The Book of Troubled Times

I finished updating 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 activity, which is a little bit of gold... I originally brought a notebook with me to squeeze in time to write, but I deliberately wanted to take two days off to take a rest - in fact, I could choose any activity. Those who don't go only agree to go out for a walk and take the opportunity to change their minds.

At least, I finished writing the red feather line in the previous section, 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.

It’s said that it’s less than two million words a year, so it seems that it’s not too slow to say it’s slow, it’s okay...

In short, writing a book for a long time becomes very tiring, just like a marathon. It is easy at first, but then I sit there writing every day, and there is no weekend or anything. The more I write, the more tired I become, the more I write, the stiffer 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 the structure of this book is longer than the 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 provide 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 an extra ticket when it’s doubled at the end of the month. If I can’t, forget it.

Oh, by the way, on the 8th, there will be a night makeup episode about filling the gap. It has almost three chapters of text content. If you are interested, you can follow it. I think the night makeup and love story in the episode are particularly cute.

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

The summary was written intermittently over the past few days, but 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 perspective, but from a writing perspective, this book should be considered the book where my style has changed the most…even more so than the style of the previous Qiuqiu single heroine.

After all, Qiuqiu still takes emotions as the theme. No matter what the main line of every previous book is, the theme is emotional drama. But this one is not...

Before the book started, 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 for not being able to meet expectations if I think it is not as good as before.

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, instead of resting on your laurels.

In the end, this book became my best one, and it is probably due to readers’ recognition and encouragement of this change. It is considered a successful attempt, thank you all.

Especially in the early and mid-term, when the Jianghu flavor was the best, I was very surprised. As I said before, I originally thought that the old-school Jianghu atmosphere was very outdated and might not have any achievements, but 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 found it annoying. I don’t want to read it, this is the first time in my many years of writing career (I have done so before but not this much).

Of course, the main theme of the harem is still that there is iron-bloodedness and tenderness to make a complete Jianghu... 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's a pity that the story of Jianghu will not be too long, and it will soon move 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.

I'm scratching my head, it's okay. I might write a low-level book if I have the chance 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 taste as the previous books" don't know if they understand that they are written just so that they don't have the same taste as the previous books, so you... usually have nothing to do but think that everyone else has the same taste. Some people pursue a different taste for each book, but they feel that it is different from the previous taste. Why bother...

As for not liking the taste of this book and feeling it is not as good as before, that’s normal. It’s normal for everyone to prefer which book they prefer, but the kind of “I don’t like it means it’s bad” is still a no-brainer. You’re no longer a child.

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Of course, when it comes to specific content issues, 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.

Among them, the bigger rhythm is still the part 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 the person who couldn't bear it and rebelled. They were all scolded for not being like the mantis.

I was a little irritable at that time, thinking that I clearly wrote "one", but it must be said that I wrote "two" 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 is good at night makeup and is still a fellow villager. As a result, the villain is not rebellious enough and does not match his emotions, 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.

When I think 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 don’t have to 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 a summary of the previous article. Just emphasize it again...

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. Yes, maybe it is a bit misunderstood - because times have changed, everyone has upgraded faster than the previous predecessors, and that is necessary.

In the age of great strife, gods and demons are resurrected, dragons and snakes are rising, and both the frequency of battles and the creation of fortunes 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.

Looking more specifically at 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. It’s just that people often say that “everyone looks for reasons to be promoted”... Please, as long as you want a character who will have a role in the future, there is no book that doesn’t look for 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 turns, a woman The Lord just said one round, and it was really a bit unbearable.

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

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Not much to say, I can’t stop talking once I start.

Not to mention 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 after writing this. Although it is controversial, 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 It's bold and brave but also smart, which suits the 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. Looking back at some places, MD's idioms appeared... This is not good. Hope it will feel better after rest.

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

I really can't help it. I'm an old and wizened man. I really can't maintain my condition and my energy is very low. I apologize.

Whenever this happens, I wonder how many more years I can write, because 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 damn strong...

Well, I’ll summarize it here first. It seems that I can write a lot less in the postscript of this book. If I’m lazy then, I’ll just say that half of the content can be read back to the one-year summary~