<b>Cao Kuo</b>: <b>Wings to Fly to Dreams</b> (Reportage)
Tian Feng/Wen
I met Cao Kuo at a gathering of literary friends. At noon on a Saturday this summer, I received a call from a literary friend who invited me to a dinner party and said that he would meet with Mr. Cao Kuo for a party. I didn't know Cao Kuo, but I had only read his novels in the "Literary and Art Salon" group. Friends said he was friendly and nice to get along with.
Only after seeing it did I know that Cao Kuo, whose real name was Cao Huaizhong. At the age of 67 this year, he speaks slowly and softly, speaks logically, and has a "leadership" style. Therefore, we met and met, and slowly, we came to the situation of talking about everything. I was very impressed with him, he was a rigorous, persistent, hard-working person. Once, Wenyou said: You love to write reportage, write an article about Teacher Cao Kuo. I agreed, but he only provided me with a brief introduction and a list of works, and nothing else. He said, "You were the first to write about me, and I really don't have much to write about." ”
What's next? I want to meet him and talk about it, and when I contact him, he just went to the child's house in Shenzhen. I felt my thoughts go haywire. In the daily WeChat, I ask him some questions, let him leave a message, and I will sort it out after work. As we talked, I gradually discovered that he had an obsessive belief in realizing his dream of becoming a writer. It can be said that this dream has always been haunting his heart, accompanying him through the first half of his life, and will accompany him through the second half of his life like a song.
He had a dream in his heart, and from then on he embarked on the road to find the meaning of life.
<b>The Origin of The Foil: Looking for Dreams</b>
In fact, success is only a short-lived feeling, after all, the pace of life is still moving forward; life is not a goal, but a long journey.
Cao Kuo came from a poor background and loved to learn when he was a child. When he was in elementary school, he didn't even have a book, so he picked up cigarette cases and wrote, sometimes on the ground with a stick. At that time, his biggest characteristic was that he liked to read story books. In fifth grade, he became exposed to fiction. Like Ouyang Shan's "Three Family Lane" and "Bitter Fight", Feng Deying's "Yingchun Flower", Zhou Libo's "Storm"... Many novels he borrowed to read. As long as any classmate has a book, he will borrow it. When he was older, he would ask his mother to buy books for him. His mother sold eggs to buy him two novels. One is Qu Bo's "Lin Hai Snow Field", and the other is Liu Liu's "Agni Golden Steel". He read these two books repeatedly, and after reading them, he exchanged them with others, and the degree of obsession can be slightly seen.
He was often moved by the characters in the novel, and always forgot to eat and forget to work in the field. Xiao Fei and Shi Xinxin in "Agni Kong", the various characters of the four famous works, etc., are all vividly flashing in front of his eyes. After reading a lot of books, he will tell stories. At that time, as soon as the students finished school, they went to work in the fields. As soon as the students finished school, they asked: Cao Kuo, what are you doing today? Cao Kuo said that if they cut vegetables, they would all cut vegetables; when he said cut the grass, they would all cut the grass. As soon as he got to the ground, where Cao Kuo squatted, the friends immediately "hula" around in a circle, began to listen to him tell stories, listened to everyone so intoxicated, forgot everything. When it's time to go home, the basket is often empty. They folded some branches, propped them into the empty basket, quickly cut some grass and put them on top, and quietly sneaked home.
When he was a child, Cao Kuo hoped that he would grow up and do two kinds of work. The same job is to be a book salesman, so I can sell books in the bookstore and read books for free. Another job is to be a writer. From elementary school to junior high school to high school, his favorite subject is Chinese, and he especially likes to do composition. The first article he wrote when he was in the third grade of elementary school was called "The Origin of Incense Foil." He listened to someone else tell a story, and then he sorted it out himself and wrote a composition. This essay was strongly praised by the Language Teacher, and his heart was beautiful. The encouragement of the teacher is the internal motivation for him to like composition, and since then, he has formed an indissoluble relationship with writing. From elementary school to middle school, he remembers that his compositions were often praised by teachers and read in front of sample texts.
