Say goodbye to the old year and welcome the new year, 2023! (A New Year's letter to book lovers)
Amidst the crackling of firecrackers, the old year departs, and the warm spring breeze brings new life to the New Year's wine.
As the sun shines brightly on every door and window, people replace the old peachwood charms with new ones.
Okay, although firecrackers are not allowed now, we still have to pay New Year's visits. I wish all my children a Happy New Year in advance.
(`) Sending love
Wishing everyone a happy and prosperous New Year! May all your wishes come true. Students, may you get perfect scores on your exams and have smooth studies; working professionals, may you achieve success in your careers and enjoy a happy family life. Also, I wish someone like me, who struggles to lose weight, could finally wear a size S in the new year!
Well, according to the event schedule, the next step is to summarize last year's events—what I want to say most is to express my gratitude to everyone for their tolerance of Shiitake Mushroom Scraps last year.
A lot happened in 2022.
In terms of family matters, Shiitake Mushroom became pregnant at the beginning of the year.
My early pregnancy was a bit unstable, so my updates went from a regular double-update schedule to single-updates. The worst part was receiving a gift from Yuewen this year, praising my consistent writing of 1.072 million words – I felt ashamed; this isn't the output a full-time author should be producing (but single-updates are really great! It's easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go back. I've been a complete slacker for a year, and now I'm a little panicked). Thankfully, I had almost no morning sickness. I did experience some fatigue in late pregnancy, but finally, on December 15th, I happily received a leather jacket.
In terms of career, and this is where Xianggu is most proud, the strong support from everyone for "Retiring the Emperor" has allowed the book to achieve an average subscription of 9,000, even in an environment where female readers have very little traffic. This is also the first time in Xianggu's ten years in the industry that she has achieved such results during serialization (when "Empress" ended, the average subscription was around 4,800, and "Big Boss" barely reached 5,000).
Actually, I hesitated a lot when I chose to write "Retreat the Emperor". I was worried that people would say I was relying on my old works, or that it was another empress novel. They said the female lead was always fighting or on her way to fight, and that she was too violent. But then I thought about it and realized that empress novels are a very niche and unpopular genre. One more book from me wouldn't make much difference to this circle. I wanted to write one, so why not?
With this impulse, I started doing it.
To be honest, when writing, I don't have an outline.
Yes, I don't have an outline.
The beginning was written on a whim. At that time, I only had a vague scene in my mind—an amnesiac girl wakes up during exile—and then I revised it seven or eight times, choosing a suitable perspective. When it was almost finished, I came up with the name of the female lead and gave her the qualities that appealed to me: she has no sense of direction, a big appetite, is carefree, and is bad at drawing but has a mysterious confidence...
Another issue is that he can't hold his liquor.
As readers who have been following the story know, the inspiration for this book, "Xianggu," came from many years ago. The inspiration stemmed from my time following "The Sage of Confucianism and Taoism" while I was also updating "The Empress." I wondered what would happen if the element of "words becoming law" were added to the process of vying for supremacy? How would strategists and generals, two crucial figures in war, utilize their respective talents?
However, this mushroom is such a scumbag, dual-clienting is just a pipe dream.
Only now do I rediscover that fleeting feeling from back then.
The book *Retreat the Emperor* is like a scroll painting; I only find out who the characters are by updating it daily (that's the literary way of putting it, really, it's just because there's no outline). Qi Shan is the first scholar to appear. Initially, his character wasn't very developed; it was only as I wrote that I realized Tang Mei's martial arts skills weren't fully unlocked and she couldn't temporarily defeat the third-rank official, so I arranged for a savior to appear—Qi Yuanliang. The young scholar's formal introduction couldn't be just a background character; his image gradually became clearer in my mind. I learned his name, his past, and vaguely understood why he happened to appear.
The same applies to the appearance of the second scholar, Chu Yao.
