While writing this, I glanced at last year's year-end summary, which contained 1.798 million words. Now, the total word count is 3.812 million. That means that in the past year, (opening the calculator), I wrote 2.014 million words, averaging nearly 170,000 words per month. This shows that my updates are still quite stable (I can only boast about being stable).
Last year, when I wrote my year-end summary, I had almost forgotten the exact numbers of follow-up subscriptions and average subscriptions. I only had a vague impression that the follow-up subscriptions were over 30,000 and the average subscriptions were less than 50,000. Now, a year later, both the follow-up subscriptions and average subscriptions have almost doubled. The average subscriptions are now 93,000, and the highest follow-up subscription reached 63,000. The follow-up subscriptions of 60,000 lasted for more than a week. Currently, the other members of the Tarot Club also have around 54,000.
I have to thank everyone for this. From taking the top spot on the character rankings to winning first place in monthly tickets, from countless birthday parties and taking advantage of Qidian's freebies, to the repeated attempts to promote the game despite setbacks, from all the fan art, songs, video clips, interactive games, fanfiction, and free merchandise created out of love, to the various silly jokes in the chapter comments and reviews, to the language arts representatives, and the hardworking administrators and moderators, it is you who have brought Mysteries the North to this level. Of course, my writing is also one of the reasons (laughs).
So, in the new year, what I want to say most is thank you, thank you everyone.
This month's summary of the creative process doesn't seem to be very interesting, because I already summarized it once after finishing the Amon segment. This confirmed an idea of mine: sometimes, it's good to break out of the protagonist's comfort zone appropriately, which creates a different kind of plot tension and a fresh sense of excitement. After the Amon segment, because the tension and relaxation were well-balanced, continuing the same kind of confrontation wasn't really a good idea. It's easy to become repetitive and monotonous, lacking enough variation. Yes, variation should be reserved for more important moments, not for the daily chase scenes. Therefore, in the second half, I broadened the perspective to include other members of the Tarot Club, laying more and better groundwork for the later parts of this book.
This might have resulted in some parts of the plot being rather bland, but that's unavoidable. If the opening scene hadn't been so fast-paced, I should have slowed things down and explored more details, which might have had a better effect.
My goal for 2020 is to finish writing the book "Mysteries". According to my prediction, I won't be able to finish it in the second half of the year. It will probably be finished around May, or at the latest June.
Everything has a beginning, but few things have an end. The further I wrote, the more cautious and apprehensive I became, as if walking on thin ice. I could only keep telling myself that I must remain calm, wrap things up well, and tell the story properly so that more readers could follow it to the end.
Only then, looking back, can we truly summarize whether the character development achieved its purpose and whether many intended messages were conveyed.
On the first day of 2020, I'm asking for your monthly votes! The last leg of a journey is the hardest; let's finish these last few months of the Mysteries!
Also, I wish everyone a happy and prosperous 2020!
Well, actually I originally wanted to wish everyone a happy 2020, but then I thought that the Mysteries might make you sad, so I changed my wishes. After all, the underlying tone of this world has already been set, and the inevitable twists and turns will come.
Lastly, I'll update at the normal time tomorrow. Please vote with your monthly tickets! Voting during the double-ticket period won't hurt!