After graduating from high school, he became a private teacher at the age of 16. From this time on, Cao Kuo took time out to read and write while teaching. From the age of eighteen to his twenties, he was very diligent, writing many short stories and writing a long novel called "Emperor Wei Wen", when he wrote a bag on scratch paper alone.
That year, the Yellow River was flooding in autumn, and once he went to Hexi to buy corn to make ends meet. When I came back that day, I was on a barge, and the boat went to the center of the river and suddenly broke down and dropped anchor. At that time, the season was late autumn, the sky was full of gloomy clouds, and the north wind was "whistling". A blind man on the ship sang Henan pendants, and many people listened on deck. Cao Kuo saw a person, frowning and sitting in the front cabin, looking at the sky in the distance for a moment, and looking down at what was written for a while. The man had his head back and a look of pain. Cao Kuo guessed that he might be writing a suicide note, and when he had written it, he would jump into the muddy river. So he went forward to explain the reasoning to the man, asking the people to look at it a little, saying that people have to go through all kinds of difficulties and dangers when they live in the world... Listening to Cao Kuo's words, the man stopped his pen and smiled, saying that he was creating. Asked what Cao Kuo did, Cao Kuo said that as a private teacher, he liked to read books and write. Then tell him that he is working on a long novel, and he has written a bag of drafts. The man said that he was Wang Yuefang, the director of the drama research room in Heze area, and wrote drama. He said: "You can't write like this, you should write a short story at the beginning, and then you can write a long novel when it is published and you have a reputation." Again, you can't write blindly, you have to have celebrity guidance. You are from Dongming County, go to Yang Jie of the county cultural center, he specially tutored your county amateur author to write, you said that Wang Yuefang asked you to find him. Listening to his words, Cao Kuo Mao suddenly opened up, gladly seeing hope and seeing light.
Since then, as soon as he has time, Cao Kuo has gone to the county cultural center to ask Teacher Yang Jie for advice. Yang Jie was a deputy curator, a young literary writer, and a drama writer at that time, and published many literary works. Cao Kuo remembers that in the 1970s and 1980s, the state attached great importance to cultural construction and advocated the cultivation of a team of amateur authors to engage in creation. Yang Jie said that when there were cultural activities in the county, he was notified to participate. In those days, he began to systematically study literary theories about fiction creation. Literary creation classes are generally taught by Yang Jie, and sometimes Teacher Zhu Xijiang gives lectures. At that time, Zhu Xijiang was the editor-in-chief of the literary journal Peony in Heze City. Cao Kuo showed the written work to the teachers and was praised by the teacher. The county compiled some publications, such as "Starlight", "Poetry Journal", "Dongming Literature and Art", etc., and what he wrote was published. Later, he published two novels in the literary journal Peony. Under the recommendation of teacher Yang Jie, in October 1981, he joined the Heze Regional Writers Association.
Later, Cao Kuo got married, looked at writing, and the remuneration for publishing articles was three yuan and five yuan, and he could not maintain a normal life by writing alone. As soon as the state restored the college entrance examination system, he tried to review his homework and meet the college entrance examination, and then stopped writing.
<b>Yellow Sparrow: Insert wings</b>
The person who never looks back is not necessarily brave, maybe it is escape; the person who never sheds tears is not necessarily strong, it may be helpless; the person who never admits defeat is not necessarily the winner; because, every day is a new day.
