "Well, it's starting, so I'll at least make the most of my hundred yen."
Q. A word for the students of today?
A. With social media, free apps, and game consoles, it must be difficult for the students of today to study with such a staggering number of temptations about. Good luck.
Q. [Not available.]
A. More than just literature, it seems there are many fields of study which people shamefully feel "have no practical use." But in the distant future, when the whole Earth is incredibly bountiful, if those things with "no practical use" aren't still around, I think there'll be nothing to do.
Q. Do you smoke? If you do, tell me your favorite brand.
A. I've gotten several questions about cigarette brands. I wonder why? I don't smoke much lately, but up to a while ago, I remember smoking Lark, Short Hope, and Pall Mall.
Q. I love Three Days of Happiness. Can I ask a question? What thoughts were you thinking as a student? I'm really captivated by your protagonists' thoughts.
Q. How should I say this... The future Kusunoki was going to have in Three Days of Happiness is exactly a future I imagined for myself as a student. Of course, I wasn't always so pessimistic, and it's nothing more than a worst-case but plausible future I pictured.
Q. In your novels, what are the non-fiction elements? For instance, parts based on your own experience. (I'm a foreigner using a machine translator. Sorry.)
A. Well, for instance, vending machine hunting is one of my own hobbies. Rare vending machines are fun just to look at, and the process of finding them, honing my vending machine senses and going down country roads, is fun too.
Q. To write, you need to read a lot, or you can't express yourself well. But the more I read, I feel the author's world polluting and infringing on my world. Is that just me?
A. There are many views on this, but my personal thought is that whatever part of you isn't influenced by something as small as reading a person's book is "your world." In fact, that which remains standing after being influenced by every possible other would be "your world."
Q. Everything is at a standstill for me in grades, relationships, and clubs, and I'm depressed. I see everything pessimistically. What should I do at a time like this?
A. This is only my own method, but when I'm sad, I just get excessively sad, and wait for the later reaction of "I guess that was overblown..." There's no chance of winning a head-on battle with melancholy.
Q. Do you think blood type influences people's personality?
A. I don't think there's a direct connection, but say there was a person with an average personality and AB blood. If they keep being told "AB? Now that you mention it, maybe you are like that," they might become convinced they're an oddball.
Q. I want to know what you'd ask if told you could ask someone you aspire to anything. Sorry if this was already asked...
A. When I once got to met an author I aspire to, after much thought, I realized there wasn't really much I wanted to ask. Your relationship with an author you aspire to might just end with the text they wrote.
Q. Miaki-san, what do you think of "love," as you wrote in Pain, Pain, Go Away?
A. It may sound like a random thing to say, but the idea of "love" passed down in Japan these days is like an imported product. A lot of our words related to romance are loan words, aren't they? That's why I find it amusing to call it things like "a charming theory" or "an excellent invention."
Q. Apparently you were born in Iwate? A word to the high school students of Morioka, please!!!
A. Aren't you so jealous of where Seio High is located?
Q. I loved my middle school days, so I think about how I'd go back to them if I could. When would you want to go back to?
A. There are many times I would return to, but I may be remembering only the good things, and all those times might have their own respective hells. Thinking about experiencing that again makes me see how traveling to the past truly is a puzzle.
Q. I have a habit of falling into a gloomy mood. It's to the point where lately, it feels abnormal when I feel good... What thoughts do you have on "negativity"?
A. "This might not go well" is a good kind of negativity, I think. The people most easily hurt by failure need to use that kind of thing to protect themselves. Whereas "There's nothing good about anything, even if it does go well" is a very dangerous kind of negativity.
Q. Have you thought about just replying to everyone's questions with "I think it'd be great to raise a good-natured black cat!"
A. Yes. To be honest, I think one would more reliably approach happiness by owning a good-natured black cat rather than seeking advice from me. Such fantastic creatures. Just like Vonnegut said: "The only proof he needed for the existence of God was cats."
Q. Hello, I look at your Genfuukei works occasionally. I'm just no good at school, and particularly in middle school, felt like I was suffocating in a box called a "class." Did you enjoy middle school and high school, Miaki-san?
A. This will be some strange phrasing, but I enjoyed "not enjoying middle school or high school." Since I disliked school, I feel more strongly about my time liberated from school.
Q. What do you think is most important to making a dream come true?
A. I'm in no position to say anything self-important, but if you want to make a dream come true, it's important to constantly be re-examining "Is my effort going in the right direction? Is it enough?" Of course, more often than not, my dreams didn't come true...
