Taking Today Off to Adjust for What Comes Next, and a Few Thoughts

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First, let me explain why I'm taking the day off: I've had a great time writing detailed outlines, or rather, story summaries, and I'm planning to thoroughly organize my thoughts on this book, giving Battle of Terra the best ending I can come up with. 💎✌ Claws 🐍🐠

In addition to some issues with my sleep schedule, I don't plan to write the main text today. However, I still want to say something else; having written this far, I actually have quite a few mixed feelings.

First of all, thank you all for your support. I have read every comment. I am familiar with the names of regular readers or those who have been reading since the last book. I am very grateful that you are willing to read my stories and have read this far. However, speaking of the last book...

Well, my previous book had 3.45 million views, and this one has 1.69 million views so far, yet I've never written a proper outline.

To be more precise, it was only after the book entered the Horus Heresy that I gradually realized how precious an outline, or rather a complete and normal storyline, is for writing a long story.

Before this, all the plot twists, developments, and endings of the story were things I came up with on the spot. In other words, except for a few times, I really only knew the plot a little bit earlier than you.

You can insult me, I'll accept it all.

This way of writing has huge problems, really huge problems. Looking back at the first part of the book now, I can only say that everyone's patience and my occasional flashes of inspiration saved it.

In fact, even now, when I look back at the early and middle chapters, I feel that I didn't write enough here, and that I didn't write well there. Even the extra chapter "A Dreamlike Fantasy," which I'm quite satisfied with, actually makes me a little unhappy because of the word limit.

I wrote six thousand words. When I finished writing, I didn't think much of it. But after finishing, I felt that I could add some emotional descriptions, make it more detailed, sharper, and more substantial.

I feel that I have made progress in my writing so far, but the process behind it has actually been very painful.

When writing a book, my state of mind fluctuates, real-life distractions and the lament of "why is my writing so rubbish?" can make me want to escape many times, and I happen to be a master of self-escape.

But in the end, I didn't run away because I had read online novels for many years and knew how disgusting the idea of eunuchs was. I didn't want to do it, and I didn't want to run away. The only thing I was good at was writing.

I've already run away from so many things; wouldn't it be too cowardly to run away again this time?

Then, little by little, the story moved on to Terra.

The chapter titles remain unchanged for dozens of chapters, and the main characters, Karyl and Curze, rarely appear, sometimes only briefly mentioned in a few sentences. The narrative shifts between multiple perspectives, creating a sense of oppression and seriousness.

These are all major taboos in online writing, but I still wrote it this way. It's not that I'm stubborn; believe me, who doesn't want to make more money? Nor is it that I deliberately wanted to imitate the style of the original Black Library. I wrote it this way simply because I had an idea.

I want to challenge myself; I want to bring you the story I wrote with the utmost seriousness, within the limits of my abilities.

Many years ago, my teacher told me that she thought I was wasting my life. She said very seriously that she believed I could have gone much further and she didn't understand why I was stopping at the level of barely passing.

Of course, everyone has probably heard teachers say things like that. At that time, all I wanted to do was leave her office as quickly as possible and go back to read my extracurricular books.

But even now, thinking back, the look in that teacher's eyes still deeply moved me.

Her gaze was like a question, arriving from many years ago and now, posing a question to myself.

Why stop here?

It's great to write only 4k words a day. It's great to skim the surface of the plot and not go into depth. It's also great to gloss over the Horus Heresy and write some trivial things lightly.

There's absolutely no need to painstakingly explore the "attributes" of the four gods, depict their "oppositions," or try to flesh out the characters and make them more lifelike.

These things all seem like a losing proposition, but at least when I look at what I've written, I don't feel angry or frustrated anymore, and that teacher won't jump out and question me again.

I didn't want to stop there, so I wanted to challenge myself. That's why I wrote about war scenes that I was completely unfamiliar with and wouldn't write about, using multiple perspectives and switching back and forth, trying to depict a bit of epic scale.

I still wouldn't dare say that my writing is particularly good; I can only try my best to satisfy myself first.

Although many people believe that online writers are not true creators, and don't even deserve the title of "author," but are only worthy of being called writers, I still hope that what I write can satisfy myself to some extent. That's all.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'm going to have dinner. I slept all day and I'm not feeling very energetic. Thank you for reading this far. Also, I have two things to say.

First, each chapter will be a long one, because I don't enjoy writing or reading if the word count is too low.

Secondly, this book will not end after 30,000 words. The story at 40,000 words will only get more exciting.