Someone once asked Xu Shaoting: You write more than 200 million words in each novel. How do you maintain the enthusiasm for writing in the process of writing?

Many readers have been curious about this kind of question. Most of the authors, including Shaoting, gave very similar answers. When they are most enthusiastic about a novel they want to write, they are writing the first novel. Before writing, it is in the stage of imagination and conception.

At this time, with infinite enthusiasm and only relying on brain conception, it is already a million-dollar masterpiece with ups and downs and wonderful content.

After finishing Chapter 1, the enthusiasm began to retreat a little. After finishing the first three chapters, quite a few authors will tell you: What kind of rubbish is this writing?Why am I writing it?Why is my writing so bad?Why are my memes and stories so corny?

—I don't want to write anymore.

Shao Ting felt that he had only entered the period of burnout when the first volume of "A Great Way to the Immortal Way" ended, with about 20 words, and felt that it was long overdue.

Regarding the many methods to solve the burnout period, some authors choose to stop updates, update every other day, and reduce the amount of updates.Some authors choose to update like crazy, and Shaoting chose this method. The workload of the original three chapters per day has evolved to four chapters per day. It is normal to write [-] words a day, and often write a chapter every day. Million words.

Editor-in-chief He was naturally very happy about this, but he was also surprised by his high-intensity workload, so he comforted him: "Mr. Qianfeng, your daily content of [-] words is enough, so don't put too much pressure on yourself."

"The reason I write so much every day...is not because of stress."

Editor-in-Chief He couldn't figure out what made this young man who looked like a salty fish so angry.

Xu Shaoting said: "I really want to finish writing "The Way of the Great Dao" as soon as possible. If I can write 25 words a month, I can probably finish it before the Chinese New Year."

Editor-in-Chief He did the math, and it happened that the full text was 100 million words at that time, and he pondered: "Didn't you say to write 120 million words or more?"

Xu Shaoting: "...After all, the plan can never keep up with the changes, and it is too watery to write so many words."

Editor-in-Chief He was even more puzzled: "What does water mean?"

Xu Shaoting: "...It can be understood as too much nonsense."

Editor-in-Chief He nodded: "Oh, that's the case, but don't worry, I read the feedback from readers, our "A Great Way to the Immortal" has a wonderful plot, interlocking, and the readers don't think it's watery at all!"

Editor-in-Chief He turned to talk about another matter. It turned out that today he not only came to pick up manuscripts to comfort Xu Shaoting, but also brought the first book of "The Great Way to Immortals".

Handing the book to Xu Shaoting, it was a black and white ink painting background of distant mountains, with the words "Da Dao Xian Journey" printed in the form of brush characters.

Speaking of the cover, I originally hired a painter to draw the character covers, but Xu Shaoting was dissatisfied, and after looking at the book covers of various novel characters on the market, I originally put forward the only request for Xu Shaoting, who had full authority to edit the book.

"I don't need a character cover, but a very simple ink painting background, with calligraphy, thin gold or italic script, just write the words Dao Xiantu."

Editor-in-Chief He was worried that this would be too plain, such a cover is too unattractive, but Qian Fengmingyue is not a small author, since he made such a request, he can only abide by it.

But compromises were also made. There are no characters on the cover, but the illustrations inside are accompanied by characters.

It’s just that Xu Shaoting opened the sample booklet and looked at the doughy face, slender eyes and eyebrows, and a woman in a palace attire, which resembled a Hanfu with a curvy train. The description of when it came out:

Under the towering giant tree, the woman was wearing a white palace dress and looked back at Ye Yunqi, only to see that her exposed skin was too white, so her eyebrows and eyes seemed to be blacker and purer, which also set off the woman's whole body except white. Only black was left, but it became more and more colorful.

Most of the descriptions of various female characters in the book are specific to oval face or oval face, almond eyes or peach blossom eyes, willow-leaf eyebrows or long eyebrows with slanted temples, as well as hairstyles and clothes.

