The Prewriting Of TROTBP

I started this book because I was writing a completely different book, where the main character had finished this book about adventure and a strong friendship between the main character and his partner. I think you can guess where this is going. I didn't intend to then write a hundred plus chapter book on this story that was just meant to a rough plot for the book I was writing at the time. But I'm happy it was created. This is probably one of my most fondest books I've written. I don't regret giving more thought on what this book could be about.

The riddle aspect came first, I wanted the title to be something of a folktale style so riddles came to mind. And because it was quite a long time again I can't actually remember if the tittle came first or the riddle itself. All I know is that I was dancing with giddiness when I came up with the riddle and it's solution.

Luo Xing, my amazing protagonist was created to be a version of myself that I used to pretend to be. I have always been the person who talks to someone first and talks a lot to try and get them to be comfortable enough to talk to me. But where I was pretending to be someone I was not, was when I would act witty and talkative when I, like Dai Weiyuan, actually don't like to talk that much. Now that I'm older and definitely no longer a teen, I've grown into someone who at times still acts like Luo Xing because old habits die hard but mainly acts like Dai Weiyuan as I can be more of myself now to the people I know.

Being a writer I always wanted to go on adventures but I had to settle for just walking and imagining scenarios. So with TROTBP I realised I could create these adventures where unlike me who was alone, Luo Xing could have a friend who had no interest being anywhere else. However I won't go much into the plot as I don't want to spoil so I'll go back to the days of my pre writing.

Like most books I write the ending first which I did for this one, then followed by the first ten chapters layed out and not written. It can take me months before I finally start writing the beginning. And once the ending is finished, I have to then question myself on how do we get there? So then what follows is hours of day dreaming to note taking to chapter summaries and eventually the book is completely drafted out. To which then - I write.

This book was meant to be a single book surrounding this new world I had created but somehow one book turned into two then three and now on the process of re-editing my fourth book, I begin to question where this all came from. And it well takes me back to here, to this book about a stupid broken pebble.

I never intended on sharing these novels, they remained a series of unread stories that only I got to know about. However now that I'm older and my life is in the process of changing, I wanted to go back to my teen years and relive the joy I had writing these books. I might regret sharing these books of mine but I have hope others will enjoy them as I once did and still do.

However the only downside to this is that I have to re-edit everything as when I wrote them I was much younger and there was a lot of grammar mistakes. I still make the same mistakes but it didn't matter because only I was reading them but now I plan for others to read them, I must make them readable.

Anyway my first book was a journey within in itself and I often think about the places I wrote especially in the beginning of this book because the images are still so clear in my mind. I might draw them one day but until then I hope you're own imaginations will suffice alongside this book.