End-of-Volume Thoughts: Star-Prison

On September 10, 2022, the Star-Prison volume concluded. It took seven months and totaled 1.72 million words, averaging 8,000 words a day. Excluding the first two months of the new-book period, when I wrote 4,000 words daily, the average monthly update was over 9,000.

This month alone, I had already written 110,000 words, averaging over 10,000 a day. That could not be called little.

The first volume of Above the High Heavens had come to a safe conclusion, and personally, I was quite satisfied with it.

In my previous books, one arc counted as one volume, with a book generally having around fifteen to twenty volumes. Above the High Heavens adopted a large-volume format; before I began writing, I had already planned a structure of three major volumes plus a final extra volume.

Of course, perhaps there was no essential difference, because a major volume was really just several smaller volumes combined. Old readers could surely tell which arcs counted as a volume, where they began, and where they wrapped up. As I wrote further on, I realized this too. It did not really feel any different to me, so for the next book, I should continue with the format of one small volume every one or two hundred thousand words.

Next, I will summarize the story so far.

Star-Prison was the first of the three major volumes. Its purpose was to establish the grand stage of Terra Continent, showing the process through which the protagonist gradually came to understand the truth of this world.

In the prologue, "Disciple and Teacher," Ian, reincarnated on Terra, awakened the memories of his previous life. Under his teacher Hilliard's guidance, he gradually came to understand both the minute details and vast grandeur of this world, learned Terra's distinctive philosophies and scientific concepts, and