Xu Shaoting originally thought that male readers would care about these descriptions of women. Unexpectedly, the feedback from female readers was more enthusiastic, and successfully led to the revival of various Hanfu in the current era of popular cheongsam and dresses—a lot of money The girl from the family found a tailor and asked her to customize clothes according to the girl's description in the book.

So in October, the Shanghai stock market staged a show. Walking on the street, you can not only see lace dresses, cheongsams, jacket skirts, and jackets, but also girls wearing skirts—this is the nickname of the little demon girl in "The Great Way". Chen Yiyi's daily wear.

You can also see girls wearing horse-faced skirts with mating-collar tops—this is the dressing style of Zhang Ruoshui, a Chinese medicine fairy in "The Great Way of Immortals".

But the most popular one is the most popular among women, the clothes worn by Anonymous, and it is also the woman who said to the protagonist in the endless night trial environment, "I only hope that the king's heart is like my heart".

This unnamed woman actually doesn’t have many roles, and her positioning probably came out at a critical moment, to remind the protagonist of the existence of cheating. Of course, the background setting is a very sad love story, and the ending is also set to disappear, which is similar to the The protagonist is completely out of luck in this life, and the protagonist has never been with the second woman because of her.

Xu Shaoting probably thought that Wuming's popularity would not be low. After all, men, who doesn't like a woman who not only never asks for you but only pays for you, and who is infatuated with you.

But I didn't expect not only male readers to like Wuming the most, but even female readers...

Xu Shaoting originally thought that female readers would prefer girls like the little witch Chen Yiyi, but Chen Yiyi is not very popular among female readers, and her reputation is quite bad.

As a result, Xu Shaoting, who always thought that he was not a straight man, could not help but doubt his own taste... Could it be that he is not a straight man in his sexuality, but he is still a straight man in other respects?

Anyway, later a reader sent a letter asking about Wuming's clothes, Xu Shaoting thought about it, and wrote back saying that it was similar to the clothes called Qu Ju in the Han Dynasty.

In his imagination, it was the kind of clothes worn by Wei Zifu in the later TV series "The Son of Man", which looked quite slender and simple and clean.

So in October, Xu Shaoting occasionally accompanied Mrs. Zhang to school, and saw many girls on the street having their hairstyles done, paired with jewelry, wearing curved trains, skirts, and horse-faced skirts, and also wearing cheongsams, lace skirts, The girl in the skirt and gown has completely fallen into a style of the Republic of China, or the wasteland of the future apocalypse?

Or is cyberpunk concretized?

And why can a novel drive the fashion trend of dressing?

Sure enough, there are so few entertainment methods in this world!

---

Seeing Wuming with a doughy face, Xu Shaoting's little heart began to tremble: "This is...is this Wuming?"

Why is the appearance of the exiled immortal and the beautiful Wuming in his works so ugly?Where is the aesthetic!

Editor-in-Chief He said cheerfully, "How beautiful."

Xu Shaoting: Am I blind or Editor-in-Chief He is blind? !

Xu Shaoting replied euphemistically: "The nameless I describe...isn't such a big face."

Editor-in-Chief He said: "You didn't describe Wuming's specific appearance, but it's strange to say that you didn't describe it in detail, but we readers think Wuming is the most beautiful woman in the book."

Xu Shaoting thought to himself: This is a writing technique. Ordinary authors describe characters well, with a pile of gorgeous words.What eyes are star-like peach blossom eyes, like the lips of red plum blossoms in the snow.

But it’s actually not the case. The more specific the description of appearance, the more concrete the reason is, it can’t make readers feel that the character is very beautiful, at least it can’t reach the author’s goal.

Sometimes I want to show the mystery and beauty of a character, but don't describe his specific appearance positively.

Just one sentence: It was a handsome pale young man, standing silently in the shadows and staring into the distance.

