Free Web NovelChapter 76: Mass Release and Plea for First Subscriptions (Part 3)
I really didn’t want to drop it, but I was completely crushed by my performance back then.
On that day, I also happened to catch the flu and was suffering from a terrible fever. I was at the clinic on an IV drip, chatting with a few author friends on my phone. They asked if I’d made it to the second round, and I said no, crying while sending self-deprecating memes.
After I got back to my dorm, my roommates asked me how my writing had been going the past couple of days. They knew I wrote web novels, but I’d never told them my pen name.
Then, they suddenly said they thought what I was doing wasn’t a proper pursuit.
So I shot back, "And you think getting caught up in the academic rat race is a proper pursuit?"
Because I was the one with the best grades in the dorm. In my freshman year, I had a perfect GPA in all but two subjects, I’d won a second-class scholarship, and I’d been named a Merit Student. I was aiming for a direct recommendation to graduate school, but I got brutally shot down. The top spots all went to students with perfect or near-perfect GPAs. I wasn’t even close to qualifying.
The more I studied, the more lost I felt. That is, until I started writing web novels in early ’22. I discovered that every cell in my body loved the feeling of writing, even if everything I wrote was a flop.
I might have been just drifting aimlessly at other times, but only when I was typing could I feel that I was truly alive.
I realized I just loved this line of work, even if it meant high risks and dealing with a lot of prejudice.
I guess web novel authors aren’t exactly viewed favorably by the public anyway... My other three roommates all thought I was wasting my time. They thought I shouldn’t be writing and that I should be putting more time and energy into getting that grad school recommendation.
They’re actually really good to me—they even stayed with me at the clinic while I was on the IV—but what they said really pissed me off.
I yelled at them, "This is the path I chose, and I’ll bear the consequences myself!"
And in that moment, I felt like all my emotions just came crashing down on me.
After lights out, I lay in bed, my whole body feeling like it had been taken apart and pieced back together. I didn’t have an ounce of strength.
In the middle of the night, I sent a tearful message to Lan Guang. "Brother Guang, I’m so sorry," I wrote. "I’m going to drag down your numbers again. Maybe I’m just a hopeless case. No matter how much I study the charts or how hard I try, I can’t compete with someone else’s casual idea. But I’m probably not the author with the most flops you’ve ever managed. I’ll keep trying my best to write. I will absolutely not drop this novel..."
...
The next day, when my alarm went off, I got up and dressed almost instinctively. Fighting through my rhinitis and a low-grade fever, I grabbed my laptop and went to find a place to write.
I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.
’You’re clearly not cut out for this, but you insist on forcing it. You’re a real fucking idiot.’
’A fucking idiot, then. So be it.’
’I haven’t even started writing yet. Idiot or not, I still have to write.’
As it turned out, just as I opened my laptop to start writing, two lines of a message from Brother Guang came in:
Don’t be in such a hurry to doubt yourself.
You made it to the next round.
I was completely stunned. With my stats, there was absolutely no way I should have advanced.
’Then I thought about it more carefully. Recently, there’s been a big shift away from fanfiction to support original works. In my batch of 50 novels, only 17 were original. Maybe I just rode that wave and got through!’
Immediately after, I felt a terrible clenching in my gut.
Looking back at the cringey, emo, otaku-fueled rant I’d sent last night, a horrific sense of social death washed over me...
It was probably like that senior author who wrote a romance novel, had his parents find it, and then had them immediately share it on their social media...
...
After that, I regained my composure and have been writing steadily ever since. freēwēbnovel.com
But I’m still a long way from "taking off." I only got new recommendations because of that shift in trends. Even with them, my performance has consistently been at the bottom of my cohort.
In other words, it was pure luck. My actual skill doesn’t deserve these recommendations at all. I’m self-aware enough to know that much.
Even though I’ve reached heights I never have before, I don’t feel happy. The feelings of humiliation and inadequacy are still lodged in my heart. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
I guess I’ve just been holding it all in, waiting for the first-day subscription numbers when the novel goes premium.
Actually, learning to make peace with yourself is pretty important. A lot of problems just solve themselves that way:
’You’re just not a morning person. You should just live a conventional life. You were born to be inferior to some people. You’re a hopeless case. You’re not cut out for this, you’re better suited for that. You can’t change your destiny. Yeah, yeah, you’re right.’
Just by saying, "Yeah, yeah, you’re right," you can just laugh it all off...
But I’m sorry.
I’m not someone who’s good at making peace with himself.
I’m going to be self-reliant.
I’m going to force my way into this line of work.
I’m going to chase after what I love.
I’m going to leave those who doubt me in the dust.
Give me one subscription, and I’ll slay a god for you!
Alright, that’s about it. I’ve said everything I should and shouldn’t have said. Thanks for listening to me vent. I feel much better getting it all out. I feel motivated enough to write ten thousand words a day now. (Haha)
This is the Point Addition Cultivation of Su Zhi and his Pet Beasts, adding points to Power, Agility, Intelligence, Constitution, and Perception.
This is also my own Point Addition Cultivation, adding points to writing skill, pacing, world-building, plot, and focus.
I am undergoing my Point Addition Cultivation in the Beast Taming World.
Life’s road is long. In the end, aren’t we all Cultivators?
So where does your cultivation lie?
Alright, I’ll see you all this afternoon.
Once again, please subscribe. I would be endlessly grateful.
Su Zhi is about to face the Alliance Youth Team’s assessment, and for me, the author, going premium is its own kind of fateful assessment.
It’s only fate. Draw your Sword!
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