Chapter 74: On-Shelf Note — Urgent Announcement!

A snap—just like that, real fast, no warning at all. Yesterday they told me I was going on the premium shelf. The thing is, I really don't have any saved-up chapters!

And the killer part is, some readers might have seen my book review and learned that I, in order to stockpile chapters, deliberately delayed signing the contract by a week. And that led to me only starting to get the recommendation push at 80,000–90,000 words.

So what happened as a result?

My book only entered the first round of recommendations last week, and so far it only has a little over 2,000 bookmarks, and now it's being put straight on the premium shelf…

But for a newbie like me, it doesn't really matter.

Writing well is the only real way; no amount of attention means anything.

I've mentioned it in the chapters before—I'm a 996 corporate drone, and my job isn't the kind where you can leave on time.

Luckily, this time I made it in time for May Day, so I can use these five days to stockpile more chapters.

I won't say more—during May Day, I'll update as much as I can.

Honestly, when I first started writing, my dream was to write a Western fantasy + fun-type story, and become an instant hit with one book and all that.

Then after at least 20 internal-submission rejections, I took the lesson to heart and started to settle down and write seriously.

Now it's basically just writing after work—I don't even have time to watch those borderline-streamer girls anymore!

And the style of this book—some of you dads have probably already noticed—is mainly leaning toward the fun-type. The deck-building isn't all that brilliant compared to other fanfics.

I got into Yu-Gi-Oh! from the early-era ZCG plus post-2023 OCG; in the Yu-Gi-Oh! circle, I'd count as a cloud player.

I still remember when I was a kid, I collected a whole box of ZCG cards, no duplicates—should be around 3,000 of them.

And then…

When I was in college, that box of cards got sold as junk by my mom!!!!!

That incident has always stuck with me.

Back in school, I played a web-based Yu-Gi-Oh! dueling game for a while—what was it called, Yu-Gi-Oh! OW (I think that's what it was called, it's been too long, can't remember).

Later I also got into Duel Links, Master Duel, and the like, and I usually watch videos by some up-loaders like Mizuki, Luoyang, and so on. But I almost never play myself.

Honestly, I can't get the hang of it—today's Yu-Gi-Oh!, my brain really can't get the hang of it!

Last year, I had the good fortune to come across that book "Who Told Him to Play Yu-Gi-Oh!" The big shot wrote it really well, and that made me start thinking about writing a Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic.

However, with Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic—you don't know until you write it, and then you get a shock—it demands way too much memory of the cards!

It's really hard! I can responsibly say that Yu-Gi-Oh! fanfic, among all novel genres, can count as an extremely difficult one to write.

Just weaving the plot into the Duels alone has burned through most of my brain cells.

And on top of that, I often make some low-level mistakes in the deck-building. I'm really sorry about that, everyone!

But even so, right now, I still want to write this book well!

This is the struggle of a flop author like me!

And the plot of this book—after this, the protagonist and Orange Juice will spend some time in the Elven Realm, and then return to Duel City.

For the plot, I already have a rough outline in my head.

I can't promise anything else about this book, but no matter what, I will do my best to finish writing it—hereby witnessed!

I've even thought of the title for the final chapter—something like "A Story That Ends Amid Laughter and Cheers."

Finally, thank you to all you reader-dads for your support! And I hope the dads who like this book will continue to support it!