Hello, everyone. I'm the author of this book, 雪梨炖茶.
Well—here we are. I guess we've said our hellos.
The first sentence of this book's opening is written like this: "After eight years, Zhang Shutong returned to the small island where he grew up."
For me, this is the first time in three and a half years that I've written a listing reflection. I'm excited, but also a bit apprehensive. If you have the patience, I'd love to share the story of how this book came to be.
First, I must thank all of you readers. Without your unwavering support, this ill-fated book would never have made it this far. While the current results aren't great, they're a huge surprise compared to when I first started with only four or five readers and a collection of 50,000 words that didn't even reach a hundred. Your company has brought it to where it is today.
Next, I must thank my editor, 迦南. He's a humorous, witty, gentle, and brilliant editor with a unique vision (I promised him I'd praise him fiercely when the book was listed. I'm really running out of words, so please forgive me).
Okay, the praise is done.
Cough. All jokes aside, Editor 迦南 is my benefactor, and he has shown me great kindness. I can responsibly tell you all that without him, this book would not exist. This isn't groveling or flattery; it's the truth.
Initially, I took the first 9,000-plus words of the manuscript and submitted it everywhere. It was rejected by three editors in a row. The comments were that it had no sense of anticipation, readers wouldn't want to read it, the theme wasn't good, and so on.
I'm not a newcomer; I've had a little success as an author in other places. If you had asked me my expectations for this book at the time, I would have said I wasn't optimistic. My own goal was that 500 initial subscriptions would be a victory.
Based on its style and theme, this was destined to be a book that wouldn't appeal to the masses. Still, to not even be given a contract—and to be politely refused when I asked if I could just post it to their group to give it a try—left me with mixed feelings.
I had given up and started writing a new opening. It was around 3 p.m., and I had already written a little over a thousand words, when a red dot suddenly appeared on my QQ email. I opened the message, and this time the content was completely different from before: "The manuscript is approved. Add my QQ."
I don't need to tell you the rest.
Actually, I can say a little more. At first, I thought this editor just liked to take on struggling authors and was giving me a chance, but that even if I got a contract, I'd probably be left to my own devices. Of course, being "left to your own devices" is the norm for authors.
Who knew that on the very same day I added him on QQ, my boss chatted with me for a long time, recommending many similar works? Before I published the book, he also helped me revise the synopsis. I originally thought he was just responsible, but only a few days into writing, he helped me get a chapter recommendation and kept encouraging me to write well and not care about the early data. We've been in constant communication since then, and he has given me a lot of brilliant inspiration.
Even now, if you were to ask me who I've chatted with the most on QQ in the past few months, I'd look closely and say, "Holy cow, it's my editor." We could even be considered close friends.
So, I'd like to thank my boss 迦南 once again for his guidance. Since the book started, he has called me several times to chat. The longest call was two hours, and the latest one was until 1 a.m. And he's a gentle person. He never curses on the phone and always makes me feel happy.
He also recommended many works that were beneficial to my writing, such as a romance novel where the female lead is a femboy, and a pure-love manga where the female lead suddenly pulls out a fake XX to perform a kind of role play on the male lead... The nourishment was abundant. Fortunately, I was able to block all of it with my strong willpower.
Finally, I also want to sincerely thank those three editors. This isn't sarcasm—thank you for your kindness in not signing me! Sometimes fate is so wonderful. If you had really signed me back then, I definitely would not have met my boss, 迦南.
The rest of this note is about the inspiration for the book itself and the characters.
At the beginning of the book, around April, I drove to a small island next to my hometown to attend a funeral—yes, you read that right. Although I know everyone thinks the beginning of this book is super similar to Summertime Render, the inspiration from that anime is actually the smallest. I didn't even finish it. The inspiration came from my own personal experience.
The small island is called "Weishan Island." Some of the geographical descriptions, such as "the largest inland island in the north," "you can drive a car onto the ferry from the dock," "the ferry runs from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., and you can't get in or out at other times," and even the "college student incident" at the beginning, are not things I made up. They are things that actually exist. Of course, there is no Green Snake Temple, no temple maiden, no Miss Gu, and no murder case. It's truly a pity.
But the small island in the book has none of these regrets.
Everyone has a different attitude towards creation. For me, the highest goal I pursue is to portray a real world while describing a group of living characters. To make everyone feel that these are real people, but their story just happened in another world.
