I never really made much of New Year's Day.
But it seemed especially lively this year, so I thought I'd join in.
A brief recap.
This was my first time writing a novel.
As of today, I'd posted updates on a total of 273 days, totaling 2.01 million Chinese characters.
That worked out to a daily average of over 7,300.
That number might be easy for the pros, but for a rookie like me who mostly typed with one hand, it really took everything I had.
Fish Head also had a main job, so time was even tighter.
For the better part of this past year, aside from things I really couldn't get out of, I spent almost every evening typing.
Working through the plot, weighing which words and phrases best suited the emotions of the moment.
Staying up until one or two was routine.
Recently, I decided to go easier on myself and protect my health: no matter how many characters I'd written, I would try to finish before midnight.
It was fulfilling, and exhausting.
It was very interesting, but a lot of the time, it also made me anxious.
Especially since I realized I'd made plenty of mistakes.
For example, my editor told me that my writing wandered too much. I wanted to avoid the usual formulas, but in doing so, I'd actually strayed from readers' expectations, which made it worse instead.
I could feel that problem myself.
Whenever I thought about that and various other problems, I couldn't sit or stand at ease.
But as I'd said before, I wanted to write this book according to my own ideas.
Whether it did well or poorly, I would accept it.
By now, this book had reached an average of 4,500 subscriptions per chapter, and this was probably about