I want to write about a character who was successful and illustrious in his youth, but then fell into poverty and hardship for half his life, his talent tarnished, and finally met a wise ruler. In my mind, he should possess the kindness and tolerance of an elder, and the composure and humility that come with the passage of time.
What should this person be called?
My first thought was Yao, so I named him Wuhui. This name seemed more like a mockery in the first half of his life, but in the second half, I hope it is fitting—a virtuous minister meets his ruler, and the world is full of splendor.
Next was Gu Chi.
Initially, no name was given to him, and the character's portrayal was unappealing, leaning towards an antagonist stance, as was the arrangement of his scholarly path. Then one day, stuck on his name, unsure what to choose, he inadvertently thought of Gu Chi, then of the homonym Gucci, then of Wangchao (a character resembling a tidal bore), then of a small octopus, then of takoyaki (octopus balls), and then of how lonely a person who could hear people's hearts would be. He had seen too much of people's hearts, therefore he didn't trust them.
To gaze upon the river tide from a single pool of water.
Therefore, he was bound to be attracted to Tang Mei when he met her.
There are many, many more characters, including Gong Shuwu, Lin Feng, Tu Rong, Kang Shi, Jiang Sheng, Xun Zhen, Ning Yan, Yu Zi, Liao Jia, Xianyu Jian, Bai Su, Lü Jue, the Xu brothers (Xu Quan and Xu Jie), Lu Ji, Zhao Wei, and of course, Gong Xi Chou.
Longtime readers may have noticed that Xianggu's writing style often involves introducing characters first, referring to them with terms like "young person," "woman," or "elderly person," before assigning their names, roles, and plot points. This is all because there is no outline. In fact, this approach is very easy to backfire, creating bugs and logical inconsistencies, but Xianggu prefers this kind of "fate."
Of course, some writings have gone astray.
For example, regarding the character Yang Gong, my original plan was for him to die defending the city for Tang Mei, on the eve of his reunion with Yang Ying and his daughter. Or, Yang Gong might be alive, leading troops into battle, when he happens to see a skeleton in the wilderness, feel a pang of pity, help bury it, and then arrange for a beggar who specializes in touching corpses to produce Yang Ying's keepsake, only then will Yang Gong realize that he has met his daughter.
_(:з」∠)_
As I was writing, I ended up assigning the city defense storyline to someone else and forgot about him. He survived the death point and is still alive and kicking. I can't just force him to die, can I? I either have to fix it later or take it back...
Sigh, writing novels is really hard. #ChinrestingMyChin
Having talked about the novel, let's talk about its revenue.
Thank you everyone. I'm barely making ends meet with mushrooms. After the contract with the top player expires, I should be able to renew it and try to survive (after all, dropping to LV5 as soon as the contract expires gives people the impression of not being ambitious _(:з」∠)_).
As for the grades...
In 2022, Shiitake Mushroom achieved its first-ever monthly ticket top spot. Actually, this honor should have been itss much earlier, but due to some well-known reasons—you all know what I mean—it wasn't. Thank you all for supporting Shiitake Mushroom despite being asked for monthly tickets 365 days in a row.
A new year, a new beginning, new aspirations.
I hope for more readers, more patrons, more subscriptions (like getting the 10,000-subscription badge—I'm so envious!), and to get the five-star badge (to be ranked alongside "The Empress" in the five-star hall of fame), or...
Emmm, starting a new book.
(Twisting wildly) I'm so craving those ideas I had before!
Whispering softly—
The Empress's fandom is so small, one more book wouldn't be too much, would it?
at last--
The road ahead is long, but we will walk it together.
Invulnerable to all poisons, free from all taboos.
Happy New Yearヽ(°▽°)ノ
Seeing this, don't you feel like cursing? If only the word count were at a normal update level, this would be fine.
Hehe (*^▽^*)
I wanted to share some heartfelt thoughts with everyone, but I accidentally revealed too much...
(End of this chapter)
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