Thoughts on Going Premium

It's finally going to be available for purchase.

This past month of the new book's release has been a dream come true for me. When the book reached 50,000 words, I was still thinking, "Oh well." When it reached 100,000 words, I was still hoping for a good result. But now, the result is beyond what the word "good" can describe.

Let me tell you about myself. First of all, I'm really not a veteran author, but I'm not exactly a newbie either. I started writing on Qidian around 2013, when I was still a student. I wrote from 2013 to 2018, and had three books published along the way. The best one I got was 200 average subscriptions, which was a complete flop. After that, I left Qidian and went to other platforms to write fanfiction. I did achieve some small success there, and then I was so excited that I wanted to come back here to continue writing "my own heroes," but it was all failure, failure, and more failure—a complete flop.

So I really am the kind of author with very limited talent. There are many geniuses in this era, but I am not one of them. Every year, there are young authors whose writing is imbued with spirituality, springing up like mushrooms after rain. I can only envy them, and I can't even lament that the new era didn't have a ship to carry me... because I didn't board the old era either.

I'm not saying this to elicit sympathy; I just want to say that I'm truly satisfied with this achievement, and I'm genuinely happy that so many people enjoy my book. However, I hope everyone won't overpraise me; I really can't accept that. I just wanted to write an interesting book that people would want to read, that's all.

Now, let's get back to this book. This is truly the most difficult book I've ever written. I rewrote the beginning of this book seven times. The story wasn't like this at the very beginning. Back then, Bai Wei possessed most of the body, and I wanted him to complete his rebirth on his own. In the end, I revised it seven times before it became what it is now.

Here, I really want to express my sincere gratitude to three people: my boss, Qing Ting; my editor, Jiang Cha; and an author friend who wishes to remain anonymous.

After I completed the basic setting of this book, Qing Ting Boss helped me set the tone for it. The general direction of an ordinary person sacrificing themselves to ignite the world was given by him. He also helped me improve the structure and made me understand how an original novel should be written.

Jiang Cha helped me polish the opening paragraph repeatedly. She rejected more than half of those seven drafts (haha). She made me write and revise them repeatedly. Even when the sixth draft was basically approved and I was just waiting to send out the book the next day, she stopped me, saying that it still didn't feel right and that I could write it better. She also repeatedly told me when I was exhausted from polishing the opening paragraph and wanted to give up, that my idea was really good and it would be a pity to give up. She told me to persevere, and that's how I've persevered until now.

Although the seventh attempt, which is the beginning now, is still not very good, that was the limit of what I could do at the time. I could only make sure that the architecture was fine, and then I would write the rest slowly.

The last one is my author friend who wishes to remain anonymous. He also questioned me when my book had no success in the early stages and I wanted to give up, saying, "If you give up now, what difference will it make from before? What will you learn?" That's why I persevered, thinking that it was indeed as he said, if I gave up now, I would have nothing. No matter what, I still had to persevere until I reached 100,000 words and then try to get some feedback.

Then, on the second day of the trial launch, I reached fourth place on the new book chart.

It really feels like a dream.

Looking at it this way, I really feel like a cripple. The three people above truly gave me a crutch each, allowing me to get to where I am today. So I really want to thank them again.

Finally, let's talk about the plot. The first volume of this book has ended, which fulfills my initial idea of presenting readers with a complete story before it goes on sale.

That's certainly true, but I'm still quite dissatisfied with the story itself.

Putting aside my terrible combat descriptions (which I can't help with for now, I'll have to learn how to improve after it's published), based on feedback from some readers, I believe that this volume has the following very obvious flaws.

First, the early writing wasn't very good; it was rather chaotic because at that time, my understanding of Bai Wei, the true protagonist, wasn't sufficient. Should he be the kind of taciturn, behind-the-scenes mastermind, or the seemingly carefree returnee like Lu Mingze? Which one would be more interesting? My own indecisiveness led to a rather fragmented image of Bai Wei in the early stages, which was the main reason why the early readers didn't have a good impression of him.

Second, the Somu City arc was written too hastily. Logically, its plot should have exceeded that of the Beidang Town, but it didn't. My idea of discovering different facts over three days to connect the whole truth, leading to Ulu's gradual collapse and ultimate demise, wasn't flawed, but the problem was that it was too rushed. Ulu's goals were too clear, resulting in an overly tight pace that felt oppressive. The emotional climaxes were also piled up, leading to viewer fatigue. Furthermore, the lack of development for other characters (such as the innkeeper and the little girl) made the final climax feel weak, giving the impression of rushing Ulu's death and forcing emotional manipulation. Of course, this was also because I was too concerned with maintaining the current level of quality, fulfilling my promise to readers to tell a complete story within the free chapters, and my limited experience with original content all contributed to a loss of control in the latter half of this volume, resulting in a slight decline in the overall reading experience.

The above two points are the main ones. If I had to mention a third point, it would be that my writing style is a bit wordy, with a lot of unnecessary details, making it feel cluttered. I will pay attention to that in the future.

Lastly... cough cough, I must honestly tell everyone that I don't have any drafts saved up.

This book is ultimately too difficult for me. Maintaining the current update schedule is quite challenging. I wrote more every day before and accumulated quite a bit, but the plot was so bad that it was basically the same as that part. It mainly focused on the part where Ulu discovers the bugs on the second day. At that time, I felt that the pacing was off, so I sent out all the drafts. Then I found that what I wrote later was really bad, so I deleted it and rewrote it. Back and forth, the drafts were gone.

The last time I burned through my drafts was the final battle between Bai Wei and Ke Li a couple of days ago. Although I know that the terrible battle description made many people frown, I have to say... that was already the second version, and the first version was even worse.

So, since it's going to be available tomorrow, I'll probably only be able to update four or five chapters. I hope everyone won't mind too much. =-=

The first two chapters will be released in the early morning hours, and the next two chapters will be released at 5 pm and 8 pm on the 1st. This will be the fixed update time from now on.

Hope you all support us~ (We've already found someone to produce the cover and character designs, and they'll be available to you soon.)

A new story has begun; let's continue this journey that ignites the world.