Qian Zhongshu said, if you eat an egg and feel it is good, why do you need to know the hen that laid the egg?
I think so too. But there was no Internet in Qian Zhongshu's time. If there had been, his hen would have been stripped clean.
There are no secrets in the Internet age. Liu Cixin can curse people on Tieba, and Hideo Kojima will promote his works everywhere on Twitter. When the life-filled behaviors of celebrities are exposed to the public, they will fall from the altar and become commonplace in the hearts of some people.
If Mark Twain had lived in this era, he might have been a big troll in forums; George Bernard Shaw might have faced off against others for Genshin Impact; Dostoyevsky might have borrowed a small loan because his card was drawn crookedly.
This is a very interesting era. I love it.
Among my readers, some know me through this book, some know me from reading "The Holy Tea" and "The Beauty Group", some read all the way from my answer posts, and some have read my articles published in magazines and platforms...
I have written too many and too many things. Readers each hold a piece of me, but find that it is like a puzzle with missing pieces that cannot be put together. So I was very confused. Many people are asking, what made an author who writes novice novels write such a book?
What force turned the author of "Drawing the Female Boss into the Beauty Group" into the author of "I'm Not a Literary Man"?
Actually, I don’t mind people getting to know me. I don’t have any secrets. So here I will briefly introduce how the miraculous craftsmanship of nature allowed me to grow into such a face.
If you are not curious, then please maintain a sense of mystery and skip this section. It's a long story.
……
[Special thanks]
Jingfeng paper kite, gate zrr, no intentional typo, clay white Buddha, wandering toad, why is the love so great, a piece of snow cake. Thank you for your recommendation.
(The "My Super Powers Refreshed Every Week" by a piece of snow cake is very beautiful. The link is in the chapter section at the back. Click to go there.)
【Special thanks】
ptik, Mo Xiaoxuan, the Starry Sky Tears Demon, a guest in the mortal world, a flowing wave, and an anti-bear child fighter.
【Special thanks】
Shadow Immortal Qitian, Qi Ranqwq, Literary Op, Ning Baiming, Entering the Dream, The World of Wei Wu, Notes, One Wuxiang Egg, Drunken Sword Changge, Gate Zrr, Camus's fanboy, one who does not want to reveal his name The Guangdaren, Feng Yi, Is the Flowing Wave, Are You at Home at Night, Yi Xinghe, Dao Yuan Zhai, Friends of the Group Wake Up Naturally, Oh Ordinary Heart, Duying Qunfeng, Zi Xinqi 66, Three-inch Annual Rings, Friends of the Wind Donkey, Twenty-Three Years of Wind and Moon, Nine Li, Luo Hua Mingyue, Qcber, An Ziyu, LC, Wu Mian, Anti-Bear Child Fighter, Wen Liang, hes, Ganfan Century Fuyin Warrior, Jiang Pan, Mo Liyo, Tsk Tsk, Mr. Le who does not want to be named, und erwoodtan, Mr. Zhe who does not want to be named, Master Ai who does not want to be named, I am not that kind of person, Shi Huai A, Fengyun Tun, Nanshu, Save Salted Fish, Storm Commander, I am illiterate, Lan.
……
It wasn’t until I was about 20 years old that I finally made up my mind to start writing.
Before that, whenever I expressed my inclination towards writing, someone would always advise me not to think too hard.
They told me that you can take up writing as a hobby, but you still have to find a class. This is for your own good. Then forward me the famous quote "Don't turn your hobby into your career."
When I was in school, my parents encouraged me to read more books, but as the number of books I read increased, far exceeding their most optimistic imagination, they began to fear. They put away everything I could reach and let me focus on my studies.
Study, learn shit, I’m secretly watching.
But I am the kind of person who is easily influenced. I can't do what I want to do like Han Han. In fact, I think those who advised me did do it for my own good, because I also doubted my own quality and whether I could really make a living by writing.
I’m scared. I don’t want the writing I enjoy to become a pain in the ass because there aren’t many things I enjoy. With such internal friction, it wasn’t until I was 20 years old that I decided to just treat it as a hobby and write whatever I wanted.
