1980 My literary era

Lin Weimin's idea of ​​​​appraising awards was not a temporary idea. It had been there since Meng Weizai came to him.

In addition to the idea of ​​​​competing with the Yanbing Literature Award, the idea of ​​​​sincerely participating in the award also accounts for part of it.

"Zuo Zhuan" says: "The supreme leader has established virtue, the second has meritorious service, and the third has established words. Even if it lasts for a long time, this is called immortality."

Being virtuous and meritorious are the three immortalities that Chinese literati pursue throughout their lives, and Lin Weimin is not immune to this.

However, Mr. Wan's admonition served as a warning to him. If he could not maintain a public mind to do this, he would probably end up with nothing but chaos, and it would be better not to do it.

In addition to Mr. Yan Bing’s last wish and the considerable royalties he left for the establishment of the Yan Bing Literature Prize, the most critical factor is Balao’s hard work and the cooperation of the Literary and Art Association.

Lin Weimin naturally wants to make the award a big one. If his own influence is not reached and there are interference from external factors, there is a high probability that this award will not be successful.

It would be better to follow what Mr. Wan said and develop it for a few years first, use the platform of the Chinese Literature Society to strengthen its influence in the domestic literary world, and wait two years before taking action.

After eating at Mr. Wan's house, Lin Weimin and Tao Huimin returned home.

The next morning, Tao Huimin was preparing breakfast when there was a knock on the door of the courtyard.

Lin Weimin went to open the door and found Cheng Ximi pushing Shi Tiesheng standing outside the door.

"Why are you two here so early? What's the emergency?"

Shi Tiesheng said anxiously: "Something's wrong. Yi Ying is seriously ill. The hospital determined that it was terminal cancer. The treatment failed and he was discharged. But there is no place to take him. Weimin, don't you know an acquaintance in Xiehe? Can you? Help?"

Zhou Yiying is an editorial board member of "Today", and Lin Weimin met him at Shi Tiesheng's home.

After hearing what Shi Tiesheng said, Lin Weimin started the car and took Shi Tiesheng and his wife to the hospital without caring about eating.

Arriving at the hospital, Lin Weimin saw Zhou Yiying lying in the hospital corridor with a hole in his belly, which was caused by an intestinal fistula. The man was in excruciating pain. His face was hideous due to the long-term severe pain, and he was obviously fighting the pain with great willpower.

Zhou Yiying was accompanied by his wife Xu Xiao and two friends. Seeing Shi Tiesheng and Lin Weimin arriving, several people came forward. Xu Xiao asked with a sad face: "Weimin, can you help Yiying find a hospital to accept him? "

Lin Weimin and Xu Xiao learned about Zhou Yiying's condition, and then said: "Don't worry, I'll make a call and ask!"

After he finished speaking, he left the hospital and found a public phone booth to call Yu Junli and explain Zhou Yiying's situation.

"It does sound very similar to intestinal cancer. In his case, without previous medical records, it is difficult for us to diagnose. Forget it, you can send the person here first, and then quickly ask the family to collect his medical records over the years. , we will try to find out the cause when the time comes.”

Yu Junli has been promoted to deputy dean in recent years. Zhou Yiying's condition is very difficult, but for Lin Weimin's sake, she still asked him to send the person here first.

Lin Weimin thanked him and hurried back to the hospital. Xu Xiao heard that Xiehe was willing to accept Zhou Yiying and bowed to Lin Weimin repeatedly. He quickly helped Xu Xiao up.

"Stop being polite and send Yi Ying to the hospital first. You go through the formalities first."

After struggling all morning, Zhou Yiying was sent to Xiehe.

Yu Junli consulted two professors in the hospital and initially ruled out the possibility of bowel cancer. However, due to the lack of support from past medical records, they were unable to make a final judgment, so Xu Xiao collected as much of Zhou Yiying's medical records as possible.

After working for most of the day, we finally got some good results, and everyone felt a lot more relaxed.

Zhou Yiying entered the hospital and no longer needed everyone's care for the time being. Lin Weimin and Shi Tiesheng left together. Xu Xiao saw them out and thanked Lin Weimin with tears.

"I've thanked you so many times. Don't be so polite. If you encounter something like this, you will definitely help if you can."

After chatting for a while, Lin Weimin drove Shi Tiesheng and his wife home first, and then went to the Chinese Literature Society to order a meal.

After staying in the office for a short time, seeing that it was almost time to get off work, Lin Weimin came to the editorial department of Tongwen News Agency.

The collection of Jin Yong's works has been successfully published, and several young editors in the editorial department of Tongwen Society have focused their attention on compiling manuscripts for martial arts publications.

The Chinese Literature Society specializes in the field of pure literature and has no experience in the field of popular literature. Its author resources rely entirely on a few young editors.

We don’t know many martial arts novel authors very well, so the work of drafting them can be described as difficult and ups and downs.

Today, when Yu Hua saw Lin Weimin, he happily handed over a manuscript, "Teacher Lin, Can Mo's manuscript has arrived, take a look!"

Lin Weimin took the manuscript and after reading it for a short time, he put it down and said, "The quality of the manuscript is acceptable, but it's just not enough to be the flagship work of our first issue."

