The Book of Troubled Times

 Leave application note and one-year summary

 I finished two chapters today, come and ask for a day off...

I came to Shanghai in the past two days to participate in a starting point event, which is the golden touch... I originally brought a notebook to squeeze in time and write, but I deliberately wanted to take two days off to take a rest - in fact, I could have chosen not to go to the event. Yes, I agreed just to go out for a walk and take the opportunity to change my mind.

 At any rate, I finished writing the red feather line in this paragraph before, so I didn’t get stuck in any place where I couldn’t get up or down...

This book was published on December 26 last year, and it is 21 days shy of its one-year anniversary today. It is the only book I have written that has spanned the past year except Asking Questions. It is currently the second longest book, and is probably the longest. Will be the longest book.

 Speaking of less than two million words a year, it seems that it is not too slow to say it is slow, it seems okay...

 In short, writing a book for a long time becomes very tiring, like a marathon. It is easy at first, but then I sit there and write every day, and there is no weekend or anything. The more I write, the more tired I become, the more I write, the more rigid my brain becomes, and it is physically and mentally overwhelming. Now that I'm older, the period of weakness is earlier than before... What a tragedy.

And this book is longer in structure than others, so I can't finish it like the other books. It's better to rest more, go out for a walk, and change into a better state, so that I can present more exciting content.

 So I took two days off on the 67th.

  And it is very likely that the number of leave requests will increase in the future. I would like to apologize to everyone in advance.

  Let’s not argue about the monthly ticket. I’ve already asked for leave and there’s no point asking for it. I’ll try to see if I can get more votes at the end of the month if I can double it. If not, forget about it.

Oh, by the way, on the 8th there will be a night makeup extra for the pit-filling festival. It has almost three chapters of text content. If you are interested, you can follow it. I think the evening makeup and love in the extra are particularly cute.

　　——

Also since it’s almost an anniversary, let’s make a brief summary.

 The summary was written intermittently over the past few days, so don’t blame me for finding the time to write this...cough...

I don’t know if I can feel it from a reader’s point of view, but from a writing point of view, this book should be regarded as the book where my style has changed the most...even more than the style of the heroine Qiu Qiu in the previous book.

 Because Qiuqiu still takes emotions as the theme after all. No matter what the main line of every previous book is, the theme is emotional drama. But this one isn’t…

 Before I started the book, I said that this book would reduce the proportion of emotional scenes. Many brothers later said that they couldn't feel it. They felt that there were still a lot of emotional scenes, but the nature was really different. Because this book does not have emotional drama as the core and does not serve to promote the plot. It mainly uses the protagonist's own experiences to promote the story, with emotions as an additive.

In other words, removing these emotional scenes will basically not affect the main plot (whether it will look good after removing it is another matter). This is the goal I want to achieve this time, and it basically went according to plan and was very successful. It can even be hidden from the senses of many readers.

Of course, there are also keen readers who have noticed the difference. I am glad that the better version can satisfy you, but I can only say sorry that it is not as good as the previous version and cannot meet expectations.

After all, as a writer, you still have to try different writing methods and break through bottlenecks before you get too old and lose your enthusiasm. Regardless of success or failure, you can tell yourself that you have worked hard, rather than resting on your laurels.

 In the end, this book became my best one, and the readers recognized and encouraged this change. It can be regarded as a successful attempt. Thank you all.

 Especially in the early and mid-term, the Jianghu flavor received the best feedback at that time. I was very surprised. As I said before, I originally thought that the old-school Jianghu atmosphere was very outdated and might not achieve much, but it turned out that everyone liked it very much... and countless people didn't want to see women at all, and came just for the Jianghu stories, but when it came to women, they were bored and didn't want to see them. Look, this is the first time in all my years of writing (I’ve done it before but not this much).

Of course the main theme of the harem is still the same, a complete Jianghu with iron-bloodedness and tenderness... In the end, some of these brothers gave up, and some were even scolded and left. I could only cover my face and cry, laughing.

 It is a pity that the story of Jianghu is not too long, and it soon moves towards the world and fantasy. Although it is an inevitable process according to the plot, there are still many brothers who are reluctant to let go and want to see what it was like before.

 Scratching my head, it’s okay. I might write a low-level book if I have the opportunity in the future. I’ll consider it when the time comes.

Speaking of this, some brothers who always like to say "it doesn't have the same flavor as the previous books" don't know if they understand. They just wrote it so that it doesn't have the same flavor as the previous books. So... you usually have nothing to do but think that everyone else has the same taste. Some people I am pursuing a different taste in each book, but I feel that it is different from the previous one, why bother...    As for not liking the taste of this book and feeling that it is not as good as before, that is normal. It is normal for each person's taste to prefer which book. But the kind of "I don't like it, it's bad" is still in charge, and they are no longer children.

　　——

Of course, if we talk about the specific content, the writing is indeed not without problems. There are often some criticisms, some of which are indeed reasonable, and some of which are unreasonable. I reply to some of them, but not to most of them. I really don’t have the energy to be as explosive as before.

 The biggest rhythm is still the section about Lao Xia’s death.