If you were to ask about my role, you could see me as a photographer. Some photographers went to Africa to shoot an "Animal World"; then I am someone who carried a camera to the small island to edit the stories of Zhang Shutong, the two girls, and his best friends for you all.
At the beginning of the book, I wrote character biographies, but they were actually just one sentence each, something like this:
Ruo Ping is a fool for love.
Qingyi is a chuunibyou.
Du Kang has a baby face.
Gu Qiumian has a pair of very bright and beautiful eyes.
Lu Qinglian is in her complete form from the moment she appears.
Zhang Shutong is a nostalgic person.
In the end, their images extended from these simple sentences and became vivid and lively.
I've always been a person with a three-minute passion. I've learned a lot of things from childhood to adulthood, and I often give up in a short time, but the one thing I never get tired of is the idea of a story itself.
But I often feel pained by my poor writing skills and often feel powerless. The only thing I can promise here is that every chapter I release will meet the standards that I am satisfied with at the time. A musician I like once said that making a song requires the spirit of an ant gnawing on a bone. The creation of this book is pretty much the same. For example, I know some friends will complain that a certain chapter is too "watered down," but it's actually much easier to water down a chapter than this. Writing is about conveying. Sometimes you can convey a 60% effect with 1,000 words, but if you want a 70% or 80% effect, it often requires double the word count.
For me, it's more like making shoe insoles. The result of each stitch and thread may be a crooked and ugly thing, but it's ugly in a... what's the word? I can't say it's ugly in a unique way.
Well, I can only thank you all again for your love.
Of course, as an author, I can't just be self-congratulatory. My next writing goal is to make some of the necessary groundwork interesting, write plots that everyone enjoys, and control the overall pace.
Maybe some old readers know that in my last book, I was a lazy dog who would occasionally miss my daily 4,000-word update, but now I've suddenly evolved into a tentacle monster who can easily write 5,000 or 6,000 words a day and sometimes even burst out with eight or ten thousand. It's really a lamentable thing to think about.
Ah, if only I could count this listing reflection as an update. Unfortunately, that's not possible. I'm writing this at 11:14 p.m. I'll borrow a sentence from the synopsis for the ending:
"Deep mountains, a large lake, a temple, a shadow under the water, a series of murders from eight years ago, and a girl's gradually chilling body; this is a youth story with a little warmth, a little horror, and a little romance, that takes place on a small island in winter, among a group of young men and women."
The overall theme is like this: romance, youth, mystery, and adventure.
Let's all look forward to the story to come!
I've created a reader group. The group number is at the top of the reader circle. Everyone is welcome to join and urge me to update.
And now for the special thanks section. Thank you to my operations manager, Mr. A Bai, for patiently answering all my questions about the new book process. And also to the great authors who gave me chapter recommendations (sorted by the first letter of their pen names):
The Great Pure Dragon from "The Lifeguard" ("撈屍人"純潔的小龍大佬)
The Great Honey-Squeezing from "Rekindling the Green Era" ("重燃青蔥時代"蜜汁姬大佬)
The Great Xi Chi from "My Avatar is Becoming the Final BOSS" ("我的化身正在成爲最終BOSS"汐尺大佬)
The Great Yang Xiaorong from "Don't Tell Me Even a Gentleman Guards Against" ("不是吧君子也防"陽小戎大佬)
(These are all I know of so far. If I missed anyone, I apologize.)
Finally, let's talk about updates. Don't worry about me being lazy. As long as I can get into the mood, I'll write fiercely. I'll publish 6,000 words right after midnight, and the rest of the updates will be on June 1st during the day.
And there's one more important thing—monthly votes.
My operations manager told me that I have to do my best to get on the June New Book Monthly Vote List. For this list, this book even gave up on the Sanjiang list and missed two rounds of recommendations, so it's being listed in a hurry. So I'm shamelessly asking you all for your monthly votes. (Note that they are for June.)
Finally, the rules for additional chapters: [Starting from midnight on the 1st, for every 200 monthly votes, I will add one more chapter. The count will be settled at midnight on the 2nd.]
(Please rest assured, as an author with integrity, the additional chapters on June 1st will not be counted.)
I'll write until I die!
Happy Dragon Boat Festival! Happy Children's Day!
—Submitted by 雪梨炖茶!