Afterword - Author's Note

Afterword - Author's Note

03-09-21.

That’s the day I ended this novel.

Okay, right now, I’m internally screaming because I finally finished this. Whew.

Allow me to rearrange my emotions…

Okay. Here we go.

I used to write stuff back in 2015. Then academics came up. I stopped writing.

I honestly had no plans about going back and writing stuff. I had imaginary worlds and everything in my head, but writing it? Especially when I’m preparing for a competitive exam that has a success rate <2%? Yup. It’s a bad idea. A terrible idea.

When I heard of the Honeyfeed x Mal contest, I told myself, “Well, I don’t care about winning the contest - but LOOK. That’s an opportunity to WRITE!” And I forgot everything I told myself in the beginning of the year… and this novel began.

I planned for ten days or so, then showed the 16-pg long rough plan to my online friend, sana for opinions. She said it looked good, and feeling encouraged, I continued. By July 15th or so, the first draft was almost complete. Then I started editing it. And today, on 3rd September - it has finally come to an end.

This was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. But seeing that ‘completed’ word - I say it was worth it.

All those late nights. The times I’ve fallen asleep on my keyboard, the times I’ve wanted to sleep already but couldn’t because I had to use every little break I could get to write, to finish this novel.

I’m grateful beyond words for this contest. Like I said - I still don’t care much about the contest. I wanted to write again. I wrote a book at this time. This will stay in my memory forever - one of the best experiences I’ve ever had! Mental breakdowns, wanting to give up, but still pushing on, writing, because, well, I love writing.

Enough about me. Now about the novel itself!

The plotline was inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn (my fav game rn!), Assassin’s Creed, AOT, Kara no Kyoukai (I’m such a Shikiya stan! T-T), and a little bit from Cardcaptor Sakura.

Once upon a time - I planned and wrote a 100+ pages long fantasy novel. I had no idea what I was doing, but I was having fun. But once I realised it was going nowhere, I stopped writing it. I waited a few years, read books to understand at least a little bit of how writing works. I’m still an average writer, but at least I’ve improved.

That fantasy novel never got written, even though I planned extensively. It just didn’t spark any interest anymore.

But when I started writing again for the contest, I decided to bring stuff from that plan. Crilania was, in that fantasy novel, a country which meant ‘where light hides’ or something like that. Also, Aura was still a spearwoman there - except, she was like, full white person? The fantasy novel had people with elemental powers and stuff (yeah, I know, it’s such a common trope these days). And Aura was the ghost of a spearwoman and she was connected to the wind users.

I wanted to rename Mersoy as Aura, but scratched that realising - Mersoy wasn’t the type to have such a name xD

Pensylan was another country name imported from that plan.

It felt so fun referencing that unwritten novel! :D I might try writing it one day - but I’m not sure though. Maybe another five years later.

‘Xorssis’ is a made up word meaning ‘homecoming’ or ‘new lives’. Yes. It has two meanings when used in different contexts. The original planet - from where Tokreians are originally from - might not have wanted them to return, but the meaning was altered as generations passed in the present (Aez-Nia-Mersoy’s) world.

*evil laughter*

And Tokreians named their project of getting rid of Cridelford as ‘Xorsis’. The spelling is different, and you gotta notice that! Because ‘Xorsis’ (with a single s) means purging the evil - it’s similar to the word ‘exorcise’.

*more evil laughter*

And the seed of knowledge, Xenos, was on the cover all along. Also the scientists.

I laughed so hard when I drew the cover art tbh. It was full of spoilers, but only when you know it’s a spoiler xD

About my characters - well… Aez’s love for science was inspired from a real life friend, Binita. She’s just so nice to me and I wanted to show my appreciation by mentioning that quirk. And lucky me - it became so relevant to the plot.

Nia was an entirely original character. I was researching OSDD and DID for a few days just for knowledge, and I decided to give Nia something like OSDD anyway.

Mersoy was also an original character - and she’s sorta personal to me! Writing her character was like venting out all the bad feelings. I just really adore her!

As a writer, I’ve shipped my own characters - and I’ve decided to make them canon. Nia and Aez are canon, Mersoy and Azura are canon, though Mersoy didn’t know Azura loved her too (tragic yuri go brrr-).

Doreza (Ms D) and Aaron were a couple, and they had planned to marry after the situation became stable. Too sad they both die xD

I wish I had more time! If this time constraint wasn’t there, I’d have expanded more about the training days, added some lighthearted filler chapters, and wrote a few more spin-off chapters about Nia and Aez and the school days. I love them both so much and I’d love to write more about them, but there isn’t much time left to plan and write more, so that’s all you are getting :>

I wish I could conclude everything - but we all know it’s impossible because of the way the situation comes to be in the end. If this got some love, maybe I’d make a sequel, though it’d take quite a while. But Nia-Aez and Mersoy’s story ends here :D a possible sequel - if it ever were to happen - would have entirely different protagonists.

In the end, I’ll say, thank you readers for making it to the end of this novel. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing!

Thanks to Honeyfeed, thanks to MalxHoneyfeed contest for making this novel possible.

-T.Seal