A perfect life starting from a light novel writer

Capitulo 2: Rumo à Publicação

"My name is Yuan Qing."

"And Yuan Qing?", Xia Yan muttered to himself, as he wrote frantically at his desk. Suddenly, he remembered the name of the girl whose soul resided deep within his mind. It was as if he had remembered the name of a childhood friend. A wave of inexplicable emotion washed over him, but soon dissipated, leaving behind only determination.

Many ordinary people think that writing novels is easy, but the reality is quite different. Thousands of words need to be written every day. To give you an idea, ten thousand words are equivalent to about twelve 800-word essays. How many students can write an 800-word essay without difficulty? If there is no practice, writing 10,000 words will be an arduous task.

Xia Yan was facing this difficulty. He thought it would be easy to follow the plot of the anime "Youth Journey" and turn it into a novel, but practice proved to be much more challenging. Characters, scenarios, expressions, everything needed to be carefully described.

As the saying goes, "you've never eaten pork, but you've seen a pig running?". Xia Yan had never written a light novel before, but he had read many. His writing ability was not bad, but his appreciation ability was high. He spent two hours writing something that, when rereading it, made him feel ashamed.

"Of course, it's not that easy," Xia Yan thought. He had already expected this situation. He was confident in his Chinese skills, but a good command of the language did not guarantee a smooth description in a novel.

Moreover, adapting a light novel from an anime did not mean that the final result would have the same quality. Just like the girl named Yuan Qing, whose soul had merged with Xia Yan's, there was an anime called "5 Centimeters Per Second" in her world. After the success of the anime, two different versions of the novel were adapted. One version was written by the anime's original author, Makoto Shinkai himself, and the other by a professional novelist. Both versions had the same main storyline, but offered completely different reading experiences.

Xia Yan took a deep breath and stared at the pile of words he had written. There was a lot of irrelevant information. As he wrote and revised, he felt increasingly tired. Exhausted, he went to bed, having written about two thousand characters of the novel, based on the plot of the anime in his memory. The speed was really slow.

While sleeping, Xia Yan once again transformed into the girl named Yuan Qing in his dream.

This time, she was playing an online shooting game, controlling female characters and having fun killing zombies.

"Hey, remember what you remember about the second half of the anime 'Youth Journey'! Why don't you play another game?", Xia Yan shouted in his mind, but it was obvious that the girl in his memories would not hear him. After all, these were just memories.

The next morning, Xia Yan woke up. During the eight hours of sleep, the girl played various online games, without caring about the plot of "Youth Journey".

However, Xia Yan found it interesting to watch other people playing, and he felt the girl's satisfaction when playing.

After stretching, he looked at the table again.

"Okay, let's go! I have to write at least the first few chapters of the novel today," he said to himself.

Xia Yan wrote diligently, and his learning speed was remarkable. His writing, which was previously uneven, became smoother.

When he didn't know how to describe a certain passage, he simply picked up existing light novels as a reference.

Gradually, Xia Yan's table filled with manuscripts. The novel about "Youth Journey", adapted to the Longguo setting, was taking shape.

However, those were just the first drafts. After writing, it was necessary to check for typos, polish the text, and revise it several times.

Three days later, Xia Yan turned the first 5.9 episodes of "Youth Journey" into a text of a quality that he considered acceptable.

Why 5.9 episodes? Because before Xia Yan finished watching the end of the 6th episode of the anime, the girl went to bed.

Over the past three days, Xia Yan had only been able to access the girl's memories while she was sleeping. For the past two nights, he had slept normally and nothing had happened.

He realized that he could not control the situation of accessing Yuan Qing's memories in his dreams, at least at this stage.

As for Xia Yan's review of his dream last night, to be honest, the feeling was wonderful. It was something completely new that he had never experienced before. In his soul's memory, he transformed into a beautiful girl in black stockings, wearing a gothic lolita costume and parading at a cosplay event. He enjoyed the admiration of passersby, took photos, and had fun with friends.

"How can you envy a life like that? You're a man!", Xia Yan said to himself, looking at his reflection in the mirror.

He was afraid of the idea that wearing women's clothing and participating in comic exhibitions could be something really interesting.

"Am I a pervert?", he wondered.

Xia Yan took some time to adjust his mentality.

There were five days left before the start of classes. He needed to submit his light novel as soon as possible.

Longguo, one of the most powerful countries on the planet, has a population of 1.5 billion people.

After people have solved their survival problems, the sports, exercise, and entertainment industries have flourished.

Among them, the two-dimensional industry, which is based on games, comics, novels, and animations, has developed into one of Longguo's pillar industries in 30 years.

The public has a high acceptance of the two-dimensional industry, so the status of creators of two-dimensional works has increased.

Famous novelists, cartoonists, and animation creators enjoy high status and income in China.

The reason is simple. The island nation in the memory of the girl named Yuan Qing is also a country with a highly developed two-dimensional industry, but its population is only 100 million people.

Longguo, on the other hand, has a market of over a billion people, which guarantees a higher income for creators of two-dimensional works.

However, signing a contract with a top publisher was still a distant dream for Xia Yan. These light novel publishing platforms would never take a risk on a novice.

No matter how good his work was or how attractive the plot was.

Being a novice meant taking great risks. There were countless cases of unfinished works, disappeared authors, and editors desperate for manuscripts.

These industry giants would not easily take risks to cooperate with newcomers.

So Xia Yan did not hesitate to send his manuscripts to the major light novel publishers.

His goal was to send to the five largest light novel publishers in Nancheng.

After printing several copies of his manuscript, Xia Yan took his student card and left home.