Murakami began to write fiction when he was 29.[20] "Before that", he said, "I didn't write anything. I was just one of those ordinary people. I was running a jazz club, and I didn't create anything at all."[21] He was inspired to write his first novel, Hear the Wind Sing (1979), while watching a baseball game.[22] In 1978, Murakami was in Jingu Stadium watching a game between the Yakult Swallows and the Hiroshima Carp when Dave Hilton, an American, came to bat. According to an oft-repeated story, in the instant that Hilton hit a double, Murakami suddenly realized that he could write a novel.[23] He described the feeling as a "warm sensation" he could still feel in his heart.[24] He went home and began writing that night. Murakami worked on Hear the Wind Sing for ten months in very brief stretches, during nights, after working days at the bar.[25] He completed the novel and sent it to the only literary contest that would accept a work of that length, winning first prize.