How to Fix Up an Author with Writer’s Block

“I’m glad to have a sister? ………………What a goddamn lie.”

“Huh? It got delayed…?”

It was mid-October when GF Bunko’s new releases were due out. The day came and went without the latest volume of All About My Little Sister, Itsuki Hashima’s rom-com series that just had a successful anime—and Chihiro didn’t learn about the delay until she went to the bookstore by the rail station to purchase it on the way to her brother’s apartment. She didn’t see Volume 7 of All About among the month’s GF Bunko releases, and it didn’t appear sold out or anything. A little perplexed, she checked GF’s release schedule on her smartphone and came across the delay announcement:

Volume 7 of All About My Little Sister, originally scheduled for publication in October, has been delayed due to production issues. GF Bunko apologizes to all the readers eagerly awaiting the next volume and will update the release list once a new date has been decided.

This notice had been published on the website a good month ago, but Chihiro didn’t make a habit out of checking it and Itsuki hadn’t been acting unusually, so she hadn’t noticed until today.

The fact that the site still essentially said “we’ll let you know” instead of “it’ll be out next month” or something unnerved her. Did that mean they still had no idea when it might be released? Did Hoshiimo, the illustrator, have an illness or something?

Or…

Chihiro promptly left the bookstore and marched right over to Itsuki’s apartment.

“Hey, Chihiro.”

Itsuki greeted Chihiro at the door to his place. Nothing about him seemed any different from usual.

“Oh, hey…” Chihiro stepped inside, still perplexed. Part of her remained hesitant about the whole thing, but she decided to take the plunge regardless.

“Um, so I saw that Volume 7 of All About got delayed, but what happened?”

Itsuki’s shoulders twitched. “Ohhh,” he said, suspiciously carefree. “I just kinda let the deadline go by, is all.”

“That’s ‘all’? …You sound so casual about it.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes these things happen, so…” Itsuki gave his sister a broad grin.

“…But you’ve never had one of your book launches delayed like this before, have you?”

“Oh, sure I have. Like, if I’m not making any progress on a book, sometimes they’ll rearrange the schedule for me. It’s happened lots of times.”

“Right, but that’s before there was any official release date, right? Because I don’t think you ever delayed a book after the release date was announced.”

“Y…you sure know a lot about that…” Itsuki scowled awkwardly at Chihiro’s observation. “But, you know, between my anime work and the con in Taiwan, I’ve been really busy. I couldn’t really help it this time.”

“Yeah, I guess that other work might’ve kept you busy, but…”

But it didn’t add up in Chihiro’s mind. Despite everything else, Itsuki did act like a professional. He was a writer who’d never want to disappoint his expectant readers. Now he was saying, in essence, “My book got delayed ’cause I was busy.” And he didn’t even seem to care. It just seemed out of character.

“…So when’s Volume 7 coming out? Next month?”

“Ohhh…” Itsuki hemmed and hawed a bit. “Well…um, pretty soon…I think…”

“Does that mean you’ve got eighty percent or so of it written?” Chihiro wasn’t letting Itsuki talk his way out of this.

“Oh, of—of course! Like, the writing’s going so smoothly, it’s almost like I haven’t been able to write it at all!”

“Huh? What’s that mean?”

“Ahh, don’t worry about it! Listen, I’ve been trying to work a whole lot today, so I’m starving! Go ahead and make something for me.”

“Okay…”

Thoroughly steamrolled, Chihiro began preparing dinner. And even as they ate together, she couldn’t get anything out of Itsuki about the novel.

It was eight in the evening.

After she did the post-dinner washing up, Chihiro left Itsuki’s place and made the five-minute walk to Gift Publishing. Taking the elevator up to the fifth floor, she took out her phone and called Kenjiro Toki’s office line.

“Hello?”

“Oh hi, Mr. Toki. This is Chihiro Hashima.”

