A warning: steer clear. Don't read this.
"What brings a book into being?"
After my college entrance exams, I decided to write a fanfic-a Lord of the Mysteries fanfic.
To that end, I did everything I could to research the material, reread the original, and take reading notes. I dug through Bilibili and WeChat public accounts for supplementary lore, asked for help on Tieba, studied the plot, and memorized Cuttlefish's replies under every post. Later, I read seventeen more Lord of the Mysteries fanfics.
To avoid mistakes and keep the characters in character as much as possible, I had to reread the original over and over. Only once I knew the plot's timeline, the central motivations behind major events, and the character arcs inside out could I pick a suitable thread to follow in my writing.
I had never worked this hard even on my studies.
Anyway, after spending a great deal of time and effort, I finally finished a detailed outline for the first volume. But since I had no experience writing fanfiction, I couldn't help feeling apprehensive. After some thought, I found someone to look over my draft.
Then they asked me, "Have you written any books that did really well before?"
I answered honestly, "No. This is my first time writing a webnovel."
In an age that kept moving faster and faster, what readers needed amid their busy lives was simple, straightforward gratification.
So, should I abandon this idea and write in a more popular way, one that better suited the market and readers' tastes? Build suspense, plant hooks, grab attention, deliver quick payoffs, nail those golden first three hundred words?
I left my computer desk and lay on the bed, staring into space. I tossed my phone aside and just felt exhausted-more exhausted than when I was writing. I felt a little hurt, too, but I was already eighteen. I really shouldn't have felt that way.
My mind wandered. I was tired, so I slept.
I slept for two hours. When I woke, I stared at the ceiling. I didn't look up tutorials on getting a publishing contract or study those standard golden opening chapters. I realized there was a question I needed to ask:
Why did I want to write this book in the first place?
I had never been particularly hardworking. I spent year after year absorbed in games, yet I had spent several days straight rereading the original and taking notes to sort it all out;
I was also so thin-skinned that the slightest touch could shatter me, yet I had listened to rejection from every direction, over and over, without breaking down and giving up;
Why was I so determined to write fanfiction?
At first, it was simply because I wanted to.
Because I loved that unwritten story of bygone days, I couldn't bear to let it remain nothing more than a few pages of outline. Still less was I willing to cut away the story's flesh and blood for the sake of three golden opening chapters.
Formulas, templates-they were all very, very good. But I just didn't like them.
In that case.
Go do what you love. Go now, and give it everything you've got! Don't leave your story until tomorrow!
Because the you of tomorrow will no longer need to rejoice over the things you adored in your youth. Those joys and sorrows will be nothing more than naive, laughable childishness in your eyes.
You might cry. You might laugh. Then you will put every word from the past out of your mind. Because you must face reality, where there is no magic, no gods, only the monotony of life.
But I won't blame you, either. You will have committed yourself to a longer, harder journey, and one day you will stop to rest. Then you can look back and see me gazing at you from the opposite shore.
Still, at least at that moment, I continued to believe that some things needed no reason. People should live for something meaningful, however insignificant it might be.
So let me be willful just this once, all right? Metrics and updates wear away only attention and energy, but not love. Love doesn't belong to the market. It is a wish.
What brings a book into being?
For the creator, and for the people within the book, love is an answer worth celebrating.