Cao Kuo was admitted to a normal school and began teaching as a public teacher after graduation. The vegetable garden concentrated on learning, which was called Dongming No. 8 Middle School at that time, and there were high schools and junior high schools. He taught junior high school graduation classes and later revision classes, always teaching Chinese. He is very famous for teaching Chinese, dozens of junior high schools in the county participate in competitions, and the class rankings he teaches are basically among the best. On the education front, he has come step by step, successively serving as the head of the language teaching and research team, the deputy director of teaching, the director of teaching, and the vice principal. The business title of secondary education level two to middle teaching level one, and then to middle school senior teacher, his teaching career can be described as prosperous, teaching is excellent. By 2003, he retired from his position as vice principal and served as the executive principal and secretary of the party branch at Chengcheng High School in Heze City, and also served as the chinese class of two senior high school classes. The chairman of the school did not let him teach, he insisted on teaching. Later, he went to Caoxian Beicheng Middle School as a business principal, still teaching the chinese of the graduating class, and also serving as the head of the review class. At that time, the college entrance examination was evaluated, and his annual Chinese scores were also two or three, and he taught until retirement. He said that teaching language is conducive to improving literary literacy.
Cao Kuo has loved composition since he was a child, loves to write, and teaches for his livelihood. After retirement, the problem of livelihood was solved, and he thought about realizing his long-cherished wish. He wanted to continue his dream of being a writer and was determined to write novels that touched the world. In fact, he also wanted to be a writer when he was teaching, but the task of teaching high school was heavy, the pressure of further education was great every year, he could not pass the undergraduate students, and he could not get good results, so he could not give a satisfactory explanation to the society, the school, and the parents. For the sake of the students' future, he was busy and happy.
Formal writing is until after he actually retires. In 2013, he officially retired. "When I get older and write novels, others think it's incredible, but I'm determined to write because I like it, because when the writer's desire has been so long, it's time to pay off my heart's debt when I retire." 」 Cao Kuo said.
When he was teaching in Heze, he had a good relationship with Liu Guangsheng, a member of the Provincial Writers Association. After the two retired, they went to Jinan to find Liu Zhaoru and listen to him talk and write novels. Liu Zhaoru is the editor-in-chief of Contemporary Fiction magazine and vice chairman of the Jinan Writers Association, and has twice won the Shandong Taishan Literary and Art Award and the Short Story Award. He went to listen to Liu Zhaoru's lectures, humbly learned from him, and began to write under his guidance.
Cao Kuo usually writes a draft and always likes to find someone to give advice. During this period, he was guided and helped by Zhao Tongbin, chairman of the Heze Writers Association, Meng Chinese, vice chairman, Liu Guangsheng and Liu Zhaoru, provincial writers and collaborators, Yang Jie, an old writer in Dongming County, and Wang Qicai, chairman of the Dongming County Writers Association. Sometimes, he asked a familiar Chinese teacher to read the manuscript and ask them to give their opinions. His creative attitude is rigorous, and every time he writes a piece, he always examines it word by word until he is satisfied. He is very hard to create, reading and studying tirelessly every day, sometimes thinking of a good detail and a good word in his sleep, he immediately opens the computer and writes it down. His wife often joked that he was "neurotic."
One point of hard work is one point of harvest. In September 2019, his first short story, "Yellow Sparrow", was published in Contemporary Fiction. Later, a number of works were published in newspapers and periodicals such as "Chinese Artists", "Masterpieces of Famous Artists", "Yalu River", "Peony", "Young Writers", "Heze Daily", "Heze Culture Newspaper" and so on. "I tell you, it's actually very difficult to publish anywhere, I feel that it's very good to write, I vote for one article and one article, I vote in many places, and it's often mud cattle into the sea." Cao Said he felt that he had revised many times, and after submitting the manuscript, most of them were rejected. But he was not discouraged, and withdrew, changed and re-voted..., "Publishing a novel is not as easy as eating a cucumber." Speaking of this, Cao Kuo smiled heartily.
In his creation, Cao Kuo has fallen into a variety of blind spots. He was confused, hesitant, contradictory. He used to be a Chinese teacher, and what he would do was to guide high school students to achieve a type of essay goal, let them write high-quality essays, get good grades, and go to a good university. However, to write a good literary work and make your articles meet the standards of publication, it is not as simple as guiding students to write a high-scoring essay. Literary creation must be written according to the requirements of literary works, and the works he wrote at the beginning were all the tone of a teacher, too stylized, far from the reality of life.
