Today, I wanted to write something solemn and reflective, rather than in the light-hearted literary style of my novels. But no matter how many times I try to rewrite this, I just can’t seem to get rid of my original style. So I’ve decided to write tonight’s piece just as the light novel author and high school student, Shiyo Takaoka.
It’s already been two whole years since my novel debuted, in my third year of junior high. I guess fifteen is a pretty young age to make it big. I just thought up a story that I’d like to see published, scribbled it down, and submitted it for fun. Then, I unexpectedly won an award for it, and my life changed big time.
I don’t mean to brag, but I’ve received loads of offers to have my book made into a movie, and to have it translated and sold abroad. But I’ve rejected them all. Look, I believe that Japanese people especially would enjoy reading my book. My writing style wasn’t meant to be superficial; I was just trying to mirror the fads, trends, and colloquial expressions of junior-high and high-school girls these days. As a current high-school student, I wanted other girls my age, who only live in Japan, to read and understand my story only in Japanese. It would be such a nuisance to have it translated! I refuse to consent to that. This is my personal decision as a professional author and I plan to stick to it.
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Until I won that award, I didn’t stand out much at school. I wasn’t an excellent student and didn’t study very much. But the moment that Kimikageso debuted, everyone went nuts over it, and I really got to bathe in the spotlight.
People often tell me that the title of my novel, Kimikageso, sounds pretty somber and austere. But my novel isn’t stiff at all; it’s actually super easy to get through. I wrote it in a simpler style so that teens like me could breeze through it.
Kimikageso is about a fifteen-year-old girl who, accidentally finding out that she is adopted, goes searching for her real father and secretly writes him letters. It’s an epistolary novel, told from the perspective of their letters to one another, but her father’s very last letter is blank, with only a pressed flower inside of it. In truth, her father collapsed from an illness that rendered him unable to speak or write, and he had dedicated his last bit of strength to putting all his love into the last letter…and then the story ends.
My story was born from one of my daydreams. It was something I came up with trying to imagine what it would be like if I had been adopted. Everyone has thought about this at least once, right? I decided to make the main character a very contemporary girl. The story grew from there, and I ended up writing it all in one sitting.
I wanted my novel to convey the importance of family ties. We live in a world where relationships tend to wear thin, and I wanted people to realize how precious these connections really are…Well, okay, maybe I’m exaggerating a little bit.
I was so surprised when I was nominated for the literary prize in the young adult novel category, and it felt even more unreal when I actually won it. I was just so grateful and embarrassed. But I was proud to know that my message had really gotten out there. I always liked to write, but I never imagined that I would actually debut as an author!
Everyone at school freaked out after I won the award. The principal publicly commended me at school and all these TV shows and magazines were doing stories on me. I became, like, famous overnight. Since my novel had become so popular, Itsumi Shiraishi invited me into the Literature Club when I got into high school.
The high school Literature Club she’d revived. No one could join this exclusive club without Itsumi’s invitation. At the time, Itsumi and Sayuri were the only two members because no one was cool enough to live up to their standards.
The special salon, tucked away in the corner of the annex, sounded so gorgeous from the rumors I had heard! All the girls in junior high knew about the salon and everyone wanted in. I used to look out the window and secretly wish, not even to be a member, but just to be invited to drink tea with them someday. After all, I knew an average student like me would never be good enough for a world of such grace.