At that time, the answering platform had just opened for registration, and I also ran to register. I wrote random answers on it, mostly essays, but also novels and stories.
This writing has attracted tens of thousands of attention.
At that time, I wrote in secret, thinking that no one would discover it. Who would have thought that it would be frequently reprinted in magazines or some influential media. Even the professor in our department knew about it, and he would still mention me to his junior students until a few years after I graduated.
I have worked in new media, written a lot of copywriting, and also written scripts for comics. I also met a group of writer friends.
There is always a strange concept in my heart: I think novels are different from other texts. Novels are more precious and more fascinating to me. I would rather be a writer of novels than an "opinionist" who outputs opinions. Of course, you can do both, but be sure to create a novel.
The inspiration for this novel came from that period. That was probably 2015. At eight or nine o'clock in the evening, I was walking home and made a voice call with my apprentice, telling me the rudiment of this story: a down-and-out middle-aged man, hoping to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, read all the Nobel Prize-level works, but accidentally became famous in the pornographic industry.
The name of this story is "The King of Love".
At that time, I never thought about writing an online article, nor did I think about turning this story into an online article. I originally planned to send it to a purely literary magazine. I was in touch with some editors at literary magazines, and I sent them the beginning of this story, which was well received.
However, this story was not written down after all. I am only twenty years old, and it is really beyond my ability to write about a 30-year-old middle-aged man. But I'm in no hurry.
Wang Xiaobo had his "Golden Age", and I also had my own "Golden Age". At that time, I felt that I could do anything. As long as I want, I can write 100,000+ and 10,000 likes at any time. Just like playing table tennis, the master can control the ball's landing point and rotation range at will. At that time, I wrote as if I was playing. I play with words.
At that time, I never thought that I would become an online writer in the future. I didn't think highly of online writing at that time. When I evaluate online articles, I usually say that they are "masturbating to people's souls."
Later, it was not until 2017 that I started writing online articles at Qidian. The reason why I started writing online articles was also due to a rather bizarre reason.
I once wrote a short story called "The Exploding Bowl Hand", and I can still find it when I search for this name.
This novel was the most popular on that issue of the website and was reprinted by some magazines. It is to turn around without warning. It wasn’t until a reader sent me a private message that I realized that I had been reproduced by the print media.
Only one magazine contacted me and promised to give me 200 yuan in royalties. But to this day, I still have not received this royalties.
Including that magazine, a large number of magazines didn’t even pay attention to me. Later, I heard someone say that print media has long since ceased to work, and the payment speed is very slow. And the way they select articles is that a group of editors look for manuscripts everywhere on the Internet, and then "recommend the manuscripts" to the editorial department, and the magazine will pay them a "recommendation fee." It sounded like it was true, but I had no way of verifying whether it was true.
In short, this incident left a very bad impression on me, making me think that it is difficult to make money by writing about print media. Because I also have a side job of writing public accounts, I have already made a lot of money. In comparison, the paper media naturally looks unbearable.
Compared with novels, I am actually better at writing essays and prose. But in my mind, novels are different. I always feel that novels are more "precious" than exporting opinions. Because image is greater than thought. I want to be a novelist no matter what.
However, the pressure of graduation makes people have to consider money. So I wanted to find a suitable platform for me to write novels.
The first choice is naturally a platform that has attention. I was somewhere between "little transparent" and "little famous". But there were no other means of monetization at that time, and even writing stories was something that everyone shouted at.
I don’t know where else can accommodate me and make money at the same time. The remaining livelihood is nothing more than taking the public exam.
Or just write online articles.
Actually, my style is not suitable for writing online articles. I read very little online articles. I took a quick look at the novels on the list, and started writing an online article myself. The writing was chaotic, and it was neither traditional literature nor like an online article.
As a result, after writing this, I went to Sanjiang.
During the period when I was serializing my debut online article, my parents and all my relatives believed that writing was unreliable and that people always had to have a job. They strongly urged me to take the public examination.
In my heart, I didn’t want to take the public exam. My focus was still on writing. In order to avoid my parents’ urging, I hid in a friend’s house and prepared for the exam while writing.