Later, Cao Kuo slowly practiced writing with the help of teachers and peers. Famous people can write like this, you can write like that, and listening to some theories is far from the same thing as being able to write. He carefully savored the theories, and then used the theories to guide his writing practice, practicing them repeatedly. For every word, every sentence, every detail, think repeatedly, so that all the material in the novel is written around "one point" and serves "one point". He believes that writing a good novel is tantamount to climbing over a steep mountain.
In the four months from June to September this year, he successively published 36 short and medium stories on the China Writers Network, such as "Walking through the Bright Red Carpet", "Filling the Gap", "Knocking Stone Effect", "Golden Certificate", "Dr. Shi Hao", "Yang LaoLiu Tofu Brain", etc., with a word count of more than 200,000 words. Cao Kuo said, "My writing road is full of bumps, generally writing you feel inspired, feel that you are touched by something or some material in society, passion prompts you to write." First typed the manuscript, after several times of revision, and then asked many peers to read and put forward opinions, and then repeatedly revised. I felt like I belonged to the stupid bird, and my writing wasn't going very well. ”
On May 27, 2020, Cao Kuo was admitted as a member of the Shandong Provincial Writers Association, and he also became a member of the Shandong Provincial Prose Literature Society, the Shandong Provincial Poetry Society for Old Cadres, and the Modern Chinese Writers Association.
<b>Walking the Red Carpet: Fly</b>
Pursuit is a kind of motivation; struggle is a kind of fun; setbacks are a kind of tempering; the biggest charm is to have a sunny mentality.
Cao Kuo began to improve. He knows that the theme of the article cannot be too straightforward, can not say that a leaf is green, that is, writing a novel can not directly say his own views, can only be expressed in detail, let people feel, and can not directly write their own feelings. There are also many requirements such as leaving blanks, writing about human nature, and writing poetry, which feel difficult to do. It turned out that he wanted to write a social analysis novel, that is, to write a novel like "Three Words" that was beneficial to social people. Listening to the experts, he understood that writing contemporary novels is not about morality, politics, and human ethics, and that writing novels has its own special requirements for writing novels. The themes, materials, structures, expressions of the novel... There are special routines and special standards, so it is difficult for many people to write a famous work. Cao Kuo said, "I feel that when I write, I use my own drops of sweat to wet the road of writing novels, and the words of novels are watered with my own sweat." ”
Joining the China Writers Association is his ideal in life. When he was moved by reading novels when he was a child, he thought that when he grew up, he must become a writer, and he had made achievements in writing and achieved some achievements. "This has always been my wish, called a long-cherished wish." Cao Kuo said. This wish of his has always encouraged him, has always guided him, and urged him to work hard.
In fact, in the future, I joined the China Writers Association, which is not the same as saying that I am a great writer. A true writer is one who can produce excellent works. These excellent works can influence people, educate people, move people from generation to generation, and thus become a great social spiritual wealth. Speaking of this, Cao Kuo was a little excited, and he felt that his second career had just started, that is, to bravely move forward on the road of writing.
He said that Sima Qian had said that the first thing for a person to live in this life is to make a promise. To make a promise is to write an article and let the article pass on to future generations. Educate, inspire, and influence people with articles. Sima Qian said that this is a person's greatest goal in life. The second is Lide, is the establishment. Sima Qian regarded making his speech the first priority in his life. Speaking of this, Cao Kuo smiled, and then said that he was an ordinary person, not qualified to compare with Sima Qian, mainly to learn his spirit. Sima Qian was able to survive strongly after being humiliated, and he said in the "Book of BaoRen'an" that the reason why he survived was to let the article be passed on to future generations. After painstaking writing, Sima Qian wrote the "Records of History" that has been passed down through the ages. Cao Kuo also carefully considered a problem, many of the teachings in the world, what they preach and pursue, all have plans, and the pictures are nothing more than fame and profit. He thought about it carefully, wrote on his own, hoping to become a great writer, as if he was also a bit famous, and did not jump out of the circle of the individual. But he wants to write a good article, use the article to move people, inspire people, and benefit society, it is always good.
