First off, I want to apologize… it was unprofessional to not inform everyone that I was canceling the last chapter (Friday’s chapter). To be honest, I was sort of trying to put off this announcement.

I’ve lost my motivation to keep writing this story… and plan to take an indefinite hiatus.

I don’t know how long, or even if I will return to writing it.

I- Well, I don’t really know how to put this in an accurate way. It feels like I’m building the novel on a shaky foundation that could collapse at any moment and whether I try to write all the flaws and problems that exist in the story are surfaced into my head.

This story had a lot potential, but it was my first story… A lack of writing skills early on squandered that potential. I had so many plans and ambitions for the story, yet I feel like I failed.

A solid foundation is what helps a story continue forward into the future, and makes it easier to write and read. My problem is I- I know that it’s impossible for this story to be as good as I want it to be. I know it’s impossible to be a masterpiece because of that squandered potential and it haunts me whether I write it. I find myself wishing I was writing something else without all the past mistakes to haunt me whenever I pull myself to the computer to write.

I- I want to write a masterpiece that anyone could enjoy… and the longer I write the more I realize that this story isn’t it and it’s been ruining my motivation. I’ve been persisting on this work because people have continued to read my work and I appreciate all of you.

But I’m afraid this story cannot become a masterpiece.

Any new readers would have to go through my entire process of learning to write and the various problematic elements of the story before approaching anything remotely close to acceptable in my mind. And I…. I don’t have the motivation to rewrite all my mistakes. I’ve already written close to 400k words for this story and editing it to the point I’d like would be impossible without causing significant changes to the point of it becoming unrecognizable.

My delay of this announcement was because I was hoping that I would change my mind. I hoped that my lack of motivation was temporary and when today came I would burst out of this bubble…

This hasn’t been the first time I lost motivation to write this story, but… I fear it might be the final time.

I really didn’t want to go on indefinite hiatus... or any hiatus at all, honestly, because I’ve seen other writers do it over the course of my years as a reader, and know, there’s a good chance it will be permanent.

Multiple times over the course of writing this novel, I realized something important. Time is the ultimate test of persistence. You will lose motivation when writing, you will be lazy, you will want to quit.  But I pushed through most of the time… all my doubts, busyness, and laziness to continue writing were pushed aside unless they were completely impossible to ignore.

I’ve written close to 400K words during the course of this novel, which is similar to four full-length novels in published format (of course, actual published novels tend to do a lot more editing but regardless). Each chapter has taken me approximately 6-8 hours, adding up to over a thousand hours of writing and I’m very happy to have done it. That will never change.

It has been a significant part of my life for the past year(s?) and I still remember how naive I was when I started. I remember believing my writing was almost flawless at the beginning because I'd reviewed the starting chapters almost a hundred times before releasing them. When I saw someone put the story into their public folder of (do-not-read) on scribblehub because of them, I simply couldn't understand why... I remember having the urge to emailed them to ask, but I didn't in the end and I'm glad of that. I don't know if I could have handled the truth.

I appreciate everyone of you that has supported me by reading and encouraging me with comments in this endeavor… And I apologize for losing the motivation and ability to continue forward.

I realize this isn’t an ideal ending point. If the novel was close to the end, I would continue trying to push through… but I wrote because I enjoy writing and I’ve stopped enjoying writing this story for a while now and continued despite of that….

I also don’t want to write a half-hearted ending as I feel like it would be a disservice to the story that I've already written with love and care. A hastily-crafted ending is forever bad and I've always had grand ambitions for this story.

...I think- at a later point, I will come back, when I’ve learned more about writing and satisfied my ambition to write a masterpiece story. Otherwise, if I leave it unfinished, I’m afraid it would haunt me to my grave (another reason I have continued despite having little motivation to continue for awhile).

-But even if I do come back, I imagine that will be a long while from now. When most of you have already forgotten this story. Maybe… I’ll be the only person who remembers this uncompleted niche story at that point and… maybe nobody will remember it when I continue or bother reading it. A story that might only be finished and released for myself because of an old regret of failing to complete it.

Sorry, I’ve actually written myself to tears.

I don’t… I don’t want this story to be uncompleted and to disappoint you all with an abrupt ending like this…. I just don’t have the motivation to continue. I deeply apologize for giving up and even regret writing this already, I couldn’t bring myself to telling you all on Friday and I've been delaying until today because I know many of you have supported me and have continually returned to read my work.

I still plan to continue writing other stories, like World of Joy… and hope you forgive me for abandoning you all at this conjecture. I-I’m sorry.