As a result, I passed the exam.
If you are admitted, you have to go, right? I stopped reading and ran to work. Not long after, the supernatural area at the starting point was gone, and my book was gone with it. This is the whole process of my first online writing.
The second time I wrote an online article was three years later. During these three years, something happened, and I hardly started writing. What exactly happened was mentioned in my acceptance speech for the last book, so I won’t repeat it like Mrs. Xianglin did.
I really want to use a cool word to describe my three years of silence. For example, "That night, it was stormy and I experienced my own enlightenment in the dragon field." But there is no night like that, and there is no dragon farm like that. Some are just ordinary life day after day. The glorious deeds I once had seem to have disappeared overnight. Some are just a constant tug of war between life and death. I have been thoroughly worn out in this tug of war.
In short, when I returned to the human world after three years, I found that Sanjiang was not as good as before. I’m also not as good at writing as I used to be.
To describe it, it’s like being isolated from the world for three years. After three years, you suddenly find that the world has become very strange, as if you have traveled through time.
The platforms suddenly have a new level of writing, and there are many people I didn’t know before, speaking words that I couldn’t understand.
There are suddenly a lot of memes on the Internet that I don’t understand. Some of the memes I have never heard of have even become bad memes.
Writing suddenly became very strange. Whether it is writing novels, essays, or answers, I am unable to do so, just like a patient recovering from myasthenia.
When I walk on the road, I often feel very hesitant, as if something is missing.
If you experience something that you are very good at and suddenly become bad at it, you should be able to understand my feelings.
I suddenly became very unconfident.
But I’m not going to shed tears because of the sorrow of spring and autumn, right?
When I get older, I will talk to young people I don’t know and say that I also had a literary dream back then.
I want to do something, I want to write something.
Because I really like writing novels.
So, I picked up this Qidian account that I hadn’t opened for a long time.
I don’t regard myself as a big shot who has published articles in print media. I am like Zhang Chi in "Flying Speed 2". I have a clear self-positioning. What level am I at? I am now at the level of a little internet writer.
I will do whatever the internet writer should do.
When a person hits the bottom, what he should do is to climb up instead of looking back at the place where he fell. Looks won't help you crawl back.
I started to scan the rankings from scratch and learn to write online articles.
I used to wonder why those novices whose writing is not fluent can be so popular? I read a lot of trivial articles about urban immortality and the best miracle doctor. Read them very carefully, word for word, and write long notes to analyze them and deconstruct them.
I’m also puzzled. Those books look very simple, but why can they be so long? The ability to structure a novel is exactly what I lack. I will learn them. Break them apart and study them.
I do it very seriously. Only when it comes to novels, I have always been very serious.
In the process of learning online writing, those online writing theories echoed the books I had read before. I sometimes found that some creative techniques had similarities. Oh, this is Llosa's "structural realism", this is the "third comer"...
I studied the Xiaobai texts very seriously and gradually discovered their wonder. It's no accident that they are capable of fire.
So I learned it.
I wrote "The Beauties" using the theory I summarized. In fact, "The Beauty Group" is also a very dazzling novel. For example, in the first 150,000 words, the protagonist of the novel does not appear much. Another example is that there are more than a dozen heroines in it. The more basic skill is how to stimulate emotions, how to make people angry and happy in a moment.
In short, this book is a concentrated display of the skills I learned from Xiaobai. Of course, no one expected to learn any skills from a book called "Drawing the Female Boss into the Group of Beauties, and I Was Exposed." People will just sigh after seeing the title of the book and say, what kind of garbage is this? It’s like no one expects to see literary quality in online articles.
But I can’t control those. For me, as long as a book can make money, it is a good book.
In the process of writing "The Beauty Group", my experience gradually enriched, my market sense continued to strengthen, and my former abilities gradually returned to me during rehabilitation. And I know more and more about online articles.
When I was in the later stage of writing "The Beauty Group", I had reached this point - the moment I came up with the title of that chapter, I could roughly estimate how many follow-up orders there would be for that chapter, whether it would be an increase or a decrease. I estimate accurately every time.
