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Hello readers, this is Jimmy Q., or as you can call me, SlimJim. If you have trudged through 80,000 words in the book and have reached the very end, then congratulations! I appreciate your patience and interest in looking at my work. It was tough to write the whole thing, and I can relate to new writers about the struggle and the agony of putting the right words onto the computer screen. But in spite of that, I was able to finish it! However, I had to go through three drafts, which took two months, in order to polish and improve my story. From characters, to plot, to descriptions, I had to dig a deeper hole than expected. Since the first draft was full of weak words and inconsistencies, I never thought that I would complete this novel. But here I am.
You might ask, what is your inspiration into writing this story? Well to be honest, I had no idea at first, and my mind wandered back and forth. I tried very hard to come up with something. Initially, I wanted to write high fantasy or science fiction, they were the most obvious considerations available. But in taking account of the extent and complexity of such genres, it would be hard to revolve the story around unimaginable, unrealistic things. But rather than giving up, I continued my search.
This following circumstance might be weird to some. But a couple of months ago, when I browsed Twitter, I stumbled upon a picture, a very sullen and special one that captivated my eyes. That picture was made by an illustrator named Kobuta (all credits to him); it’s the one that is on the front page of this book. In there, according to my interpretation, a short-haired girl is about to break into tears, and the long-haired one strokes her cheek and comforts her. They seem to be near a river. Just with their downtrodden faces alone did it break my heart, I sympathized with their plights even if the illustration wasn’t clear on its theme. It made me think, “Wow, this is such a compelling artwork. Can I make a story out of this? Is it possible to project the suffering of the girls into words? Does it have to be simple even though they are juveniles?” Then from those thoughts, I began to ponder about what plot I should set up.
In the wake of this, it instantly clicked my mind. Thus I decided to make an outline in my head, and I came up with an elaborate narrative that fit together. And behold, the novel was born.
The narrative is grounded in the far future. Perhaps to me, it is better not to tell anything about what had happened in the past – that would have required me to inject myself with information dumping syndrome!
I believe that the people might get bored reading about the past and the events leading up to the foundation of the village. Rather, I let the audience guess. But it’s not as important as the time and place of the story itself. Clearly, it is set in a single area, the village in particular. It is not clear how many people live in the village, but you can estimate it to about 20,000-40,000. Of course, that is very large for such a place, but it’s not enough to designate itself as a city. In the story itself, the cast of characters is surprisingly small; it matters the most to whether those characters are strong or not. If I had created hundreds of people, then the novel would have been a trilogy!
Actually, this is my second novel. My first novel, I worked on it a long time ago; it’s a hot mess! Well, I started writing as a hobby a year back, and the first one I ever invested my energy on came out confusing, redundant, and boring. Worst of all, I wanted to develop that attempt into a book series – and everybody knows that for a amateur writer, that would be the last thing you can ever do. Although I did finish that first work, I chucked it into the depths of my hard drive and never looked back. Instead, I focused on making this novel as hard as I could.
Once again, I like to thank everybody who read this. It really warms my heart, and I hope that by the end of this page, it will make your days a little bit better.
-Jimmy Q.
27th of October, 2018