On March 1, 2022, the first chapter of this book was uploaded, and on March 26, 2023, the entire book was completed. In one year and twenty-five days, a total of 1.06 million words were written, with ups and downs. To be honest, in the first four months of writing this book, I wrote 700,000 words, and in the remaining nearly nine months, I only wrote a little over 300,000 words.
When I first started writing this book, it was entirely because I had read too many stories about siheyuan (courtyard houses) and there were no books to read. I just wanted to see if good period novels were really that difficult to write, and I couldn't find any.
As it turned out, when I started writing, I realized, damn, this thing is really hard to write.
Initially, I was constantly researching. I was born after '95, and the 1970s were before I was born, so I could only rely on research and asking elders who lived through that era.
However, everyone's experiences are different, their regions are different, and their perspectives and the world they could access at the time were also different.
Therefore, some plots were written with a bit of wishful thinking at the time. For example, the roast chicken costing 10 yuan probably got countless people complaining.
I did some research at the time, and a roast chicken might have cost two or three yuan. I wondered how to highlight the male protagonist's desire to give the female protagonist the best love in the world with only two or three yuan, so I exaggerated it to ten yuan out of wishful thinking.
Later, time ran out, and I couldn't make any changes. I was speechless.
In fact, for a rural family, earning that little work-point, they might not have been able to afford a roast chicken for half a year. How could this not be absurd?
Another plot point was losing the child. There was no foreshadowing. At that time, I happened to recall a story from someone I knew. The protagonist of this story was also born in the 1960s, and their child was given away just like that.
In those days, hospital management could sometimes be chaotic. Of course, things are much better now than they were before, and such things are less likely to happen.
As I said before, I wrote the beginning of this book with passion. I researched and wrote furiously. Later, as my business grew, the drawbacks of my insufficient knowledge and life experience became apparent.
Regarding industry development, company development, business development, and a series of other things, I only had a superficial understanding or no understanding at all.
I could only imagine things, or read autobiographies, or even some magazines. This led to situations where I often wrote about historical processes and overlooked the development of the story itself.
This indeed requires life experience and more learning. I hope that in the future, I can travel more and see more.
Writing novels is just a hobby for me. Of course, I initially aimed to make money. I wrote for four years in college, over seven million words, but not under this pen name. Don't ask, all I can say is that it's all gone, and I didn't make any money. However, I gained a group of friends who liked to chat and joke in the author's group.
This book was opened by chance. Surprisingly, I feel it has a certain completeness. Although there were ups and downs, at least I enjoyed writing the beginning.
Thank you to the readers who have persisted until now. Next, I plan to start a new book. I want to write an ancient Chinese-style "ghostly" cultivation novel with a dark and bizarre twist. I don't know if anyone will read it, haha, I'm just writing it for fun. It will be released around April at the earliest, or May at the latest, depending on the editor's review.
What if I can actually write something interesting? A few more years, and I'll be thirty. I can still have fun for a few years. If I get married and have children later, I might not have time, and then I won't be able to mess around.
Where in life don't we meet? My dear friends, I hope to see you in my new book if fate allows!