"This idea is actually just an ideal, which can only be counted as a personal life goal, and it may not be achieved, and it can only persist in the struggle." He thought of leaving some spiritual wealth to people and future generations, which was Cao Kuo's ideal in life. This road, this path of life, he thinks has just begun to go.
Now, Cao Kuo reads novels every morning, writes in the afternoon, and continues to write in the evening, and his working hours are basically no less than 12 hours a day. He felt that he did not have a fixed working time, because from waking up to dreaming, he was always thinking about the problem of writing novels, and he was busy all day.
I asked where his inspiration came from, and he smiled and said that from the situation in which he wrote, he felt inspired by reading. Reading people's good novels produces a thought, an idea. Another inspiration comes from thinking, recalling one's past, thinking about some things that have been seen, and inspiration suddenly arises in thinking. In addition, he also felt that travel was also very good for inspiration, and when he traveled, he suddenly encountered some things and felt that he could write these materials into novels. Cao Kuo said, "I'm stupid, I write novels, not like some people, writing a thousand words, relying on Marco." I felt like I was milking the cows, squeezing them out little by little, having to be reprocessed, refined, and finally not sure that I would be able to make a good cheese. I feel that the work I write is still very immature.
After the first draft was written, I made a special trip to visit Cao Kuo, who had returned from Shenzhen. In his spacious study, it was almost entirely occupied by bookcases. I read his short story collection "Yellow Sparrow", including more than thirty short stories such as "A Yellow Leaf", "Backer", "Broken Whistle", "Walking through the Red Carpet", "The Woman Who Walked through the River of Life and Death", "Jade Wedding Storm", "Heavenly Eye", "The Trouble with the Ball Hat" and so on. The novel portrays various characters such as workers, peasants, teachers, cadres, clerks, and migrant workers, and writes out the joys and sorrows of different characters and shows their different personalities. The book uses various literary techniques, such as white drawing, contrast, setting, rendering, blank space, etc., to portray the psychology of the characters as the focus, making the novel delicate and touching. I also read his "Selected Novellas", which includes three novellas, "Heart Debt", "The Superman Dream of the Four Old Cows", "Mrs. Bian", and the short stories "WeChat Friends" and "Umbrella Handle Dishes".
He opened the computer and showed me the manuscript of his novel The Great of Wei. He said that these manuscripts were compiled on the basis of the manuscripts he wrote when he was young, including four parts, Cao Pi's small origin, the struggle for the throne, the strategy of governing the country, and the struggle for unification, each part of fifteen chapters, and now the first draft has completed more than 200,000 words. From these manuscripts, I can see his hard work.
I thought that as long as the dream is put on the wings of flight, it will always get where it should be. Life is also like taking a train, the scenery of the past is so beautiful, let you linger, don't let the grind take away your smile, and gradually you will find out how strong you are. Happiness is the joy of the heart, happiness is the satisfaction of the heart, moving towards his ideal goal, I sincerely wish Cao Kuo can reach his dream as soon as possible, so as to achieve his ideal, his goal.
<b>About author:</b>Tian Feng, a native of Dongming, Shandong. He is a member of Shandong Writers Association, Shandong Photographers Association, Shandong Prose Literature Society, and Heze Writers Association. He has published a collection of prose poems "Thoughts of Shells", a collection of reportage literature " Wise Eyes and Brilliant Pens Writing Spring and Autumn "Spring and Autumn", a long-form reportage "Building a Dream of the Yellow River Beach - A Documentary on the Relocation and Construction of Residents in the Yellow River Beach Area of Dongming County, Shandong Province", and edited "The Legend of Zhuangzi in dongming" and "Twelve Views of the Ancient Yi of the Eastern Ming Dynasty".
Editor: Ma Xuemin
One point number Qingwei Heze creative base
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