I’ll say this upfront: in Volume 2 I won’t write anything that isn’t part of the actual story.
Stuff like: a notice, another notice, yet another notice, heeey, still a notice!
Anything that ruins the reading experience.
If anything comes up, I’ll post it in the comments.
When there’s no update, just check the comment section for info.
Of course, if I ask for leave in the comments or something unexpected happens so I can’t update, that doesn’t necessarily mean the story is on hold. I’ve written a leave-of-absence comment before and then kept updating anyway.
Still, I want to give you a heads-up whenever I can.
Once I’m back to normal updates, any “leave” comment will be deleted right away.
So… what else do we talk about?
If I want to pad this to two thousand words, I really have to rack my brains.
I could just copy-paste a scene from earlier, or tweak it a bit and recycle it as “new” material, but readers would get déjà vu—
Wrong! That’s called strengthening your memory.
For example, do you still remember the Investigator’s notes that Hedi read in the Dark Realm? Remember the route map drawn in it? You definitely don’t, right? I only noticed it again when I was rereading to check for typos (and Hedi’s foreshadowing dream).
This is not “forgetting.”
Face flushing, I argue, “An author doesn’t ‘forget’ things! It’s foreshadowing!”
“So when are you planning to reveal it?” another voice echoes in the void.
“Well,” I try to answer, feeling like a lunatic talking to myself, “that’s the thing about foreshadowing. You can reveal it whenever you want!”
“Heh~~ so after all that, you still don’t know where you’re going to use it.”
“Of course I know. Hedi will enter the Shattered City’s Dark Realm again, and that’ll be the key clue—this doesn’t count as a spoiler, right?”
“Call it fate instead.” The voice turns into a shape. A vague silhouette of mist. “Knowing the ending but not the path to get there—that’s what fate is.”
“That actually sounds pretty philosophical.”
“Is that all you want to tell the readers?”
“Like hell it is, that’s only five hundred-something words. Stop bothering me, I’m trying to type!”
I swat the mist away and keep hammering at the keyboard:
Recently, I heard something interesting from a friend who also writes web novels. A reader wrote him this super long, heartfelt review. He got so excited he rushed to share it with me in the middle of the night and even said he wanted to set an anniversary to celebrate. Totally overreacting (clenches fist).
“Hey, hey,” the mist gathers into a figure again, “this has nothing to do with an end-of-volume summary. Don’t turn this into your personal diary.”
“Idiot! You have to write some trivial nonsense to help readers relax so they’ll have the energy to set out again.”
“Sounds legit, but in the end it’s just pointless rambling that wastes their time.”
“You’re really saying it out loud, huh!”
I stop typing and glance at the blurry figure in the mist beside me. “But you’re not wrong. Including that ‘not wrong,’ which I totally borrowed from what you just said. By the way, I still need another twelve hundred words to hit two thousand.”
“Write something serious. Your creative journey, mindset, plans for the upcoming plot, that kind of thing.”
“I’ve been watching some hype AMV clips lately.”
“…And that has what to do with what we’re talking about?”
“But you told me to force something out. How? Volume 1 was insanely hard to write. Just outlining the plot, thinking through the descriptions, trying to make the sentences kind of rhyme with each other—it all drained me. I felt like a pile of sticky mud that only grew a spine again because of reader comments.”
“Stop smuggling in your own private feelings!”
“I honestly don’t know what to write.”
The misty figure lets out two annoyed hums. “I can teach you.”
“Please, go ahead.”
The following is ghostwritten by the mist:
Ever since I was a child, I’ve felt a strange closeness to words. It’s a quiet passion that wells up from deep within, as if the moment I touch pen to paper, a door to a wondrous world swings open.
At first, I just used clumsy little sentences to record the trivial moments of daily life. Those warm times spent with family and friends turned into line after line of innocent prose.
As I grew older, reading became my daily habit—
“Stop, stop, stop, yours sounds even more like a diary than mine!” I quickly cut the mist off. “Also, I don’t feel any special bond with words. I just want to write the story. If I don’t write, I feel like I’m on fire!!! I can’t sleep all night!!!”
“Psycho.”
“Still eight hundred words to go. This is so hard to pad.”
“I already told you,” the mist says, shaking its head in bitter disappointment, “talk to the readers about fun bits from writing, the process, your mindset, stuff like that.”
“If I can’t do something, I just can’t. It’s not like I’m the protagonist who can suddenly explode with power by remembering some past scene and yelling ‘friendship,’ ‘faith,’ ‘bonds,’ then one-shot the boss.”
“Then at least talk a little about Volume 2’s plot?”
“Isn’t that spoiling it? Oh right! I watched a few really hype AMVs recently. The music was pumping, the hoarse screams, the flashy visuals… I got so excited I got even more excited!”
Thinking of that, I take a deep breath and type three little dots in a row.
...
...
...
“Stratford’s death is even harder to bear than when he was alive.”
“It’s alright. As long as we stand together, we’ll make it through somehow.”
“But—”
“I said it’s alright.”
...
...
...
“Back when I was still on the force, I dealt with this one fight. A little girl tore off the ear of some thug who insulted her sister… By the time we got there, the whole place was a mess. And the way that girl looked at me… I’ll never forget it for the rest of my life.”
“You’re not about to say—”
...
...
...
“The sky… why does it look like it’s grown an eye?”
“Of all times, it wakes up now? Seriously?”
“Everyone, get home and lock your doors and windows! Move! The Erosion Effect is about to hit!”
“Professor! Professor! Where are you going?!”
...
...
...
“Believers of the Goddess of Life becoming sacrifices—you buy that yourself?”
“This moment is the only reason I exist.”
...
...
...
“Great, back into the Dark Realm again.”
“You’ve been in there before?”
“Let’s just say… not the best memories.”
...
...
...
“Lady Eiyr, I’ll use my life to cleanse all the sins here. Please, close the Dark Realm.”
“It’s Investigators who close Dark Realms. Statues have nothing to do with it. Of course, if you want to go get yourself killed I won’t stop you… It’s just a shame, growing up this far only to die for a statue.”
“You’re a little more like the Melvina I knew.”
“And you’ve changed completely.”
“That’s because we… we grew up…”
...
...
...
Selina clutched her wounded abdomen and forced down a mouthful of blood. “I just wanted to put you in prison,” she said, her dislocated arm dangling, barely attached, “but now—” Selina’s eyes went razor sharp. “I’m going to kill you.”
“You really~~ think you can do that~~ in that badly injured body of yours~~?”
...
...
...
“What the hell is this supposed to be?” The mist stares at the scattered fragments and complains, “This is just a jumbled highlight reel. Where’s the music? Where’s the screaming? Where are the flashy visuals?”
“Why don’t you go ask the magic conch?”
“So the readers are supposed to imagine those themselves?”
“Wrong! I’m the one imagining them. Those scenes flashing through my head feel amazing!”
“You’re just making things hard for yourself. You’re cranking up their expectations—what if the actual story doesn’t live up to this?”
“It’s fine. I already had my fun.”
“You…”
“Oh, right, I forgot to tell the readers one more thing. My friend’s book recently—”
Bzzzt, bzzzt.
The sound of TV static.
Reason for the interference signal: temporarily unknown.
