Sentence 001 → Sentence 104

I have something I absolutely have to say.

The author of 『The Front Line of Writing』, which made the name of metaphor widely known, said this at the end of an interview.
“If I think there are many good books coming out that I don’t need to write, I probably won’t write one. But if I have something to say, I won’t write it.”

The author's writing history is unique.
Should I say that I have not taken any formal courses in writing?
After graduating from high school, I worked at a securities firm and became a full-time union activist. After getting married, I quit my job and had two children.
As a woman, mother, and wife, I wrote it 'when life gets tough and words get tangled.'
I never stopped writing.
At the age of thirty-five, I made my debut as a freelance writer, writing for an external newspaper, and also published a series of interviews in a magazine.
I worked for a social enterprise for a while, but I quit because I found it difficult to continue writing.
For the author, writing was probably synonymous with life.
So, if you can't 'write', isn't it true that you can't 'live'?
The author, who has considered writing as his life's work, has selected long and short words about writing from writers who have supported him while he was writing, and through these words about writing, he reflects on himself and his life of writing.
These are words of writing that create a metaphor for the writer, and I guess they are words that the author 'must' say in order to reflect on himself as a writer and move forward.


The miracle of being a writer

“I taught myself to write.
It wasn't my intention to write it from the beginning.
The beginning was reading.
So, it wasn't self-study, it was reading." The starting point of the metaphor of 'Life Sentence Writer' was reading.
A reader who collects sentences that touch his heart while reading a book.
The reader who built up sentences one by one like that suddenly became an author.
“The transition from reading to writing happened by accident.
I started making a living as a freelance writer.
As someone who doesn't graduate from the Department of Creative Writing, the Department of Korean Literature, or the Department of Journalism and Broadcasting, and who reads books, I was a little nervous.
I didn't go through any separate creative training and didn't know how to write.
“Writing wasn’t difficult, but I wanted to write well, not just write.”

In a harsh world where “writing without exchange value is discarded,” the author trained himself and his writing.


“I put a lot of effort into my writing, believing that at least one person would read it. Some people recognized it as a lie, and by gaining their trust, I was able to lay the foundation for a living as a writer.”

The force that drives the author to write is the situation we live in and the circumstances we face as we navigate those situations.
In addition, the author generously reveals his love for writing.
“When social injustice and tragedy reached their peak, people preserved their dignity by writing and produced their greatest works.
My ordinary life was like that too.
My life is indebted to writing.
I passed through a time of unexpected suffering by holding on to writing.
“I don’t think I had any great desires or possessions, but thanks to writing, I was able to live my life without any shortcomings.”

And now I urge readers to write for themselves and for living together in this society.

“In a social reality that has reduced humans to mere components, individuals who are flattened desire to unfold their existence through writing.
But writing is not easy.
The self-introduction of a student who said that he came to class as a “person who doesn’t write” because he kept saying that he should write and didn’t write, kept saying that he should write, rings in my ears.
Could this book help them transform their existence?
The miracle of a person who doesn't write becoming a writer.
“We await the birth of an autodidact who can give dignity to his own suffering.”