Chapter 66

Chapter 66 Preface (Some Words After Eight Years of Writing).

Without any surprises, this book should be released at noon tomorrow.

The performance of this book hasn’t been great, but at least it’s not so bad that it’s unbearable to look at.

To be honest, I’ve really hit some bottlenecks recently.

When I wrote my first book back in my freshman year, I wasn’t even using this account. I won’t bother telling you the name of that first book.

It was an urban novel, and with only a few dozen initial subscribers, I was making a measly 600 bucks a month from the site’s basic salary, but I was pretty happy back then.

After all, as a college student, having a bit of money made me ecstatic.

As I kept writing, that book eventually earned me around 1500 yuan a month, and I treated my dorm mates to a barbecue, which made me even happier.

That’s all for now, gotta get back to writing.

What’s the wildest thing?

Because of “Revival Coins,” I got into the site’s premium author group, and whenever new authors joined, they’d say, “I grew up reading your books.”

If I can’t break out, then I guess I’ll just keep going.

Later on, I had another book flop—was it one or two? One was urban, the other Japanese-style supernatural? (Actually, that one wasn’t too terrible either; it still made me four to five thousand a month.)

Then I became completely obsessed with “Snowflakes in a Violent World” and couldn’t stop reading “Sword Comes.” In my junior year, I started “I Have a Ton of Revival Coins,” which is probably the book where people first got to know me.

Back then, I was writing two to three books a day.

But I’m being too vague here. There’s actually a lot more involved in writing knowledge, like playing to your strengths and avoiding weaknesses. If I were to elaborate, it would probably take over ten thousand words, so I’ll skip it.

I started binging on “Romantic Immortal” novels, reading other big-shot authors’ works, trying to figure out how to perfectly blend character archetypes with plotlines, how to seamlessly integrate the protagonist with the female lead, and how to harmonize the entire storyline with both leads.

That urban novel performed slightly worse than “Taoist Friend,” but it still reached the upper echelons.

In short, I’ve walked down the same old paths far too many times; the words have become numb, and even writing them bores me.

Indeed, I’ve regressed.

But after finishing “Taoist Friend,”

it’s clear—this book’s performance is pretty average… Success? What success?

However, this book could be considered my attempt to put into practice some thoughts I’ve had lately.

Damn, I was only a junior when I wrote this book!

Still, “Revival Coins” has a higher profile than “Taoist Friend,” but in terms of subscription numbers, “Revival Coins” doesn’t come close to “Taoist Friend.”

One day, in the author’s group, there was this really talented author who happened to be from my hometown. He said something that made me think deeply—”I feel like your recent books are just repeating yourself.”

Writing books, in my opinion, shouldn’t involve regression. The more you write, the more you read, the more you interact with other authors, the broader your perspective naturally becomes, and the more you see.

Also, it was “Taoist Friend” that sold its manga rights first, followed by “Revival Coins.”

Writing books is just another manifestation of life’s journey.

And then began my road of flops.

If someone excels at romance, should you tell them to abandon romance?

So that’s it.

What I mean by “repeating” is that I’ve been “plagiarizing myself.” My path has become formulaic, and I’ve been shackled by past successes.

Isn’t life just like that? No matter what, you have to keep moving forward.

After urban novels, I wanted to write about immortals again.

Really, I don’t want to give up on immortal tales. There are so many types, and I classify my own “path” as—romantic immortals.

Regardless of the final results, this book will undoubtedly hold significant meaning in my writing journey.

Besides genuinely needing money, I’m also trying to find my own path.

If I can break through and find the best path for myself, then everyone will be happy.

But why have I kept flopping?

This question plagued me constantly.

So when some readers say my writing has regressed, I don’t really agree because the numbers are actually better than before.

Finally…

I’m still confused~~~

Then you all know about the two books I cut: one failed urban high martial arts theme, and another failed urban spiritual energy revival theme.

Later, during my sophomore year?

I wrote a decent book that brought in around five to six thousand yuan a month, and I was flying high!

Walking around campus with my hands in my pockets like I owned the place.

Some of those books had average subscriptions of 1200, others 2000, and some even 400.

I keep exploring, but I can’t see my own path.

To be precise, I’m lost.

I’ll continue writing this book properly; there’s no way I’d abandon it. If I were going to, I would have done so already since my editor keeps tempting me to write urban novels.

I still want to write about immortals, but I want to explore a different path—one where I can leverage my strengths in “romance” and “female character archetypes” without boring myself.

You might think that after “Taoist Friend,” I only started one failed book, “Immortal Maiden, Put Down That Sword,” but I’ve actually started quite a few others.

Especially “A Bastard Cannot Take the Imperial Exams” and…