Afterword: My First and Last (not really) Note Was With You

I hate afterwords.

As an author, I think that your thanks and comments should be given at the start of the book.

Not after.

That place is reserved for the index.

There are a multitude of things that I could say, but I'll start with the most important one: I'm not good enough.

Sometimes, that's hard to admit. For most people, they never do. They look at their work and believe that it is good, not because they want to but because they have to. Because the moment you stop believing that your work is good, you start to realize how delusional you really were.

Sure, they might make self-deprecating comments once in a while or say that they don't think that their work is good. But trust me, they do. Or at least they want to.

That's why so many people put up these obnoxious fronts until someone tells them like it is. Bluntly.

And then they quit, because they can't handle being forced to face the reality that they already know.

Criticism is difficult to take, especially if it's your first time. You're baring your heart and your soul to the world (maybe not that intense, but y'know) and they simply tear it apart mercilessly.

So it's unfair. It's cruel. It's rude.

So you parry, you riposte.

But you never stop and ask why.

Criticism comes in a lot of forms. You can use euphemisms and dress it up, or you can be painfully blunt. In the end, the former only serves to help people grow their delusions of grandeur and eventually, some of those people might actually start to believe that their work is good.

And that's how echo chambers are born. People who have been granted such delusions all come together as one and throw around random tidbits of praise in their own little worlds.

"Your latest chapter was so good!", "Your dialogue's so cute!", "I love the way that your characters interact for thirty lines of dialogue without a single line of exposition breaking it up!"

These are the things we want to hear. We don't want people telling us "Hey man, I think you should really insert a small paragraph here so you don't have a story driven purely by dialogue." Or "This story reads too much like filler and the overly descriptive prose isn't helping."

I could go on with these examples, but that's not really the point here.

The point isn't to bash echo chambers or delusions. It's not to be controversial. It's not to be special.

Don't get it twisted. If you like echo chambers, if you like safe spaces, and if you like those delusions that help you sleep at night, go wild and go you.

But this is about me.

I don't want to become one of those people. I don't want to enter an echo chamber, a safe space, or become deluded.

So the first step to avoiding that is to just admit it:

I am just not good enough.

That's all there is to it.

There was so much I wanted to do with "My First and Last Kiss Was With You", and there were so many ambitious ideas that I'd planned for this novel. But all of it fell apart.

Was it because of the ideas? Was it because of the premise? No, not really. It was the execution.

It was me.

Saying anything else would just be an excuse to turn my eyes away from the truth. I just wasn't skilled enough to write what I wanted to write, blindly chasing a dream and thinking that my previous writing experience would carry me through.

I thought that if I just applied myself like I did in my previous exploits, I'd be able to put together something coherent and passably interesting.

Well, I probably still could. But you know what that's called?

Mediocrity.

It wouldn't be anything close to what I wanted this novel to be. Instead, it'd be just like those braindead novels that I write on my free time. No soul, no inspiration. Sure, it's coherent. Sure, it's grammatically correct.

But so fucking what?

None of that matters if the story isn't there. If the vision isn't there. And with the way "My First and Last Kiss Was With You" has been written so far, it just hasn't been matching up to that vision.

Of course, some people might say stuff like "You are your worst critic!" or that chasing after an ideal is fruitless, but I've taken a step back to reassess the work that I've done so far and I can confidently say that it is not something that matches up to even an inkling of what I wanted.

It's bad. It's bland. It's not even coherent.

That's why it has to stop.

But when a car runs out of gas and stops, does that mean it can never start again?

No.

It just needs more fuel.

And that's why "My First and Last Kiss Was With You" is coming to an end for now. I'm not giving up on it. It's a project that I still want to finish, and I will finish it.

But I don't think this is where or when I'll do it, because I'm still lacking in so many areas.

To all the people who've stuck with me and this story thus far (and to you who's still reading this!) I want to offer you my heartfelt gratitude and my deepest apologies. Being able to get even 1000 views on this story made me so thankful and satisfied that I can't even put it into words.

I still have so much to say about the story of Kirisake Eiji and Kurokami Izanami, but that'll have to wait until I've gotten better.

Until then, I'll continue improving myself and building this world for just a little longer.

"My First and Last Kiss Was With You" hasn't reached its conclusion yet.

So when that time comes, I hope you can lend me your power once again even if it's just a bit.

That's why I won't say goodbye.

Let's meet again in "My First and Last Kiss Was With You", where there will be no afterword.

Seira Astramor/Hungry Sheep