A novel has bones, flesh and soul.
The bones are the structure of the novel, the flesh is the surface of the novel, and the soul is the spiritual core of the novel.
The bones of "The Beauty Group" are Xiao Baiwen's bones, the flesh is Xiao Baiwen's flesh, but the soul is my own soul.
So in the process of writing it, I have been a little painful. Because spirit and flesh do not match.
I think this kind of pain is necessary. Because I am just a web writer, when I learn a new skill, it should usually be painful.
After finishing "The Beauties", I plan to write a novel using my own flesh. This will make me feel more comfortable. But I have lost that meat for a long time.
I started looking through my old drafts, and found a long-awaited beginning, only 6,000 words, very short. It has been prepared for publication in serious literary magazines for many years.
“The straight-line distance between Wang Zixu’s unit and his home is no more than 800 meters, and it takes less than 10 minutes to walk home...”
I said to him, I’ll send you to the starting point, okay?
It shook its body, not good.
I said, what is suitable or not? I am at the level of a novice writer, and you are just a novice writer who has written a broken beginning before. Why, if you don’t get to the starting point, do you still want to be in "Harvest"?
It shook its body again and said stubbornly, I don’t want it. My online writing is too impetuous and no one can understand me.
I said, I don’t care if you want it or not, I just want to do it.
What else can I be proud of? In this day and age, Liu Cixin will troll people online, why can't I write "The King of Love" online?
I know that people don’t expect to see in-depth novels online, just like people don’t expect to find any ideological and creative skills in a novel called "Drawing the Female Boss into the Group of Beauties".
But depth is actually not important. My goal is to make this novel so that everyone from university professors to middle school students can be moved by their emotions after reading it and enjoy it both elegantly and popularly.
I sent this beginning to Zi Liang (yes, my editor’s name is Zi Liang). He was so moved that he kept talking about it. I said, otherwise just write The King of Love.
He said, yes, but the early data will be very bleak.
I said, it’s okay, just don’t look at the data for the first 100,000 words.
Then I started doing it vigorously.
As soon as I opened the book, someone forwarded the title summary of the book to other groups and was laughed at by everyone. People said, "It can be seen that he is indeed not a literary giant."
When I promoted this book on the platform, I also received various criticisms. People say, "Looking at the beginning, you can see that this kind of literary youth self-promotion article is bound to collapse."
People say, "You said your book did not do well at the beginning. Do you think it will do well later?"
People say, "Readers don't like reading this kind of book at all. You are too arrogant to write this kind of book."
My grades have improved a little bit, and I have a lot of running water. People say that I am a related account, and the data of my book is all brushed. I opened a small account to promote it myself.
People say that the writing is too greasy and full of the sour and rotten smell of middle-aged men.
People say that the writing is not good at all, and those of you who praise it have never eaten the chaff.
I feel that they cannot understand my understanding of online articles. They also couldn't tell what techniques were used in writing this book. They also don’t know their readers.
It was not until this book reached the top of the new book list of Urban Frequency Division, and later on Sanjiang, that the voices of doubt became smaller. But I know that there are still many people who can't understand.
Today at 12 noon, this book will be on the shelves.
The first order for "The Beauty Group" is 4,000. I would like to set the first order target for this book a little higher, maybe 5,000.
You can’t lose to your old self, right?
According to the current writing progress, this book has only just written a prologue.
There are probably more than two million words in the following content. So far I have only written a fraction.
I hope that this book, which has been accumulated for a long time, can bring something different to the online literature. I hope I can write that my grades are good enough for others to see.
At that time, I can say to people with great honor:
Do you know?
In fact, the structure of Xiaobaiwen is very clear and is very suitable for learning writing skills.
They are actually great.
I used to study the books on the rankings and Sanjiang very seriously. Really serious. It’s so serious that I want to cry when I think of myself at that time.
Now, it’s your turn to study me.
…
According to common sense, an additional update rule should be placed here.
But, I haven’t saved the manuscript, how can I add it? !
You guys watch the fight, I will see your thoughts, Liangliang, I will work harder~