Leave of Absence: The Million Itch of a Book
My recent condition is a bit hard to describe, it’s very bad.
Several comments have said recently that the plot of this section is boring.
Actually, I feel the same way.
The main reason is not that there is no more fun, but that my mentality has reached a stage of burnout.
When every author starts a book, he or she absolutely thinks that the story is very interesting, so he or she wants to tell it to people or write it for people to read with great enthusiasm.
But I never thought this book would be so successful, nor did I expect it would take so long to write.
Although I have always thought that my writing and comedy skills are pretty good, there is no reason why I can't do it...but it's just a thought.
If someone told me that a newcomer could achieve this result, I would believe it. But if you told me that this newcomer was me, I would definitely not believe it.
If I believed it... I would have to change the title of the book to one that is not so sloppy.
When it was first put on the shelves half a year ago, the first order was over 4,000. I still remember very clearly my mentality at that time. I was flattered and so happy that I couldn’t sleep.
At that time, I was very passionate about the story, thinking about the plot every day, and how it would unfold in an interesting way. Even in the first two months when I didn't make a penny, I was very happy every day.
But when a book reaches a million words, it will encounter difficulties.
After all, writing novels is much more tiring than reading novels. Probably since the Chinese New Year, I suddenly felt that I didn’t like to think about the plot. My passion for this story seemed to be not so strong. Writing every day began to become a task, and I felt very uncomfortable.
I even developed a resistance to all words and couldn't get into any other novel.
In the past, it might take me six hours to write 4,000 words, and I would delete, edit, and revise. Recently, it only takes me three hours. I don’t think about the plot in advance, I just write and forget it, so the energy density is naturally not that high.
Writing a novel isn’t like physical labor that you can force yourself to do, but it’s difficult anyway.
And other ideas started popping up in my mind like crazy. I wanted to write about double opening, new ideas, find a girlfriend, publish a novella, write a public account, and write a script-killing...
There are many good ideas that make me feel very excited.
But I quickly killed these thoughts.
Because I know myself too well. Given my laziness, it is already my limit for me to barely afford the daily updates of a book. Any extra thoughts would be irresponsible.
I asked the editor, and the editor said there was no good way. Every book will have this kind of burnout period when it reaches 600,000, 700,000 words or a million words. It depends on the author to adjust. Many authors can't make it, and basically finish at this word count.
Is it like the seven-year itch in a marriage? Of course I will not finish it. When I started the book, the plan was eight volumes, 808 chapters, and two million words. I don't want to write more, but I don't want to write less either.
So I have been trying to adjust recently.
(Refers to going out to play during the day.) You see those long novels that can write millions of words, and they all have this situation.
It’s just that other people either have a prepared outline to support them, or at least have a framework... I am born deficient in this aspect.
Or I just update casually and write whenever I want... In this aspect, I am not as good as the best, but I am better than the worst.
Or, once you reach a certain word count, you just start writing casually. Some old and famous books actually have few people ordering them anymore, so they just hang around. Because the first few words are long, as long as you don't finish it, new readers will keep pouring in, and you can make a lot of money just writing casually.
But I don't want this to happen. At least my expectation for this book is that it will be exciting from beginning to end. Even if there are ups and downs, they shouldn't be too different, and I must not give up on myself.
Thanks to this unit drama structure, even if my condition is bad for a period of time, it will at most affect a part of the plot and will not collapse.
In the past two days, I finally feel that I have recovered a little. I started to think of new things, and I found some plots funny. I can find the fun of this story again.
Moreover, I went back to look for negative reviews.
When I was full of fighting spirit, because the trolls were almost permanently banned by me, I would often go to Youshu.com and pirated comments to see what those idiots were saying, and then come back and start writing with full of fighting spirit, ready to slap them in the face.
One particularly funny thing is that some people say that this book follows the same routine, where others get into trouble and then come to the protagonist, who then solves the problem.
This is used to prove that the routine is repetitive and the author is rubbish.
This kind of people probably watch Conan and find the routine repetitive after watching three episodes.
Because in every episode, the character encounters a murder case outside, and then the detective comes out to solve it.
As for the core of the story hidden beneath the simple form that drives the story, it probably wouldn't be able to understand it even if you installed ten turbochargers on its little head.
The unit format of the third and fourth volumes is not that strong, and the core of the story is somewhat repeated, but not serious. Although the first two volumes are all about completing tasks, I almost made sure that the core of each plot is different.
I really analyzed the core of many classic stories at that time.
It’s probably the different combinations of character relationships, emotional transitions, plot breaking points, etc. This is why each story is solved with one sword, but it can still be written into more than a million words.
Because it was really carefully thought out, not some little genius who came up with the idea of "oh! It's just a repetitive routine and a cliché."
That’s wishful thinking.
I can clearly feel it from the recent plots. When I can't pay attention to it, the plot's breaking points become weak. As a reader, the most direct feeling is boredom.
Fortunately, everyone still gave me a lot of tolerance.
I am really grateful to all the friends who support me.
You can all see that I like Deyun Club. Lao Guo treats the audience as his bread and butter and respects them absolutely.
This has always been my attitude towards readers.
So as long as you have spent money on this book, even if the words are too extreme, I will just delete them quietly and don’t want to respond.
And for those who like to read this book, I really put a lot of thought into it and don't want to disappoint you.
Regarding the update issue that has been criticized, I actually want to make progress... to the best of my ability.
But if I want to write well, I really need to take a day off and come up with the subsequent outline.
I have said so much again, probably just to explain the previous question. And then to express that I have regained my enthusiasm, and will work harder to devote my limited life to unlimited creation.
Um.
(End of this chapter)
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