Hogg's story had come to an end here, but I already had the beginnings of a new story in mind.
After ten months, I'm grateful to all my good brothers for sticking with Corgi until now. I've been writing for nearly a year, so I can't exactly call myself a total newbie anymore—just a beginner.
Without my good brothers' support, I might not have made it this far. (/▽＼) Just when I was thinking of giving up, Starry Vastness became my first major supporter. Then there were King Crimson, Ork Greenskin, Gorker Lad, and the other sharp-eyed proofreaders. That really kept me from stopping.
If I'd given up halfway, my editor-in-chief wouldn't have let me off easy either, so somehow I ended up making it this far.
And with all the ideas from the group chat and the good brothers in the comments section, it even felt like I was writing a book through crowdfunding. (Maybe that's exactly what happened.)
Falling into pitfalls is another rite of passage for a new author, and I'll never forget that day. In just 1,782 words, that little punk's name made my subscriptions drop by a third, and my morale collapsed on the spot.
There were plenty of other common problems, too. In short, I managed to hit every pitfall there was. I got my fill.
But problems aren't scary. Now I know how to avoid them in my next book.
Looking back at this book, since it was my first, I had no outline at all. Every day was a race against the clock, and I just wrote whatever came to mind. That led to a story that started strong but ran out of steam. Before December, I managed to update 6,000 words every day, but this year the updates dropped to 5,000.