Aug 31, 2023
To:Steward McOy
Thank you for all your support with this story! I appreciate all of your comments - considering I'm my own beta editor, the feedback is great to hear. And I love talking about the story's behind the scenes, its themes, or personal takeaways, so always feel free to comment on anything you might read of mine.
Regarding the romance, I was hoping we'd get another slice of life prompt this year since that's my bread and butter. So the romance prompt left me scratching my head a little, since I rarely read romance novels, let alone interact with romance-driven media in general. So I compromised by writing a story that has romance, and may or not be a romance itself (as you said, up to the judges). But writing this story was certainly a blast.
The dad's message a writing whiff on my part. I completely intended for "meeting someone" to be in a platonic sense. I 100% agree with you - I don't believe romantic relationships necessarily means self-fulfillment, and there are many paths to it outside of romance. But I do believe the path to self-fulfillment is a lot easier when you got people alongside you. Both Shizuko and Shunsuke start those journeys by meeting each other, as does Ume, as do a whole lot of other characters. But I can see how having Shizuko and Shunsuke in a relationship can muddle the platonic-underpinning of that particular message there.
As for the arcs, this story was primarily inspired by The Roads to Sata (which I think I mentioned earlier) - which is essentially a series of vignettes only connected by one guy's journey across Japan on foot. Believe it or not, Apocalypse Now provided the framework behind this story as a whole (into the heart of Yoshiaki). So taking the two together allowed me to write out a story by using a series of seemingly-unconnected vignettes to build a greater whole.
Understandable about the message. Despite the melancholy in my stories, I try to keep them ultimately optimistic. I personally don't think the world is inherently good - the world just inherently is, and people just inherently are. But Shunsuke does believe that, and this story is about him reaffirming that belief (which was inspired by the philosophy of Annie Dillard, who's been name dropped a few times in Just East of Eden). I think you can definitely poke holes in that belief, but I ultimately settled on Shunsuke overcoming obstacles to his beliefs rather than a wholesale deconstruction of them.
Again, appreciate any and all feedback and I'm happy that you've stuck around for the ending. Gonna take it easy this weekend and then I can finally get back to Lucilleposting (and do I have plans for her). Best of luck on your novel as well, it's been a great contest!
