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〽️👁‍🗨 [a 1 year note] [yes, you can skip this one]

21st April, 2023

So, it's been a year, exactly, to the day.

I started writing this book precisely one year ago. I had truly hoped that I would be able to finish it, neatly, within a single year, but it seems my job has been in the way of my work too much, and my physical and mental exhaustion have taken their toll too.

I would like to say that I have grown, for a year now. I know that I have started 11 books, interim, short and long,  and finished 7 of them. 4 are still ongoing.

I am not sure how I feel about this XiCheng book. I started it with great love, it was a dedication to my love, and I really wanted it to be my magnus opus, my best work, but... life is not neat and tidy.

I loved it, and I grew to hate it too. I think it's shallow and cliché. 

I lost my love, and I am left with just my hate. 

I considered abandoning it, as it has become heavy and nigh unreadable. But there are those 7-8 people who are still reading, so  -  I am still writing.

But, heavy as it is, I need breaks from it. I need my mind and my heart to be occupied with something else from time to time, to take breaks  -  it is too much. I am too much, I know.

Many people have abandoned this book, and I think they are wise to have done so. 

It is difficult to read. Clumsy, heavy, uncouth. 

Lately, I have come back, to re-read Murakami, as he is, by far, one of the best story-tellers of our modern day and age. And I wonder... would I ever, ever be so good, as to touch people's souls, like he does  -  with velvet gloves, with a scalpel in his hand nonetheless. His books are heart-breaking, sexy, uneasy, disturbing. 

And me? I can only write half a million words of bullshit.