It may be more effective than a description of appearance written in hundreds of words.

Editor-in-chief He said: "Then do you want to change the nameless image?"

Even though he asked this question, Editor-in-Chief He still couldn't give up and sighed: "The painting is so beautiful. I specially invited everyone to draw it for you. When I heard that it was for "The Way of the Great Dao" to draw characters, they didn't charge any money. A hardcover signed edition. Of course, it would be even better if you could write a sentence on the title page to Mr. Feng, wishing you good health and success in everything.”

Xu Shaoting looked at the illustrations of other girls, protagonists and male characters... Well, they all have big faces and thin eyebrows. Thinking of this, Xu Shaoting looked at the calendar hanging in his room and looked at the long and thin eyebrows on it. narrow-eyed girl...

I didn't care who Mr. Feng was, I didn't know him anyway, Xu Shaoting understood that this is the aesthetics of today, but he still struggled: "Draw the eyes bigger, the face shape and eyebrows are all described in the book, and the clothes are drawn very nicely. Face……"

Can't you save me again?

Editor-in-Chief He took out a small notebook and sighed: "Before you said that you didn't ask for it, so you said that you didn't ask for it, so come on, tell me the details, I will write it down and give feedback to the artist."

Xu Shaoting is also very embarrassed, the other artist has already drawn a set, and now he has to redraw, but his novel is also his own painstaking effort, I really can't bear to see the illustrations and imagine the characters as such.

In the end, he memorized a bunch of requirements here and there, and Xu Shaoting almost drew a sketch. Of course, he didn't have the ability.

In the end Xu Shaoting said: "If possible, I would like to attach an extra salary as compensation."

Editor-in-Chief He said: "That's really not necessary. Mr. Feng is your loyal reader. He heard that "The Great Way to Immortal Journey" is going to be published, so he took the initiative to ask you to draw the characters and the cover for free."

Xu Shaoting: "It turns out that Mr. Feng also painted the cover, no, I said it's all free, and your newspaper didn't pay anything for co-authoring it?"

Editor-in-Chief He laughed dryly: "This...can't let others down."

At the beginning of November, the Shanghai stock market gradually entered winter, and the revised sample booklet was sent to Xu Shaoting. This time, looking inside, it should be an oval face with willow leaf eyebrows, and it should be a beautiful woman with an oval face and long eyebrows. The face of Ye Yunqi, the protagonist with apricot core eyes, and the new image of Wuming, Shaoting was amazed for a long time——

It was a woman looking back sideways, wearing an ancient costume with a curvy train and standing under a huge tree. As for the specific appearance, she had a straight nose, clean lines, and dark eyebrows.

If an adjective is used, the word "Qingli" is the most appropriate.

Xu Shaoting couldn't be more satisfied this time, so Editor-in-Chief He went to the factory to supervise the printing of the first volume of "The Great Way to Immortals". There was more than one sample book, and this one was left to Xu Shaoting.

Zhenzhen, Xu Yanran and Mrs. Zhang took it to see it, and they all couldn't put it down. Zhenzhen even got it to the school. The little girl couldn't help showing off a little, which caused the newspaper's phone to be ringing off the hook that day.

Even the bookstore owners didn't know the release date of "A Great Way to Immortal Way", and they were asked by thousands of readers. As a result, "A Great Way to a Fairy Way" has not yet been sold, and thousands of copies have been pre-ordered.

According to Editor-in-Chief He's experience, when it's officially listed, it may be possible to multiply this amount by ten times.

In December, 19 copies were printed for the first time—it was originally [-] copies, but the number of orders alone was more than this number, so I quickly mentioned [-] copies, and the price was [-] yuan and [-] cents.In addition, [-] hardcover books with figure paintings were released, priced at [-] yuan and [-] cents.

Xu Shaoting, who knows the price of goods in this era, understands why the first printing of the novel is only [-] copies even though it is a big hit. After all, in this era, those who have enough money to buy idle books and read others are all families with a good income, commonly known as well-off.

