I posted a while back that I finished writing my story.
However, I was 3 months behind in terms of uploading.
And now, I have officially completed the release of chapters for my story.
My story is now something to be archived, never to be updated again.
After 486 chapters, 18 Volumes, 1.45 million words, 1.5 years in the making.
I learned a TON.
I learned so damn much about writing a story and building a world and it's characters. Political systems, power scaling, interactions, dialogue, minute details that seem insignificant that actually come into play later in such a profound way.
Building up a character, breaking them down, developing them to become what they need to be in a natural way, those moments of realization, those failures which build on one another, all these things.
I don't know for certain if my writing will ever be as good as it was during the peak of my story, but I'm sure as hell going to try again.
I'm now going to be writing a new story! I took a break for 3 months after finishing my last one, and the ideas keep on fluttering about. I've already started writing the new story, and the more I write the more ideas pop up. I'm extremely excited for this one, and I want to take it wherever I can go.
Writing has become a part of my life, and I can't put the pen down.
One thing I am particularly excited about is the ability to make references to characters and things in my previous stories. I'm having fun putting little easter eggs in the new one that only people who read the old one will notice.
And I feel that in writing this new story, I am able to in a way 'reincarnate' certain characters that were in my previous story. Of course, they are different people with different experiences and different situations, however I can still feel the old characters alive in these new characters.
I will miss my old novel greatly, and I am both sad and happy that it has come to an end.
Yet that in of itself is something amazing.
To you writers out there who don't know if you'll ever be able to finish your stories, keep pressing on.
And to those of you who haven't picked up the pen in the first place, but are considering it, I have a few things to share.
People will hate your writing.
People will trash you. People will destroy you. People will give you terrible reviews, if you get any at all.
There will be long periods of nothingness where you feel like not a single person has read your work.
It took me HUNDREDS of chapters before I received my first comment.
Keep pressing on.