Writing is about finding your way home.

I often say that in addition to talent, life and opportunity, the guide is especially important for young writers to embark on the road of writing. In fact, I have no talent, culture shallow foundation, writing is just to relieve the inner depression. Breaking with my father and brother, bidding farewell to my bitter childhood, cutting off all ties with my hometown, this is the beginning of my literature. After joining the army, like most writers in the army, I was mostly sheltered and tolerated. The big family of the army made a young soldier's cold heart gradually warm up. Wang Zongren, Gu Gong, Zeng Fanhua and Liu Zengxin have become the leaders of my literary creation, especially Teacher Wang Zongren. He not only does not write for a day, but also works hard to keep the literary bones in his field of vision for decades. The teachers 'words and deeds made me understand that literature can not only change one's own destiny, but also change the destiny of others, even the destiny of a country and a nation. Whether fiction or prose, in fact, are wearing masks dance, good and beautiful heart can transcend language. A good writer can invent life, but not emotions. In order to encourage me, a small literary seedling, to settle down in the military camp and write well, the poet Gu Gong once wrote an article entitled "You touch the soul of the mountain," together with a photo with me, published in the supplement of the People's Liberation Army Daily of that year. From that day on, my birthplace Huilu Mountain began to appear in his pen.

I used to fear that life was long, but now I know that life is short. After writing his father's "Return to Deer Mountain" won the 6th Lu Xun Literature Award, the only way home seems to have been found, but the real home has not yet been found. I am afraid that if one day I find a home, but do not know whether I can find myself. Perhaps, when I haven't enough courage to write a true self, life will end. So I always remind myself: must write, hurry to write, until I write a work that I am really satisfied with. Suppose, as my son, who is usually endlessly traumatized in childhood, wants to really know a writer's father, and asks him to open my grave one day after my death, he will find that it is I who wrote this book for myself and an era, alongside my bones. Of course, this is not all about a father, but all about a veteran and writer. Whether readers will read this book depends on my son's insight and courage. The question is, who can bring my bones back home to Deer Mountain and bury them with the manuscripts, I don't know yet.

Author: Hou Jianfei