So I also complained silently, can the hardcover instinct be sold out?

As a result, not only the first printing of [-] copies was sold out on the first day of publication, but the hardcover was pre-ordered by miscellaneous people and people who could not be offended by the newspaper before it was released. Except for the copy left for Xu Shaoting, it was not circulated in the world.

Editor-in-Chief He called that evening, and his voice was floating: "Mr. Qianfeng, it's sold out."

Xu Shaoting is being pestered by Zhenzhen. One of the little girl's classmate's family is in the shipping business, not ordinary rich. The little girl's brother wants to pay 1000 yuan to buy the sample book.

Zhenzhen was pestering him to ask him if he should just sell the sample booklet, but Xu Shaoting replied whole-heartedly: "Congratulations, what's sold out?"

"Your novel." Editor-in-Chief He suddenly laughed, "Don't talk about it, I have to go to the factory to supervise the printing of the second batch tonight, and you should wait at home for the manuscript fee for the second printing!"

At this time, Shaoting had no personal experience that his books were selling well. Until the end of December, he received five remittance slips, totaling 5000 yuan in manuscript fees. With an expression on his face, he suddenly grinned foolishly.

Xu Yanran and Mrs. Zhang became even more numb. They took out the money for him and deposited it in the bank. Xu Yanran said to Mrs. Zhang in a daze, "Third brother can earn so much with 17 years of salary, right?"

Mrs. Zhang couldn't make any expression at all, and replied with a blank face: "I only started writing novels in September, and this year hasn't finished yet. It's really... really unimaginable."

Xu Yanran saw more scenes and handled more money, and she soon returned to normal, calling Xu Shaoting to ask him if he had any plans to invest.

"It can only be regarded as safe to put money in the bank and earn interest, but it is better to exchange it into gold or US dollars and pounds and store it in a safe, or to invest in the current movies, stockings, and soaps. The business is very good."

Speaking of this, Xu Yanran said again: "However, the money invested in business is not worth looking at. It's better to buy it into gold."

After hearing Xu Yanran's words, Xu Shaoting bought gold with the help of his aunt. On the day he brought a box of small gold bars home, he tried the feeling of lying on the bed. After lying down for a while, he got out of bed and took it back silently. I'm panicking...

---

In a blink of an eye, it entered January 1928. According to the Gregorian calendar, 1927 had already passed.

Xu Shaoting was a little worried about this cheap father, but Xu Yanran and Zhang's were accustomed to Xu Huaiqing not returning all year round, and his mentality was no different from usual.

Lian Zhenzhen said: "Don't worry, Dad used to study abroad for a few months or even half a year."

Xu Shaoting had to sigh again: Xu Huaiqing is very good as a single person, but as a husband, father, and elder brother, he is really not responsible enough as a family.

At this time, the people in Shanghai have changed into winter clothes, and Shaoting also felt the coldness in the south. It was damp and pervasive, and the cold penetrated into the bones like a gangrene, so that Xu Shaoting was even more reluctant to go out. , So I miss the winter in the north.

As a result, the newspapers reported that heavy snowfall in the north had collapsed many houses, and many people died in their sleep, not to mention the number who died of freezing.

Even since the beginning of winter in the Shanghai stock market, the first thing police officers do every morning is to drag away the bodies of homeless people who froze to death on the streets, and transport them to the suburbs for incineration.

Some authors published articles, all of which wrote ironically: It is fair to be burned to ashes in a fire, no matter whether you were a big man or a beggar and a vagabond in your lifetime, you are all turned into loess dust and bid farewell to this mortal world in a hurry .

Xu Shaoting also saw Shen Lingjun on the street after an absence of three months.

That day, he couldn't resist the demands of the three women in the family, so he took him out to go shopping. Xu Shaoting wrapped himself up like a round ball, and he couldn't see the body under the ball-like clothes, which is now 1.7 meters tall. Just over 55kg.

