(This chapter is free.)
I surpassed myself. Many of you guessed correctly: I wasn't actually a new author. I once wrote under another account and produced a novel nearly 500,000 Chinese characters long.
But later, after some upheavals in my personal life and relationships, I gave up on that book. I abandoned it unfinished.
After that, 500,000 characters became a mental hurdle for me. I picked up writing several times, but of the dozen or so books I wrote afterward, not one surpassed the 500,000 characters of my first.
I would always give up midway through writing for one reason or another. I even began to think that perhaps I was simply someone who couldn't stick with anything-a failure.
As readers, many of you might not even spare a glance for works under a million characters. But as someone who doesn't write full-time, all I can say is that keeping up daily updates really takes a lot out of you.
After eight hours at work, or even longer with overtime, all I wanted when I got home was to enjoy some games or lie in bed. Once I passed 200,000 characters, writing out of passion would turn into a prolonged ordeal. And with this book, it took me a full four months just to reach nearly 600,000.
Frustrations at work, a lack of support from family, and the occasional bout of illness are all reasons a part-time author might stop updating.
But I finally pushed past that hurdle and made writing a regular part of my life. Even when I was laid low by COVID earlier, I only posted a notice taking the day off when my fever reached nearly forty degrees Celsius. On the other days, I kept writing through the dizziness of a thirty-eight- or thirty-nine-degree fever.
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