Toki’s voice immediately jumped a notch. “Oh?! Oh. Um, good evening, Chihiro. What’s up?”

“Sorry to call out of nowhere. I just wanted to ask you something…”

“…Ohhh………… Well, can you wait a moment?”

“Sure.”

After a couple of minutes, Toki emerged from behind the editorial office door. He took Chihiro to a small meeting room, and the two sat at the table, facing each other.

“So if you wanted to ask me something…I’m guessing it’s about Itsuki?”

The pace of Toki’s speech seemed oddly slow to Chihiro as she nodded back. “That’s right… I learned his new book got delayed, so I asked him about it…but he kept dodging the question. Is he doing all right?”

“…” Toki greeted the question with silence for a few moments. “From what I understand…he’s barely written anything for Volume 7 yet. So, frankly, no. I can’t really say he’s all right.”

“Ahh, I knew it…” Chihiro’s face clouded over as she stared at Toki for a second.

“…Sometimes, you know, things like this happen.”

“Hmm?”

“Like, a writer hitting a mental block after he scores an anime adaptation. It’s actually not that rare.”

“Really? …Why is that?”

“Well, sometimes all the work and stress tires them out. Body and soul. Sometimes the sudden change in work environment throws them out of whack. Sometimes having that financial windfall causes them to lose their motivation. It really depends on the author. In Itsuki’s case, I think it’s just the rebound from giving everything he had to the anime… He’s suffering symptoms of burnout, in other words.”

As Toki explained it, Itsuki’s slump was something commonly seen in authors who’d made the plunge into anime—and he was careful to not imply it had anything to do with the discovery of Chihiro’s true identity as a little sister.

“Burnout, huh…? And it’s not that rare a thing?”

“Not at all.” Toki nodded.

Chihiro looked relieved for a moment. She was beginning to draw the conclusion that Itsuki’s issues weren’t her fault after all.

“Um…but is my brother all right?” she nervously asked.

“Well, I believe he’ll recover. After a little rest, anyway. I’m gonna do what I can as his editor, too, so I don’t think you need to worry.” He tried to sound as upbeat and encouraging as he could, but that only made Chihiro more concerned. Still, she didn’t press.

“I see… Well, Mr. Toki, I hope you’ll do what you can for him.”

“Absolutely.”

“Okay, well, I gave an answer, but now what…?” Toki couldn’t help asking himself after taking Chihiro back to the elevator.

Authors do often lose their groove after an anime project wraps up—that much was the unvarnished truth. But there was no single foolproof approach an editor could take to deal with such a writer. If there was, no hit series would go unfinished, and no novelist would fall off the map.

When he pinged his boss Godo and the rest of editorial, he got a variety of feedback in response—“Just leave him be for a bit. No e-mails, nothing”; “Take him out drinking or to a club for a change of pace”; “Send him some good books or Blu-rays for inspiration”; “Talk about next year’s tax bill with him to scare him straight”; “Fake some fan mail”; and so forth. But although each of these approaches had worked with at least one author in the past, there was no palpable effect with others. And those writers subsequently faded from existence.

Besides, Itsuki was a seriously special case. What do you do with a weirdo who wrote about nothing but strong, eye-catching little sisters, and the moment he finds out he’s got one of his own, he can’t write anymore? That’s never happened in the industry before, Toki was sure. And it wasn’t like Itsuki personally told him that all the Chihiro stuff was the cause. Maybe it really was just the classic sophomore slump after his first anime adaptation… But given the situation, and given what he knew about what made Itsuki tick, Toki’s instincts were telling him it was something else, and he didn’t think he was wrong.

He had chosen to trust Itsuki when he said “I promise I’ll get Volume 7 written up for you, so don’t any of you worry about a thing!” but there was no sign of a return to form. At this rate, it wasn’t just the All About series in danger—it might be the end of Itsuki Hashima, writer, for good. As his editor, Toki needed to do something about this—but he had no idea what.

