Afterword
When I started reading romance and villainess isekai manga and manhwa over the winter of 2020, I became obsessed by February of 2021 and brainstormed my first ideas for this story over March of that year. Out of the ones I’ve read, these are my favorites: (1) The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, (2) When the Villainess Loves, (3) Accomplishments of the Duke’s Daughter, (4) A Villainess No More, (5) The Plain and Unnoticeable Me Is No More, (6) Tales of Reincarnation in Maydare, (7) I Was Summoned to Be a Saint, but Was Robbed of the Position, (8) I'm a Villainous Daughter, so I'm Going to Keep the Last Boss, (9) I’m Not a Villainess!! Just Because I Can Control Darkness, Doesn't Mean I'm a Villain, (10) The One Within the Villainess, (11) I Used to Be a Disqualified Daughter of the Duke, (12) Deathbound Duke's Daughter and the Seven Noblemen, (13) The Holy Grail of Eris, and (14) I Am the Real One.
From these and others, I’ve incorporated school settings, saintesses, asshole princes, two-faced vixens, swordsmanship, magic, secret organizations and identities, schemes, lies, and talk-fu into this story. Yet of the above examples, it was The Holy Grail of Eris that gave me the idea of a ghost helping the MC uncover a conspiracy, which I’ve adapted into Janet’s ghost clones for this story. Yet besides manga and manhwa, other influences include my own writerly proclivities, such as the aforementioned ghost clones, doppelgängers, motherly and sisterly surrogates, horrific backstories, dreams and nightmares, architectural details, doorways and thresholds, deep dives into sword-and-buckler fighting and wrestling, mystery and thriller plot lines, haunted houses, graveyards, and whatever else comes out of my haunted mind.
But writing this first volume has been a rocky road for me, starting with a burst of writing in April of 2021 for Camp NaNoWriMo before it went dormant for a few months. Then I picked it up again in July of 2021 for Camp NaNoWriMo when I started posting this story on Scribble Hub and continued writing it into January of 2022. Then I took a break from it for a month to work on other projects before writing more of it in March, then took another break from it for a few months again. Then I continued writing it in June but ran into creative problems, so I had it torn apart in Scribble Hub’s forums to get at the bottom of it and started writing again, yet the writing slowed down during July and August. Even so, I managed to get the ball rolling again in September of 2022 and continued with it at regular intervals every month into January (this month) of 2023. During the writing of this volume, I’ve had my COVID and booster shots, had my wall surrounding my backyard reinforced and painted, had the floater installations and other fixtures for my toilets replaced, had visitors over the holidays, and helped my mom take care of my dad, among other things.
Yet through it all, I’ve written with you in mind, dear reader. Thank you for coming this far with me.
Ever yours,
Foxy
[April 5, 2021–January 24, 2023]
Thanks for the this very insightful afterword. Honestly I've always enjoyed hearing about how an author came up with their story idea.
Another thing that was fun, was reading your favourites and going 'yep read, that, that'. Good list of favourites btw.
So yeah. Good luck with your future writing
Thank you! Yeah, I've gotta plug in my favorites, b/c they're all awesome. I'm not sure when I'll come back for the next volume, b/c I need to continue my other stories, but I might post a few VR! side stories to tide readers over in the meantime.