I hope the title of this part has prepared you for the rambling I'm about to do.
The journey with WLNDE is nothing short of anxiety, stress, and peak pulling of hair. The idea for this novel (read: unncessary-long saga) came when I was in the middle of drafting Manila Sunsets With You because my brain likes to bully me like that. Since then, the vibe for WLNDE has hijacked my mind and hasn't let go since.
This is probably the only work that I let other people know that I have coming, going as far as asking several friends about what they thought about the title, the cover, the blurb, just...everything. This is also the work that I was so reluctant to tackle because 1) I have no experience in marriage and divorce aside from contemporary media and what I see in the people around me, 2) I have no experience in video gaming and had to rely on my eighth-grade exposure to friends who do, and 3) I have no idea how in the world I can merge two different things together without overloading the story.
And overload it, I did. See the convoluted amount of words I had to cough up for this novel in the blurb.
Since then, I have ruminated on the concept of WLNDE. I've written MSWY in Feb 2022 and by August 2022, I was panicking because it's 2023 soon and I still haven't worked on anything for this novel. Then came one night in September (?) when I happened to watch CinemaTherapy's analysis of The Marriage Story (featuring Adam Driver and Scarlett Johanson) and it just..clicked.
So, I grabbed the first thing I could. It happened to be this paper bag I got from buying my meals for the day.
That way, you have this thing here as pictured. No, it's not an ancient page or something. It's just a flimsy paper bag and my scrawly handwriting enough to rival the hieroglyphics.
For a while, I felt like I had achieved something and stashed that paper away. Then, when I had to go home from my uni for Christmas break, I became stuck in a jeepney who took an hour waiting for nonexistent passengers. I nearly forgot about the mystical paper bag containing the secrets of the universe, of course, until I saw it.
And in that jeepney bound for home, I completed the basic plot points for WLNDE. That, people, is how to stay productive.
Come Christmas, I didn't get any writing done. In the first month of 2023, that's when the real work began. Note that I started writing this thing on February 2023. Just imagine how much stress I was in because I was used to having my works planned years in advance. For WLNDE, I literally did the outlining, the character sheets—everything—in a span of a week.
That's how I felt like I rushed through this thing, because it simply didn't have an acceptable time of stewing in my head, unlike literally all the other projects in my profile (we don't talk about the ONC novellas, though. We just don't. lol). Other than that, I was afraid I'd be letting down this excellent idea. It didn't really change until now, even after I have sat down and written the whole thing up to the last dot. I was still afraid I've said the wrong things, misrepresented the wrong stuff, tackled the wrong themes, and told the wrong message.
But the point of telling you all of that unnecessary context is for you to know that this work is very close to my heart because of the following reasons:
1. It's my love letter to two of my favorite media of entertainment: anime and k-dramas. If you have noticed (or if you didn't, then this is me spoon-feeding it to you), WLNDE contains the action, external plot, and world like a fantasy anime would; the character arcs, the emotional damage (arguable), and the internal beats of the story are very much from k-dramas. So yeah. This is just me thanking the biggest influences that have shaped my writing after all these years.
2. It's loosely based in my real life in some aspects. Again, like I did with MSWY, I won't be saying which ones. Just know that there are a lot of parallels between several character traits, choices, and situations to what I have lived through in the past years. I don't think it's really your business to separate fiction from reality.
3. This is my reflections on a lot of things, mostly on the themes tackled. It may irk some of you, you may disagree with most, but WLNDE is the way I view love, friendship, choices, life, and circumstance. There might be a lot more, including how I view the corporate world, but it's up to you to find the rest.
4. Lastly, WLNDE is a genre-bending, trope mish-mashing experimental work that combines two of my strengths in writing: fantasy and contemporary fiction. Granted, MSWY, despite a contemporary novel that is also close to my heart, has failed to win at anything, but you get what I mean. It's still my favorite trauma baby.
The Chronicles of Fantasilia, as I have been told, is a good adventure in itself, but I have noticed one thing: it lacked proper character arcs that the readers can relate to. Blame it on my idiot self back when I was 14 and believed plot-driven stories with passive MCs are the best way to go. Now, I realized that it's the characters that are driving the story forward and it should have been for my works from the start.
So, I figured there's a need to make internal and external conflict come about in one huge explosion of words. And that, my friends, is WLNDE at its core.
I hope all that story-time has been a bit enlightening to y'all. Now, we move to the second part of this essay. It's time for me to mention the same people I've been mentioning since forever, just because they've been really, really helpful in the making of this story that you now have in your hands.
To my SWF family, Waterbender_poet, TessaTuring, and AmnerisTenjo, you have my huge thanks for tolerating my existence and our friendship (?) throughout the years of knowing you guys. (We're going on 4 years already, would you look at that.) I wish y'all good luck for all the stuff you are doing and know that I'll always be here for y'all except for monetary compensation. Really, you're the best. Uwu.