I didn’t quite understand it at the time. From beginning to end, the character was portrayed in a dramatic way: “Because he doesn’t take the people of the world seriously, he will eventually die at the hands of the people of the world.” He was also a selfish and foolish king, the source of troubled times. Basically, the whole book There are no good words to say to him. All the supporting characters are scolding him, his daughter is scolding him, and the protagonist is rebelling against him. Apart from being able to fight, he has no other qualities to speak of. Even his speech is second-rate, and he is completely written like a big naughty kid. This is a villain that has caused chaos in the world. The protagonist said to his face, "You will die at the hands of the common people." The attitudes of the author and the protagonist are very clear...

I don’t know why such a person is regarded as a positive character who is so strong that he must die spectacularly. We haven’t written about the collapse of the patron saint’s character...even those who couldn’t bear it and rebelled. I was scolded for not being like the mantis.

I got a little irritable at that time, thinking that I clearly wrote "一", but it must be said that I wrote "二" with one horizontal line. Isn't this inexplicable? Thinking about it afterwards, it may have been the author's fault that it caused such a big controversy.

  The villain should not be given an overly complicated spectrum. For example, Chang He’s evening makeup is not bad, and he is still a fellow villager. As a result, the villain is not counter-reflective enough and his emotions are not matched, which subconsciously brings a positive halo and expectation to the readers. This is also the disadvantage of being too literary. I always think that a strong person needs to be complex and three-dimensional. In fact, emotional feedback may be more important. In addition, the backlash of "Yu Tianxia" caused a sharp decline in spiritual practice. Maybe the concept was relatively empty and unintuitive, which led to the feeling of Wutiao Enlightenment, so he died too quickly. Then I wrote too slowly, which caused me to forget to keep up with the early foreshadowing. This can only be blamed on me for being slow.

 Thinking about it this way, I feel relieved. I do have more problems.

Of course, if you want to say that I patched it up later, you won't admit it. There is indeed a lot of foreshadowing in the front. It can't even be called foreshadowing. It should be called the whole book. The so-called "patching" is to summarize and emphasize the previous article. Just once...

There are also issues such as the heroine's combat power rising too fast. Many people have mentioned it before and after. Basically every heroine has to be criticized... I think this should really not be my problem. , maybe it's a bit of a misunderstanding - because times have changed, everyone has upgraded faster than their predecessors, and that is necessary.

 In the age of great strife, gods and demons are reviving, dragons and snakes are rising, and both the frequency of battles and the emergence of good fortune are concentrated now, far exceeding those in previous peaceful times. If they want to keep up with the predecessors of the previous era, it will only prove that they are a group of idiots and not the hero and heroine. Even Chang He's cultivation speed is most affected by this factor, not the Heavenly Book, which he actually avoids.

For example, in the early years of Zhuque Xuanwu's understanding of higher spiritual practice, he only knew that there was a guard but did not know why. After searching for the blood of the soul, it began to explode; now there are many gods and demons, and important figures can basically know it. This is a group of strong Before and after comparison, eras were separated before, but now they are not. Therefore, not only the heroine, Cui Yuanyong, Han Wubing, Situ Xiao and even Chi Li will be faster than their predecessors, because that is in line with the rhythm of the times, and the Tianbang will also generally break the imperial standard, which is also the rhythm of the times.

It’s not that when the protagonist is strong, everyone will follow suit, but because the protagonist is living in a time of changing times, but the writing is not on others. The first thing to acquiesce is that everyone is working hard and is not offline.

 Taking it more specifically to the individual, is there no self-consistent logic and sufficient foreshadowing? Yes, we all know it, so I won’t list them one by one, but they are often said to be “everyone looking for reasons to be promoted”… Please, as long as you want a character who will have a role in the future, in any book, don’t find reasons to be promoted and The speed is much faster than the predecessors... There is no need to explain this. Others can just give a reason. I try my best to make it reasonable and give the foreshadowing process from the world situation to the individual. This has to be said all the time. Every time the perspective changes, a heroine will After talking about it for one round, it was really a bit overwhelming.

Do we all want the kind of works in which the protagonist moves forward alone, and suddenly when he looks back, all the people he has been with are far away and can no longer keep up, and he has been disconnected since then? Is this the most reasonable, right? If I want this, I'm so happy that the difficulty has been lowered...

　　——

 No more to say, I can’t stop talking once I start.

 Let’s not talk about other minor controversies. They are all my fault. I would like to apologize to everyone for not meeting expectations due to poor consideration or poor writing skills.

Generally speaking, I have not deviated from the original intention of my plan when I wrote this. Although there is controversy, this book is actually much less controversial than the previous one... Many brothers also told me that they particularly like the male protagonist of this book and think that Chang He is heroic. It's brave yet smart and has a good taste. I'm glad that everyone likes it, and I'm generally satisfied with it personally.

 As for the follow-up, it depends on how it is written later. For example, although there were no criticisms in the content after the gods and demons appeared in the world, I felt a bit weak. The writing was not interesting and could not be ignited. In some places, when I looked back, MD language errors appeared... This is not good, I hope It will be better after rest.

　　Everyone said that if you slow down and look at the intermittent constipation, I don’t know that the ten thousand words a day will become more coherent and the forgotten things will disappear, but I really can’t do it...

There is really nothing I can do. I am an old and wizened man. I really can’t maintain my condition and my energy is very low. I’m sorry for that.

Every time like this, I wonder how many more years I can write. My physical condition is so bad... I really envy those tough men who are older than me but can still make millions. They are so **** strong...

Well, that’s the summary first. It seems that I can write a lot less in the postscript of this book. When the time comes, I will be lazy and say that half of the content will be read back to the one-year summary~

 (End of this chapter)