Afterword
Hello, I’m OriNerguri.
Finally, I’ve completed my self-proclaimed masterpiece, Cheonma.
A total of 347 chapters.
It took about a year, two months, and 24 days to serialize.
It’s a very emotional moment for me.
There are so many things I want to say to all of you.
But there are too many, and I don’t know where to start.
First of all, Cheonma was the first story I wrote for the “Write about your self-proclaimed masterpiece” contest.
At the time, I had just finished my first work, Pingchung Yakyeot, and was full of confidence that I could do better… but I failed miserably.
I was very depressed.
But instead of just staring at the ceiling and thinking, “OriNerguri is a hack…”, I felt like I had to write something.
And then I saw the “Write about your self-proclaimed masterpiece” contest and started writing.
I only had one minute to come up with an idea, turn on my laptop, and open Word.
All I had in my head was that I wanted to write about a heroine with a big chest.
But the readers’ response was better than I expected.
It was so good that it helped me recover from my broken mental state.
At first, the serialization was slow because it was being serialized alongside another failed work… but after finishing that work and organizing everything, I focused on Cheonma.
But that didn’t last long.
At the time, I wasn’t familiar with martial arts, so I had to do research while writing.
Naturally, it took an enormous amount of time to write.
I worked 14 hours a day as a baseline.
As I continued to write, my condition deteriorated… but I had to keep writing today and tomorrow…
And then, one day, I couldn’t read anything on my laptop screen anymore.
That’s when I realized something was seriously wrong and changed the serialization schedule from seven days a week to five days a week.
From then on, I continued to serialize five days a week, occasionally taking a break, and even did daily serialization around the time of the main story’s completion.
Cheonma was a story that I wrote with a lot of effort, but it was also a story that I enjoyed writing and learned a lot from.
I put in all the cool scenes I could think of.
And I was able to show the heroine I thought was cool.
I also tried things I wanted to try… like a world that was somewhere between martial arts and chivalry, or directing that gave meaning to names.
I tried various things.
Among them, the part I worked on the most was definitely the martial arts.
Since I was writing martial arts, I wanted to delve deeper into it.
So I interpreted martial arts and the stages, and tried to fit the principles together…
Oh, hello there. I’m OriNerguri.
I’ve finally finished my self-proclaimed masterpiece, Cheonma.
It took me about a year, two months, and 24 days to serialize, but it’s a very emotional moment for me.
There are so many things I want to say to all of you, but I don’t know where to start.
First of all, Cheonma was the first story I wrote for the “Write about your self-proclaimed masterpiece” contest.
At the time, I had just finished my first work, Pingchung Yakyeot, and was full of confidence that I could do better… but I failed miserably.
But instead of just staring at the ceiling and thinking, “OriNerguri is a hack…”, I felt like I had to write something.
And then I saw the “Write about your self-proclaimed masterpiece” contest and started writing.
I only had one minute to come up with an idea, turn on my laptop, and open Word.
All I had in my head was that I wanted to write about a heroine with a big chest.
But the readers’ response was better than I expected.
It was so good that it helped me recover from my broken mental state.
Cheonma was a story that I wrote with a lot of effort, but it was also a story that I enjoyed writing and learned a lot from.
I put in all the cool scenes I could think of.
And I was able to show the heroine I thought was cool.
I also tried things I wanted to try… like a world that was somewhere between martial arts and chivalry, or directing that gave meaning to names.
I tried various things.
Among them, the part I worked on the most was definitely the martial arts.
Since I was writing martial arts, I wanted to delve deeper into it.
So I interpreted martial arts and the stages, and tried to fit the principles together…
Now, I know you’ve probably noticed, but Cheonma’s story is actually closer to Hong Yeon-hwa’s story.
The protagonist is Jin So-chan, and most of the narration is from his perspective, but the main story is closer to Hong Yeon-hwa’s situation.
Jin So-chan is just involved in it.
I wanted to write about Jin So-chan, who grows and matures through various experiences… but I don’t know if I did it well.
Anyway, I’m satisfied with it.
Oh, I’m getting carried away. Let’s move on.
Cheonma is the story that made me exist as a writer.
I was able to try various things and improve my skills as a writer.
And I was able to earn enough income to say that I’m a writer when I go somewhere for the first time.
Cheonma gave me the confidence to say that I’m a writer.
There’s something else that’s a little strange.
I don’t know if the writer becomes like the protagonist or the protagonist becomes like the writer, but sometimes I find myself acting like Jin So-chan.
Especially when things don’t go well, his way of thinking of not giving up until it’s done has helped me a lot in writing.
If the words don’t come out, “just keep writing until they do.”
If my mental state is bad, “I still have to serialize.”
It was something like that.
Since the protagonist never gives up in any situation, I think it rubbed off on me.
It was a very strange experience.
Anyway, Cheonma is my self-proclaimed masterpiece, but I was a little disappointed at the end.
After finishing the main story, I started serializing a new work along with a spin-off… but simultaneous serialization is really tough.
I did it for about two or three months, and even though the spin-off was serialized once every two to three days, I thought I was going to die.
I lost my sleep pattern for a few months.
I was either sleeping or writing when I was awake.
It was a time when I gained a lot of respect for other authors who serialized daily or multiple novels at once.
From here on, it’s a little sad, but…
I thought of the spin-off as a bonus and wrote it lightly, but…
Physically, I hit my limit, so I had to remove one episode.
Yes, it’s what Yasu Bottebae said.
I’ll definitely write it someday if I get the chance.
Other than that, I wrote everything I wanted to write.
It feels like I poured everything out, so I feel a bit relieved.
Especially the illustrations.
My first work was completed without any illustrations being serialized, so I’ve never had the chance to add illustrations during serialization.
It was such a regret, so as the self-proclaimed Cheonma, I went crazy and drew a lot of illustrations.
I don’t even know how much I spent on illustrations.
My friend drew them for me, so I commissioned them cheaply… but it wasn’t just one or two illustrations.
Ah, I tried to end it shortly, but the story keeps going sideways and getting longer.
So let’s wrap it up.
The story of the self-proclaimed Cheonma has come to an end.
But that doesn’t mean the end of Jin So-chan, Hong Yeon-hwa, Ping So-so, Sama Mang, and Sama Yeoryeong.
They remain in my heart and in your hearts, and they will continue their own stories in the future.
Actually, I can still hear their voices.
…It’s not schizophrenia, is it?
Anyway, I’ll stop writing here.
I was happy to be with you all this time. Thank you sincerely.