Q. Reading Three Days of Happiness, I thought for myself about "forms of happiness." What forms of happiness would you say there are, Miaki-san?
A. One form of happiness I can think of is "days not threatened by alarm clocks and phone alarms."
Q. What would you do if you woke up in the morning and were the only person left in the world?
A. I think I'd walk on tall fences, lie down in the middle of roads, walk around dried-up ditches. Finally having the chance to do things which no adult with common sense would ever do.
Q. Are there any rumors or superstitions you've never been able to forget since hearing them, or still believe? The reasons too, if possible.
A. I found out later it was based on an old novel rather than being a real story, but I liked the famous online story of the Imaginary Girl of the Concentration Camp. [Summary: a chair in the corner of the room is reserved for an imaginary (invisible) 13-year-old girl, and literally everyone treats her with respect.] Stories that mix tragedy, comedy, and fun like that are nice.
Terribly sorry, but I'll be cutting off answers here for today. I'm looking through all your questions, but keep thinking too deeply about each one, so I couldn't get through much... I'll see you again tomorrow night.
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The final day of question-and-answer. I'll do my best to answer a lot...!
Q. I get sleepy at night, so I'm sending it now. Hello. When you die, how would you want to die? Also, is there anything you want to get done before you die? I laugh so much watching variety TV shows at home that I want to die.
A. I've received "what you want to do before you die" questions from several people. I'll just be honest and say I wouldn't know until that time comes. Right now, the best candidate is my previously-proposed "riding in the back of a pickup truck around country roads."
Q. How should people without lovers have a wonderful time on Christmas?
A. It's fun to go see frozen waterfalls and fish for pond smelt!
Q. Except for your latest book, all your protagonists are college students. What thoughts do you have on college? Also, I'm in college now, so please tell me what you think I should do.
A. I've gotten several questions about "what to do while I'm in college." But I spent most of my college days lazily, so I'm in no position to give advice. Maybe go places you might normally never go your whole life, and idly waste time?
Q. What meaning do "broken things" and "things which no longer function" have to you? Oh, and I love Three Days of Happiness!
A. It's slightly off-topic, but things which "fully serve one function," even after that function becomes meaningless, often still retain value just for their beauty. Wristwatches, cameras, pistols, swords, tube amps, etcetera. I like that conversion of value.
Q. Your books had a huge impact on me when I first read one. I'm a big fan now. I'm looking forward to more works to enjoy! By the way, who's your favorite heroine so far? Mine is Miyagi!
A. I've received several questions of the "who's your favorite character" type. I don't have many feelings of love or hate toward the characters I create. Maybe you could say there's the same distance you'd have with a blood relative.
Q. When you need, to sleep, at night, but you can't, what do you do?
A. "What do I do when I want to sleep, but can't?" is mankind's eternal riddle. I try to picture as vividly as I can the image of me the next day, having been unable to catch a wink, succumbing to terrible drowsiness. If it goes well, my brain starts to desire sleep.
Q. If there were things in this world which seemed unreal, would you believe them? Anything applies. Ghosts, aliens, ESP... I believe. Because if there were things like that, it would make my daily life something new...
A. Before asking whether ghosts and aliens exist, people should first think about what a laughably complete mystery our universe existing at all is, and how in that sense we're all living in an unrealistic world.
Q. Do you have a favorite food so good you'd want to eat it for life?? Or a hated food. Please tell me.
A. Whenever there was a celebration as a child, I was always taken to Bikkuri Donkey. As a result, to this day, the smell of Bikkuri Donkey hamburgers gives me the illusion that something good happened.
Q. I've always thought about what I'd ask my favorite authors, but ultimately I only want to do the act of asking, so the question itself is hollow. Is there something you want to value most in life?
A. I want to never forget my unrealized dreams and goals, and actively let them make me feel inferior. No small number of people seem to forget them and put on a face as if they've lived life exactly like they planned.
Q. How do you compromise with "the pain of living"?
A. People who feel the pain of living have the right to think "I must be deeply sensitive to feel the pain of living." This right is guaranteed by our constitution. It even says so in the Records of Ancient Matters. No matter who takes up complaint with you, it's true.
Q. I'm usually alone pretty often, and I like alone time a fair bit, but I still feel lonely sometimes. Do you feel lonely like this too, Miaki-san? And how do you deal with it?
A. It might make you feel a little better to realize that for us solitude-loving humans, "I get lonely sometimes" is an incredibly luxurious worry to have. It's similar for people who have the ultimate partner thinking "I want to be alone sometimes."
