Espresso Love (A Dystopian Japan Novel) #Wattys2014

Postscript: Author's Note

- Author's Note -

Welcome to the end of the novel. I hope you'll read this whole message. Thank you so much for participating on this journey, for your amazing support and wonderful insightful encouragement. You are what made this journey so worthwhile for me.

It has been a long journey, I started writing the manuscript in January of 2014 inspired by my experiences and observations in the past few years and the return to prose fiction through my university studies under the tutelage of a very wise and encouraging literature professor and visionary author. I went full throttle at as little as 1000 words per day sometimes hitting 5000 words per day from January to June.

The research and constant thinking that went into this was absolutely overwhelming, unbelievable, stress-inducing and rewarding - I had to study all sorts of topics or people on philosophy, history, politics, classical music, art, Japanese culture and geography, sciences, and literally all kinds of things. Even coffee science itself was already so much research and things that might have only appeared for one paragraph would take hours of research to make sure everything was done right. I tried to live out this novel and think about the world, experience life, and so on during the months of writing, through the lens and frame of Espresso Love, as Naoki himself - and in return it helped me grow and mature even more than before, as a person, as a thinker, and as a budding philosopher in a sense. At the same time, it has exhausted my every resource and faculty - I had never worked so hard nor been so determined and dedicated before. However, as I write by colliding my conscious and subconscious worlds, I also learned much about myself, things that were hidden surfaced throughout the novel. The novel is definitely my greatest, most ambitious accomplishment to date and I am tremendously proud of this project and what it has become at 165,000 words and the numbers it has accumulated.

But what truly made this journey spectacular was honestly every one of you, the readers and fellow writers, people who gave this a try, those who believed in this project from the get go, who sensed something different about this novel, those who were inspired and engaged in intellectual intelligent conversations about its themes and concepts. Your contributions whether it is just reading, voting, reading listing or leaving encouraging comments, has made this a collaboration. Just like the subjective idealist thoughts on perception, your perception and interpretations have revealed new worlds and new ideas in the novel that I had never thought of before, or might have been hidden away in my subconscious. There is never an objective truth.

Truly, I hope this journey has spoken to you and inspired you in some way. Whenever I receive comments expressing how much the story has made an impact on lives and a deep lasting impression on hearts, souls and minds, it is that moment when I realize that this is what I'm doing this for. That is my greatest passion and honour. And truly, I hope that you take this novel and make it your own. Interpret it, understand it in new ways, develop your own conclusions and philosophies, and use it, in life.

I wish each of you a spectacular voyage in life ahead, may you be blessed and inspired. May you have the strength, courage, and wisdom to live a life set apart from the rest of the world, the digitalized instantaneous culture of gratification, the conditioning of state ideology and our capitalist materialistic system of consumerism. I pray you can transcend and be enlightened to the higher Collective and seek meaning for your lives.

Thank you so much.

- Takatsu

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The journey is not over. It is only beginning. Please flip the page to send in your thoughts on the Reader Insight section and check out the NEXT STEPS page for more info on bonus content!