His body lacks fat to keep warm. If he wants to go out this winter, he always wears two layers thicker than others.

After shopping with Xu Yanran, Zhenzhen, and Zhang for more than two hours, they entered an imported grocery store on the street. The charcoal burning inside was very hot, and Xu Shaoting was so hot that he couldn't breathe, so he simply left the store and stood on the side of the street looking across White men in black uniforms were handing out food.

This is very interesting, Xu Shaoting thought in his heart, along the way out, he saw Chinese people serving porridge, and saw white policemen—maybe they were policemen, and the uniforms worn by Shen Lingjun and Shen Jieke were the same, but it was only later that they realized that they were military uniforms Well, the uniforms of the British local police don't look like this.

Thinking of this, I also thought that I had lost Teacher Zhang Qiuren, as if I had lost contact with that pale young man. Yue was too tired to write the manuscript, so he could only respond in a few words with poor energy.

After two or three phone calls like this, Shen Lingjun was sensitive and caring, so he wisely stopped calling him, let alone asking him out to play with these things.

At this moment, I feel sorry in my heart. Thinking of this person, I saw the white people on the other side of the street laughing suddenly. I took a closer look and saw that it was a short and thin Chinese girl surrounded by several tall white people. She looked like she was playing tricks. There were many onlookers around her, but no one stepped forward.

Shao Ting hesitated for a few seconds, but still rushed over, hurried to the crowd, and heard someone say: "Whatever she does, how can a good woman go to the street."

The shabby yellow man who lined up to receive food also said, "If she didn't wink at the white people, why would they not let her go on purpose?"

As he said that, even the women in the queue said angrily: "It is this kind of woman who has disgraced our Chinese women."

Xu Shaoting, who was about to step forward for a while, paused slightly, but he didn't know whether it was the winter wind in the Shanghai stock market that was colder, or the words of these Chinese people made people feel colder from the body to the soul.

In such a moment of dazed effort, I saw the man whose height was never inferior to that of a white man, and the only Asian face he could see in the Ministry of Industry and Technology Bureau, except for the Japanese, passed by him, and he walked over to put The girl lightly embraced her shoulders and brought the man behind her.

He communicated quickly in English with the white men, and saw that the tone of the white policemen was bad.

I saw them laughing suddenly, and then said ambiguously: "Leon, goodlucktoyou!"

The white people dispersed, and Xu Shaoting stood there in a daze, watching the "Baihua" Shen Ryan, who was mentioned by Xu Yanran in a disdainful tone secretly, walking towards them.

The poor people who received the food backed away fearfully, but the young man of yellow race in British uniform just took two loaves of bread, wrapped them in newspapers, and walked back to the little Chinese girl, and put The bread was given to the girl.

Xu Shaoting walked over two steps, the girl timidly raised her head, it was Zhang Qingxiu's face, and whispered: "Thank you."

Shen Lingjun replied calmly: "Go home quickly, remember to walk around when you see white people."

The girl seemed to want to say something, but she suddenly reached out and grabbed the tall young man's hand. Not to mention Xu Shaoting's surprise, Shen Lingjun was also very surprised when she heard the girl say: "I...I am willing to go home with you."

As a bystander, Xu Shaoting and Shen Lingjun had expressions like "So embarrassing" on their faces at the same time.

But then I saw the pale young man looking at the girl harshly and critically, without saying a word, just sneered like this, then turned around and walked away.

The girl in Tuliu looked at him with tears welling up in her eyes, probably because she was too ashamed of herself, so she turned and ran away.

Seeing this expression, Xu Shaoting murmured in his heart: Another Shen Lingjun who has never seen him before, shouldn't he be given the nickname of Ever-changing Little Lingjun?

But he hesitated for a while, and still raised his voice and shouted: "Mr. Shen Lingjun——!"

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