Ask the Author: Michael Hoffman
Answered Questions (3)
Michael Hoffman
Other Worlds is a collection of short fiction set mostly in Japan. At first as I was writing I thought of them as prose haiku. The working title was Haiku Stories. Then I thought, "Not so much haiku as noh..." Yes, I think noh was the basic inspiration. Noh drama... there's nothing quite like it. It has a way of taking you to... well, to other worlds. Other worlds within this one.
Michael Hoffman
A novel that is not a novel. An anti-novel. It's called Arimasen. That means "is not" in Japanese. It's taking me places I didn't know existed - but they do exist, you just have to find them. The final product, years down the road, will be 2000 pages boiled down to 200. Or... maybe I'll serve it up raw!
Michael Hoffman
Fail. Fail badly, fail bitterly. Taste the bitterness of failure. Maybe then you'll say to yourself, "This is not for me, I'll go back to college and get a law degree" - or something. Fine. Or maybe you'll say, "No, I'll carry on in spite of my failure." In which case... better go back to college and get a law degree. Who's a writer, then? He or she who says, "I'm a writer BECAUSE OF my failure! Failure is bitter but good!" In a word: beware of success. It softens you and betrays you. You start to pursue it for its own sake. And when that happens - what's left of the writer in you?
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