death of hope

Chapter 989: A Few Pictures & A Few Words

As the title,

To liven up the reader community for this book, I ran a few AI character designs using Doubao and posted them in the comments section of the Qidian app.

This book hasn't been signed, so I don't have the right to start a fanfiction community, and I can't post pictures between chapters like I did with my first book. I'll just have to leave it like this for now, and I'll figure something out later.

·
Let's talk about something else.
Because of the unfortunate events that some longtime readers are aware of, the author has been running back and forth between his company, hospital, appraisal agency, law firm, police station, home, and gym all year, constantly exhausted.

The time allotted for writing is quite limited, and coupled with my slow writing pace and rather picky nature, I often delete entire sections of several thousand words.
I'm sorry that I couldn't update daily like I did with my previous book, and that there are some grammatical errors and typos that may have caused inconvenience to readers.

I've been staying up late these past few days fixing dozens of errors, doing my best.

Actually, I know I'm pretty bad at writing, but I still try my best to develop my own style.
It doesn't follow trends, doesn't chase fads, and doesn't deliberately try to be retro; its main focus is on being casual.
Because no outline is written, there's no predetermined ending. Encounters in life, the knowledge gained, the harsh realities of society, the losses suffered, the gains made, the good and bad people encountered, the songs and jokes heard—all will influence the content of the next chapter.

The randomness is there, but the trade-off is that the context is somewhat loosely connected, making some chapters feel like separate short stories. I'm aware of this and am working on correcting it.

It has many flaws, but I dare say that my book is unique on Qidian in terms of writing style, the darkness of the plot, the relatability of the dialogue, and the madness of the characters.
Especially in the realm of Western fantasy, most works are Eastern fantasy disguised as Western fantasy, which is fine. After all, few people like the complicated things in D&D, including myself. Localization of Western fantasy is necessary.

The difference is that I'm trying something new, my own style, neither serious Western fantasy nor Eastern fantasy.
Instead, it tries to emulate Western cultural background and aesthetics to capture the essence of the West, while making the characters' dialogue and expressions more relatable and down-to-earth, reflecting Eastern sensibilities.
This isn't about showing off how sophisticated or unconventional one's taste is, or being the only one sober in a world of fools.

Just for my own sake, I feel that it would be too boring if everyone were writing the same thing all at once.
In order to cater to the majority of readers, they abandon their own aesthetic sense. There will always be aesthetic fatigue and people will want to see something different, right? Also, I just want to complain a little about the chaos in the author community. I have already left three or four author groups.
Why bother with the "golden three chapters" and the "toxic points" and "pleasure points"? They're setting up a bunch of rules for themselves, like they're shackled themselves.

This can't be written, the readers won't understand; that can't be touched, the readers won't be happy. Seriously, bro, do you think you're making a model opera?
What I find worst is that some readers deliberately lower their writing level to cater to the majority, intentionally writing in a style suitable for elementary school students, ideally readable by a two-year-old. I think this is disrespectful to the readers.
If you're capable of preparing a Manchu Han Imperial Feast, at the very least serve them some home-style dishes. What kind of behavior is it to serve them a table full of cold porridge and stale rice? Who do you think you are?

Although I almost never post, I've received a lot of criticism on forums and in various author groups. At first, I thought it was readers sending me death threats, and I figured it was understandable—I had to stand firm even when being attacked, after all, my story is so uplifting and heartwarming, right? But upon closer inspection, I laughed; it was all the authors being sarcastic and sarcastic.

Most of the comments mocked me for not being able to get a contract despite updating two million words of my second book for free, or mocked me for my first book being recommended more than twenty times and receiving strong support from editors, yet still getting such poor data, saying I was hopeless.
I replied: "I am indeed mud, and I know my own limitations."

But is it possible that not every author makes a living by writing, that they don't treat writing as a means to earn money, but rather as an artistic pursuit?
Are there really such fools who dedicate their limited spare time, even staying up all night, to writing out of pure passion, with such a huge addiction and poor skills, the worse they are, the more they want to write?

Excuse me, but yes, it is me! (sad)

Damn it, I got another call halfway through writing. I need to wash my face, then I have to drive off to court again. A traffic accident where the other party is fully at fault has been dragging on for a year and still hasn't even gone to trial. This efficiency is unbelievable!
I looked at it and realized I'd written over a thousand words, a bunch of incoherent rambling. I'm too lazy to edit it.
I'll just post it like this, please excuse the rambling. I get so stressed that I become a chatterbox, I can't seem to change it.

This time, I've survived a major ordeal in my life. Although the experience was tough and difficult, and my hair and beard have turned quite gray, at least I've turned misfortune into good fortune and am slowly returning to a normal life.

I'd like to share my good luck here, and wish all my readers good health and happiness in their lives. Let's chat again another day!