Then:

“Mr. Toki?”

As he stood there, pondering this, he was greeted by Miyako Shirakawa, the office’s part-time assistant.

“Ahh, Shirakawa… Done for the day?”

“Uh-huh,” she said with a nod. “That was Chi who just showed up, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah… She asked me about the All About delay.”

As part of the editorial staff, Miyako naturally knew of All About Volume 7’s delay and murky fate. Toki had given her the same explanation he’d given Chihiro just now. Miyako had brought it up with Itsuki, but he’d just said he was “not quite running on all cylinders right now” and changed the subject.

“…Itsuki’s writing issues probably don’t have much to do with being tired of work or burned out, do they?”

“…Probably not.” Toki shook his head. No need to hide anything with Miyako. Then he took on a more joking tone. “…Do you have any good ideas, Ms. Future Star Editor?”

Starting next year, Miyako was set to join Branch Hill, a new publishing start-up. Toki was disappointed she didn’t join Gift Publishing, but nonetheless he was sure she’d become an asset to her firm.

“I—I haven’t been assigned to editorial there yet, you know!” Miyako blushed a bit, then took a moment to think. “Um… Maybe he could go on a trip to clear his mind a bit?”

“Going to Taiwan didn’t help him at all,” Toki replied with a chuckle. “But attending a convention is kinda part of his job, I suppose. Maybe he could use a chance to completely forget about his work while traveling.”

“All right. In that case, I’ll talk to Nayu and suggest she invite him somewhere.”

“If you could. Thanks.”

Miyako thought a bit more. “Um, also…maybe he could change his work environment?”

“You mean outside of his home?”

“Right. Don’t a lot of writers say they can focus better if they’re writing at a diner or café or something?”

Toki shook his head at Miyako. “I guess he’s already explored that route.”

“Oh yeah…?”

He had tried a lot of things, Toki heard, and nothing worked. The diner. The café. A private karaoke room. In a train. On a park bench. At a cheap hotel room. Itsuki’s “environment” certainly was the problem, but…

“I don’t think Itsuki’s writing environment is the issue. It’s more his family environment.”

“Yeah, and you can’t change that too easily…” Miyako frowned. “Hmm… In that case, why don’t you have him write something besides All About?”

“Well, apparently he tried making some progress on Sisterly Combat instead, but that was a no-go, too.”

“Oh, no, I meant like a totally new series. What about that?”

“Hmm?” Toki raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Like, a long time ago, didn’t Itsuki want to try writing something where the heroine wasn’t a little sister?”

“Oh… You’re right.”

As Toki recalled, the topic came up nearly two years ago. Itsuki was frustrated by the slow sales for his work, and Toki had suggested he try something without a sister trope front and center. The result—titled Crimson Jägers (tent.)—made it up to the plot outline before the little sister in the cast, formerly a secondary character, turned into this huge monster, and the protagonist became a perverted f—k who relished eating her lingerie, and so on. It was promptly shelved.

“If he can’t write little-sister genre stuff because Chi turned out to be a girl…then maybe he can write something non-sister now, huh?” Miyako said.

“…!” It was a revelation. “You’re right… That might just be the case…”

The first volume after the anime—arguably the most important one for any light novel series—was on hold. But it never occurred to Toki nor Itsuki to veer off into something else—not Sisterly Combat, which they had worked on in parallel for a while, but a completely new piece of some sort. Toki was sure All About readers (to say nothing of the anime and publication staff) would scream at him (“Is this really the time?!”). But that didn’t matter. Right now the very existence of Itsuki Hashima, writer, was in mortal danger. Maybe what he needed now, more than anything, was to regain the ability to write a novel—any novel.

“Thanks, Ms. Shirakawa. I’ll suggest that to him right away.”

“Oh, okay. I hope it works out…”

Once Miyako got in the elevator, Toki hurriedly took out his phone and called up Itsuki.