Yu Hua couldn't help but sigh in his heart. In his opinion, Teacher Lin's requirements were too high. Although Can Mo's "The Romantic Hero and Beggar" could not compare with Jin Yong's works, it could still be regarded as excellent. But he couldn't catch Teacher Lin's eyes.

"Teacher Lin, can we relax our requirements a little bit? This really doesn't mean we don't work hard!"

Lin Weimin waved his hand, "I understand."

He pondered for a moment, summoned several people in the office, and said: "I have seen everyone's hard work in compiling manuscripts during this period, and I know that my requirements are a bit higher. However, the first issue of the publication is very important. The quality of manuscripts, especially the quality of headline works, determines the future of our publication, I hope you can understand."

Everyone nodded in unison. Of course they understood Lin Weimin's thoughts, but his requirements were indeed higher.

Because they have to run a journal, they have read a large number of martial arts novels and publications in the past few months. From their perspective, the quality of the recently assembled manuscripts is not as good as the works currently published in magazines such as "Jingu Legend" There are not many, some are even more outstanding, but not many can catch Teacher Lin's eyes.

"Well, the quality of Can Mo's "Merry Man and Beggar" is pretty good, just treat it as one of the serialized novels. As for the headline serialized works, don't worry about it, I'll figure it out."

After Lin Weimin finished saying this, Yu Hua and others breathed a sigh of relief.

Other manuscripts are easy to say, but Lin Weimin's review standards for headline works are even more perverted. Yu Hua and others even suspected that Lin Weimin was using the standards of Jin Yong and Liang Yusheng to find headline works, and asked them to compile manuscripts of this standard. It's really embarrassing for them.

After Lin Weimin left, Li Xuegang, Yu Hua and several others started discussing.

"Hey, tell me, Teacher Lin doesn't need us to compose headlines. From what channel can he compose articles?" Liu Maowen asked.

"There's no need to ask. It must be from Xiangjiang and Wandao. Teacher Lin is familiar with Jin Yong! I can tell that these martial arts novel writers in the mainland have not caught the eye of Teacher Lin yet. ." Qi Xianghua said.

"Nonsense! Do you think their manuscripts are easy to book? It's too troublesome to use their manuscripts. It needs approval from the department. And what's the price of the manuscripts there? Our publication will have to pay for their manuscripts. At what price and how many copies should I sell to get my money back?" Li Xuegang said.

Yu Hua said: "I think it's not that Mr. Lin looks down on our martial arts novel writers in the mainland, but that he values ​​​​our publication too much. The first issue will definitely be a hit."

Li Xuegang nodded and acknowledged Yu Hua's words, "Yu Hua is right. Teacher Lin's high standards are more about hoping to succeed. It's not like he doesn't know that if we really follow his standards, it won't matter whether our publication can be run. It’s a problem.”

While several people were chatting and speculating on Lin Weimin's thoughts, Lin Weimin was also thinking about the issue of headline works.

What Qi Xianghua mentioned about the practice of soliciting manuscripts from writers in the Hong Kong and Wan Dao areas was actually something Lin Weimin had thought about when he first had the idea of ​​starting a publication, but he soon gave up on the idea.

The reason is also very simple, it is too unrealistic.

As Li Xuegang said, not only does the use of manuscripts require approval from higher-level departments, but the standard for manuscript fees is also too high.

Lin Weimin planned a layout for the martial arts publication of 16 formats and 16 printed sheets. Calculated with 800 to 1,000 words per page in a small 5-size font, each issue of the magazine should have at least 220,000 words of content. Each issue of the catalog contains two long series and a medium one. Three to four articles.

For martial arts masters like Ni Kuang, the manuscript fee in the 1980s was as high as 1,000 to 2,000 Hong Kong dollars per thousand words. Now in the 1990s, this figure has increased a lot compared to the 1980s. The manuscript fee for any famous martial arts master in Hong Kong or Wandao Converted into RMB, it is at least 1,000 yuan per thousand words.

Calculated based on the 200,000 words of a full-length martial arts novel, it is a manuscript fee of 200,000 yuan, and the content of these 200,000 words will be published in five issues at most. Calculated into each issue of the magazine, the cost paid for this full-length novel alone is 40,000 yuan. , counting the royalties of other manuscripts, plus administrative expenses, printing costs, distribution costs, book damage, etc., the publication must have a circulation of at least 100,000 copies to make money back.

These days, magazines have a life-and-death line for sales. This life-and-death line is usually 50,000 copies, which means that you can survive if you sell more than 50,000 copies.

But once the works of famous artists from Xiangjiang and Wandao were used, the life-and-death line immediately doubled to 100,000 copies.

Although sales of popular books are very high these days, such an approach is still too risky for a new publication!

If Lin Weimin was running a magazine for himself, he might take this risk, but now that he is running a magazine for the public, he must be cautious.

Several colleagues in the editorial department have tried their best to compile the manuscript and contacted all the authors they could contact, but the quality of the manuscript cannot be determined by the editor.

Lin Weimin is picky about the standards of headline works, but he doesn't want to wait any longer.

After thinking about it for a long time, it seems that the best way now is to do it myself!