Q. Good evening. Sometimes, when I feel overwhelmed, I feel like going somewhere that isn't here. Where is this "somewhere that isn't here" to you?
A. It's a trite answer, but "somewhere that isn't here" is just "somewhere that isn't here," and nothing more. It's like the source of a rainbow: you can chase after it, but can never catch up. You can't do anything more than keep moving from the "here" you're at now.
Q. Lately, I've felt that I'm being haughty in many respects. Genfuukei-san, have you felt like this?? From a fellow kid born in 1990, I look forward to your new works!
A. I feel that way... right now, in fact. The moment I started this question-and-answer session, I've put myself on a high horse. I'm not in any position to give advice to other people.
Q. Good evening. I'm a high school student now. Is there anything you desire or want done by the high schoolers of today?
A. Please be kind to men around 25 years old.
Q. Parents and teachers often say to go to a good college and settle in a good company. And that that's the ideal. What is an ideal life?
A. One person advocating to another person that such-and-such life is ideal is like a squirrel suggesting an ideal life for a jellyfish. As much as the squirrel says about its ideal, it has nothing to do with the jellyfish. So please, don't worry about it.
Q. What questions are the hardest to answer?
A. Honestly, questions about writing technique and knowledge make me worry. I mean, that's what I want to ask. What should I do to write a good book?!
Q. Good evening. How can I tell the sense of distance I have with someone?
A. That's like asking a criminal "How do I live a pure and just life?" You can't expect a proper reply from me about anything regarding human relations.
Q. I'm bad at getting out of my bed in the morning in winter. What should I do?
A. Thinking deeply about that problem led to my current occupation. You should become an author. Apparently, even Ryu Murakami became a writer because he was bad at waking up early.
Q. Not so much a question, but a request... Please, a word for a high school student who just can't like school!
A. School is a towering pile of poop. If you can't like it, don't worry about it.
Q. If you alone knew the world would end tomorrow, what would you do?
A. Hum R.E.M.'s "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" as I eagerly await that moment.
Q. Do you think being able to think you have talent is in itself a talent?
A. Being able to think "I have talent" is a talent, but being able to think "I have no talent" is also a talent. When you're not succeeding, the former proves useful more often, and after you succeed, the latter proves more useful.
Q. When I see summer sunsets, girls in straw hats and white one-pieces, small shrines in the country, things like that, I cry. Do you have those moments too, Miaki-san?
A. There are two kinds of people. People who listen to songs like "Youth Age," "Summer," "Secret Base," and "Summer Shadow" and have their heart ache, and those who don't. I've heard rumor that there's been a surge of the former lately.
Q. Are you a dog person or a cat person?
A. I avoid talk of religion here. You never know when a dog extremist might be watching.
Q. Good evening, Miaki-san. I have two little sisters, and when they see me, they say "gross" and start crying. What should I do?
A. One called the Laughing Man put on a mask made of poppy petals to resolve such problems. Refer to this and be happy.
Q. Are you a Kinoko no Yama person or a Takenoko no Sato person? [Japanese snacks in an eternal rivalry.]
A. I avoid talk of religion here. You never know when a Kinoko no Yama extremist might be watching.
Q. If suddenly, without notice, someone squeezed lemon on your fried chicken, what would you do?
A. I think I would be grateful it was the chicken getting lemon suddenly squeezed on it and not me.
Q. Can people who live happy lives not become authors?
A. If people who live happy lives couldn't become authors, most successful authors would become unemployed. If there's anyone who can't become an author, it'd probably just be "a person who's never wanted to write."
Q. Were you the type to finish your summer homework in advance? Or the type to do it weeping on the last day?
A. The type to not finish it up to the very end. I believe at my elementary school, the rule was that if you didn't finish your summer homework, you'd get twice the homework every day. I still haven't finished it over ten years later, so I believe an astronomical amount of homework is still waiting for me.
Q. What is kindness like to you, Miaki-san?
A. One type of kindness is like a perfect crime. So skillful is their concern that the recipient doesn't even notice it was there. Thus, it's clear that it exists, but no one has ever seen it.
Q. [Not available.]
A. There are many ways to look at it, but I personally think it may be someone who you can share a lot of meaningless, fun times with. The reason it's hard to make best friends once you're an adult is those relationships inevitably have to become worthwhile.
Before I knew it, it's become the 21st. Thus, this will end the question-and-answers. Thank you for your many questions. It was a good opportunity to rethink about a lot of things. I'm terribly sorry to those I couldn't respond to. Perhaps another time.