To my Chaotic Fluffs, friends who made writing this work extra, extra special: the-reticent-seer, SuVida777, starisredy, and ry-reader-29. Thank you so much for staying even when everyone else has faded. Thanks for reaching out when I wouldn't, for being there when I couldn't promise to do the same (I know, I am a bad friend. xD), and for all the help you've given. To some of you, the ones who have seen the crappy version of WLNDE's blurb, thank you for your inputs and your general interest in just being there in that secret Discord channel. I couldn't have asked for better writing companions as you.
dayisdemigod, the first person to ever see all of my failures in designing WLNDE's covers, thank you for your feedback and the hype you've been giving for my graphic designing journey. I couldn't have it any other way. Good luck in your own stuff in life and I hope you read this someday. xD
To the one this whole thing is for, TypedInk, thank you for everything you are. I know I have said this a million times before and I know you already know half the stuff I will say, but thank you for what you've done for me, for MSWY, and in the future, for WLNDE. Thank you for being my superfan (can I call you that now?), my text-wall spammer, and for basically loving me and everything I put out even when I couldn't. You deserve so much more than that, and I'm sorry in advance for whatever crap and emotional damage that's going to come at you. (Just kidding. It's deliberately made to wreck people so...yeah.)
To psychosupergoddess for compiling that quote book of k-dramas and for including Go Back Couple. You are a lifesaver and I'm really glad I stumbled upon your work and your profile. You rock! Maraming salamat! Sobra. :)
To ElaineOfCorbenic and agatharoza, amazing writers and excellent members of the Ambassadors, thank you so much for answering my call when I looked for people to provide the translations for those chapter titles. You guys completed the aesthetic, really. And as promised, here's the shoutout in my acknowledgment section, and now, you have my eternal gratitude. You guys are literal lifesavers and I'm never going to forget this favor. Ever. Thank you for taking the time, and to Kei, thanks for not getting pissed at me when I wouldn't shut up in your DMs. xD
To the peeps at BootcampMentors who have lent their time giving feedback to my horrid attempts at the other story stuff when it pertains to WLNDE, I couldn't have asked for more. To Wimbug, for providing comments on the first 500 words, thanks for pushing through all that rubbish to get it to what it is now. Thanks to you, I have a stronger and more coherent one. To KeiraKnox1 for looking through my very, very rough summary with as much patience as you showed, thanks for taking a bit of your time to tolerate that convoluted thing's existence. For providing feedback as well. Thanks for that too.
To neverfakeit, my cool boss in the Ambs, who after providing feedback for MSWY's disaster blurb I have become quite scared of (jk, ofc XD), thanks for looking through WLNDE's blurb this time around and for saying the things you did. Please know that it wasn't all my effort because I have had more sense to have someone look at it before yeeting it to BCM. Nevertheless, I am always going back to your feedback time and again because you made me feel like I've written something that's not trash. Lol. To ajArnault who rearranged the logline to what it is now, thanks for lending your expertise in the small things when I could only have the capacity for the big ones. To reannekennedy17, thanks for joining me in my adoration for the cover. xD
To the artists who have provided the songs featured in the playlist, particularly Taylor Swift, Sleeping At Last, and AURORA, thank you for lending me your art and for telling your stories the way you did. To the artists whose songs did not make it to the final playlist roster but had still accompanied me throughout the 28 days of drafting (read: ✨ suffering ✨), you all still have my gratitude and continued appreciation of your work.
To the people in DreamlandCommunity's Hunt Book Club (Minimoxx, sandydragon1, and AziaElga,) who served as WLNDE's very first readers—you will always be remembered as such if this trashfire story every made it somewhere. You have my thanks, especially to Wei, who has provided so much more than what's expected. I'm forever grateful.
To Wattpad which has allowed me post this work into their platform at my own pace, and to its fungi network of mirror sites, thank you for getting WLNDE to where it might be needed and to the people who might want to see it.
Shoutout to my parents who have provided more than the study allowance and internet connection needed to make this work possible. Thanks for everything you've done that ended up in this work and for staying and loving us the way you do. Maraming salamat sa paniniwala, sa pagsuporta, at sa pag-intindi. ♥️
Finally, thanks to you, dear reader, who has soldiered on through all of those words and for the reads, votes, and comments. If you're not a silent reader, rest assured that I remember your username (unless you change it) and will most likely have my utmost gratitude to you for the rest of my life. For giving this fake-ass writer and their undiscovered work a chance, thank you so, so much.
If you're a silent reader and haven't interacted with me apart from adding this story into your reading list and/or private library and then forgot about it, you still have my thanks. Even that one or two boost from my reads mean so much more for me. I'm still a long way from being famous, and I don't think I'll ever be, so thank you so much for finding this book by any degree of coincidence and for thinking it's worth your time.
So yeah, this concludes this section. I hope you've read through all that and it's totally alright if you don't have the patience for it. xD
Don't forget to visit More From Exequinne to see what other works I have already published. Check out A Guide to the Arcane Universes for any and all upcoming releases as well. Add the book to your private library so you can be notified whenever I update it. Uwu.
That's it from me. I hope WLNDE has been a journey and a thrilling ride for y'all as much as it had been for me. Thanks so much and see you all in a wildly different work in the near and far future! :)