Back to 80: My literary life.

Chapter 686 Chapter 685 The TV series "In the Name of People" is popular
"Comedy? What comedy? Do you have a script?" Song Tangtang asked quickly.

"It's not ready yet, don't think about it. I told you that Shengshi Film and Television will focus on TV series in the next two years and strive to produce a few high-quality works. As for movies, we will put them on hold for now."

Song Tangtang nodded after hearing this.

"Let's go. It's New Year's Day. Let's go downstairs and have fun with the kids." Fang Minghua comforted.

"Then carry me down." Song Tangtang suddenly started to act coquettishly.

"Row."

Fang Minghua picked up his wife in a princess hug and just as he walked out the door and was about to go down the stairs, Song Tangtang struggled to come down.

"Put me down, it's not good for the children to see!"

"What's wrong with that? This shows that we love each other more." Fang Minghua was seen by the two children as he carried his wife downstairs.

"Dad, you have to hug me like you hug mom!" My daughter Ruirui immediately opened her arms and rushed over.

"Dad, I want a hug too." The son followed.
On the second day of the New Year, the whole family accompanied Song Tangtang back to her parents' home, and on the third day we went to my parents' home. On the fourth day, we drove with my parents to my grandparents' home in Bailuyuan to pay New Year's greetings, and on the sixth day we went to visit Zhao Hongjun to pay New Year's greetings. The sixth day was finally free.

I don't want to go anywhere, I just want to stay at home.

The New Year celebrations are so tiring, with all the drinking going on. It would be better to just make a cup of tea at home.

The two children were playing with firecrackers in the yard. Fang Minghua was sitting in the living room with his legs crossed, flipping through a newspaper. He heard the sound of "dong dong dong" coming down the stairs. He looked up and saw his wife Song Tangtang running down excitedly with her eldest brother.

"Minghua, CCTV just called and the ratings are out! 60%!"

"Sure. It will probably go up even higher. It will definitely surpass the 69% viewership rate of 'A Native of Beijing in New York'!" Fang Minghua said with a smile.

"Yeah." Song Tangtang was also smiling happily at this time, and the big stone in her heart was finally put down.

The main organization that calculated the ratings during this era was CCTV Sofres. In the days when there was no Internet and set-top boxes, the "diary method" was used to calculate the ratings.

In fact, the ratings statistics are obtained through sampling surveys, which is the same method as the statistics of many economic data.

Simply put, CCTV Sofres will select one or several cities in each province, and "randomly" select 1 to 2 "sample households" in these cities based on the population. One "sample household" represents a certain proportion of TV users in this city.

The sample households fill out diary cards every day to collect information about what programs they watched that day. Among these sample users, each family member has his or her own diary card, so that the TV watching situation of each of them will be recorded in this sample.

Of course, this method of relying on people to fill out the form actively often results in large time errors, but there is no other way, so everyone still believes in this. Not only CCTV, but all TV stations basically use Sofres data as the standard for judging the program dissemination effect.

Seeing his wife so happy, Fang Minghua smiled and said, "Okay. Don't worry about it anymore, right?"

"Yes, yes. As soon as I get to work, I will contact the TV station in Yanjing and start formal negotiations!"

The TV series "In the Name of People" has become completely popular.

This is another popular TV series on CCTV following the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" broadcast last year. The open and covert struggles between officials such as Hou Liangping, Sha Ruijin, Li Dakang and Qi Tongwei are very interesting to the audience, and people are talking about this TV series on the streets.

Shengshi Book Company, far away in Shanghai, immediately launched the third printing of "In the Name of People" to the market according to the planned schedule, preparing to make it popular again with the TV series.

Of course, these are all coordinated among the companies within Shengshi Group, and Vice Chairman Song Tangtang is in overall charge. Fang Minghua does not interfere.

Now that the first month of the lunar year has passed, the jury meeting for the Second World Chinese Literature Award is about to be held, and the winning works of this year will be announced after the meeting.

Fang Minghua is not a member of the jury, and this year he handed over the responsible work to Bai Miao, so he suddenly has a lot more free time.

Of course, Fang Minghua would still go to pick up some of the jury members and writers of the shortlisted works when they came to Xijing. Today, she went to pick up British writer James Coleman.

Fang Minghua met James Coleman last year when she attended the Strega Prize ceremony in Danewento, Italy. His book, Too Late, which won the Booker Prize, was also shortlisted for the best novel in this year's Chinese Literature Award.

This is actually a stream-of-consciousness novel. The story begins on a Sunday morning when Sammy, who has just been released from prison, wakes up in an alley and tries to recall what happened during the two days when he was drunk.

However, things get worse, Sammy finds himself completely blind, his girlfriend disappears, and the police are still harassing him.
Fang Minghua read it carefully after returning and found it quite well written. However, the common problem of stream-of-consciousness novels is that there is no clear main storyline, the logic is a bit confusing, and it is difficult to understand, which is also reflected in this novel.

But the fact that it can make it into the top five among more than fifty novels shows that its quality is still very good.

Fang Minghua drove to Xianyang International Airport and after waiting for more than half an hour, he saw a tall white foreigner coming out of the customs channel with a travel bag on his back.

"James!" Fang Minghua called out. James also saw him, came over with a smile, and the two hugged each other.

"Minghua, I'm glad to see you."

"I must have had a hard time along the way." Fang Minghua said in English.

"It's not hard, you Chinese are very welcoming!" James
It turned out that James came to China alone, got off the plane in Yanjing and then changed to a plane to Xijing. Although he didn't understand Chinese, there were still kind people who helped him with guidance.

In this era, Chinese people are very enthusiastic towards foreigners.

Fang Minghua helped carry the luggage to the parking area, got on the car and drove towards the city.

In the car, Fang Minghua briefly introduced the award ceremony to James. James smiled and said, "Minghua, I know all this. Your invitation letter clearly states it. It's very thoughtful."

Of course
Unlike the Strega Prize invitation which is only in Italian, the Chinese Literature Award is in both Chinese and English for the convenience of foreign writers.

"In that case, I won't say much more. I wish you can win the prize!" Fang Minghua said with a smile.

Unexpectedly, James said, "No, no, it won't win the prize. I am very happy that my novel was shortlisted."

"The jury is meeting and the results haven't come out yet. Why do you think your novel can't win the award?" Fang Minghua was a little surprised.

"My book is a stream-of-consciousness novel, Minghua. I know you have written stream-of-consciousness novels before. This style has its shortcomings and is not very popular in your country. I think you are aware of this."

Fang Minghua nodded.

indeed.

The stream-of-consciousness genre is very popular in the West, especially in Britain and France, so James's book "It's Too Late" won the Booker Prize last year, but stream-of-consciousness is not well received in China.

Back then, Fang Minghua wrote several stream-of-consciousness novels that shocked the domestic literary world and attracted many criticisms. Even "Yanhe", "October" and "Contemporary" were unwilling to publish one of the novels, "The Sun Also Rises".

Finally, Wang Meng was found, and the other party instructed Yenching Literature to publish it.

Fang Minghua was well aware of this.

"That's why I came here, mainly to travel around China. I heard that Xijing is a thousand-year-old capital with many historical relics, right?" James asked.

"Yes, there are the ancient city wall, Big Wild Goose Pagoda, Small Wild Goose Pagoda, Terracotta Warriors James, etc. After the award ceremony, I will take you to visit and climb the Big Wild Goose Pagoda!"

Damn Big Wild Goose Pagoda!

Fang Minghua added in his mind.

(End of this chapter)