Afterward:

The final chapter of TRASH just went live, and I can feel a giant weight lift. While this book was a Writathon project, it has consumed a huge amount of my mental energy for two months now.

Initially, I envisioned doing just a novella for my entry this year. Then, for some insane reason, I decided to also re-enter Chūnibyou as well, meaning I needed 111,000 words in five weeks. That would easily beat my record for output.

Why I decided to do that, I have long forgotten. That fuzzy reasoning has been lost to recrimination and tears. Still, somehow, I managed to make it to the end.

I actually started a couple of weeks before the contest. I spent two weeks drafting character descriptions, chapter outlines, and a plot outline.

The general story outline was over two years old. It was originally a concept short story based on a side character of another story I was thinking about. I’ll come back to that.

I highly recommend having written notes, reference outlines, and character descriptions done before starting to write a new story. I even mocked up character designs with Dall-E to help give my imagination consistency throughout the story. Even though I made countless changes during the writing, I would never have been able to keep up with the writing schedule without all of those crutches.

As for those changes, there were surprisingly few major ones, but I could never count all the minor ones.

The original story concept had a more dramatic ending involving a more adversarial relationship between Hibiki and Trash, along with a physical altercation with Agbor, but not long after I started writing part two, I started to want to push into a slightly different tangent.

The characters of Meguri and Harold were also added after I started writing, and Saki’s role was expanded. Having finished the story, it’s hard to even remember how the story was supposed to progress without these characters.

While I know it is far from complete, I am very happy with how things turned out. In the end, Trash was expanded out to a full 90,000 word novel.

Now, I should explain what I want to do going forward.

This story is completed. I have no plans for a TRASH 2, but as I mentioned earlier, the original concept was a short story featuring side characters from another book I want to write.

Both Trash and Danny were brought over from that story. However, this was meant to be an origin story, a major reason that the book took place in 2010. Both characters were side characters from that story, which is supposed to be set in the future, approximately 25 years from now.

I still have notes and plans for that book, and now I am feeling more confident that it may be something that I can pull off. If that happens, I made sure to write TRASH in a way that I will still be able to use these characters as intended. Rest assured, there remains unfinished business between Trash and Danny.

Pazu was an interesting character to write. He was always meant to be a Jiminy Cricket to Trash’s Pinocchio. Charon, however, was yet another old idea. The Charon Cafe was something I thought of a long time ago, as a way to write an anthology of short character story stories.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

At least in the short term, this is perhaps my most realistic next project. While Trash is finished, I feel this is far the last time we will see him.

Trash’s perspective, in many ways, is my own. While in reality, we are very different in almost every meaningful way, his viewpoint mirrored my own.

I have also spent countless hours wandering those streets. While most of the locations are either famous landmarks or amalgamations of places, I used to hang out in.

The Cure Maid Cafe is quite real, though its location has moved from above the Gatchapon shop to a better location. Sofmap, Yodobashi Camera, and TRADERS, are all still magnet stores in Akihabara, and the UDX building is a landmark. The outlet stores are where I used to shop regularly until internet sales pushed many of them to full online stores. Capricieux and the Victoria Hotel are fictional, but if you ever visit Patati Patata in Asakusabashi, or the Peninsula Hotel in Hibiya, you may notice many similarities.

While Harajuku, Takeshita Street, and Meiji Shrine are largely unchanged, as Hibiki predicted, the atmosphere has changed greatly over the last twenty years as tourism and corporations have pushed in to replace the old bohemian culture.

Likewise, things continue to change in Akihabara. More and more large office buildings have moved in, while declining economic activity has stifled the anticipated boom from the urban redevelopment project.

A large part of writing this book was an attempt to capture and preserve a place and a time that was precious to me. More than anything, this was what pushed me to keep writing.

So, with no more updates, what will happen to TRASH?

Well, as Royal Road is a platform for serial writing, I will likely remove it sometime in the near future. I’ll be looking at it again, as I would like to edit it into a book that I can put up on Amazon, or try to see if I can find a publisher who is interested in it.

This won’t be too soon. I anticipate it will take months for a rewrite, but yes, eventually, it could be stubbed or removed entirely.

So before that happens, I want to thank everyone who has read and supported the book in Royal Road. I know that a story like this is not what people expect to see, but thank you for giving it, and me, a chance.

I also want to send a special thanks to ahoge_bird, Haru Desu Kato, Ragged1, User000001590, and Turtles are different from Tortoises aka “Suppon”, for all the feedback and writing support.

Also, to those who left a comment or suggestion, thank you so much for your encouragement and support!

Trish,Subhash, Pengtron, Apollobound, MorfiTM, o0shad0o, zemmie, Lila Weyland, SlightlyOuttaFocus, Lorddarkrai.

SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION WARNING!

One last note. If you would like to contribute to my late-night coffee fund (which was significantly depleted over the last month), I would consider you a true comrade. I have a Ko-Fi account set up here for donations.

Also, if you would like to be notified when I start a new fiction, you can follow my author page on Royal Road here.

Thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

-TN

18 May, 2024