Chapter 51: Return
It's been a while hasn't it? I hope everyone reading this has been doing well. How things are so different.
It's amazing how life changes and where it takes you. A house, relationship, and career have all come and gone in the interim since I've last published anything. My favorite Boba Tea shop has even closed down. I got a private message shortly after the new year. An artist wanting to illustrate something from the story. Over 7 years ago, when I started writing, I never thought it would garner this much attention or positive feedback. 45 reviews that are all glowing, and someone inspired to illustrate what's going on in the story. It is far beyond how I originally thought this would go.
It's been…such a very long time, hasn't it? All the ideas and plan and structure a younger me once had for this story have been filed somewhere. Can I find it? Can I come up with it again? It's important I have these discussions with myself to see where I'm at. Most of all, I owe this discussion to the readers, those who have followed this story and will be surprised by an email saying this story has been updated, and those who are still somehow discovering this story all these years later.
When I first started this story, I was in my Sophomore year in university. I was going through a lot. A bad breakup, a bout with depression, this fiction became a way to explore everything I was feeling. The highs, the lows, and everything in between. As I grew, a commentary with myself.
I was writing a lot in university. Not only academically, but as a hobbyist as well. This story also became a way to maintain/practice my skills and get exposure to creative writing as a stark contrast to all the technical and academic writing I was doing.
Had the world turned out a little differently, I have no doubt my career would be heavily focused on writing had everything gone well. Unfortunately the pandemic had other plans. I now find myself in a very non creative career, and I seriously haven't had to write anything in at least 2 years. Maybe in a different world, I could have been a professional author. That delusion of grandeur floated around many a time.
Have I fallen off? I'm afraid I have. I don't know if what I can come up with now for the fiction could even hold a candle to what I had originally planned. Filling in the gaps where I don't remember.
But that's how it goes isn't it? Something untended eventually decays and although it can be restored it can never be the same. The scars of neglect are always visible, and my skill at writing has definitely been neglected.
Reading through the story to try and recapture the flame has been a spectacular exercise. A time capsule of who I was, what I believed, and what I felt. And an evolution; of who I was, what I believed, and what I felt. Here I am today, what I am, what I believe, and what I feel.
It's been so long, the story now takes place in the past. Unfortunately we don't have such devices like the Amusphere or a Fluctlight. Nonetheless, the technology we have today is so wonderful, isn't it? For better or for worse.
As you read this, I'm scrolling through my texts she's left on read. This leads me to discussing the relationship I have with this fiction. What once was originally conceived as a tool to talk myself out of a dark place, and evolved to be with me throughout both the good and bad times, I've come back, nay I was drawn to, to maybe see if I could make it through again. Can I reach those places again? Can I explore the dark once more? Can this outlet help me negotiate the change into the next best version of myself as it's done before?
I understand how selfish this all may seem, or what a narcissistic revelation it may be. I originally started this story for deeply personal reasons. At first I didn't care what the reception would be. I began writing this story for me and me alone. But then, after it gained a bit of traction and people began being drawn to it, I realized that this work was as much mine as it was the reader's, and I no longer wrote just for me, but for everyone reading as well.
With that being said, I am legitimately frightened to continue the story in fear that it might not live up to the reader's expectations. Am I still capable of describing everything in immaculate detail? Am I still able to reach into the depths of my mind and pour the raw emotion into every chapter and every character? It's an exercise I haven't done in a long time, and I might need to stretch again before I can once more.
The story of Kirito, Asuna, and all the others will continue.
I love you all.
