Now that you've finished reading the novel, let's take a behind-the-scenes look at how it came to be. It all started in 2021 when I was re-watching the Monogatari anime series for the 10th time. While singing along to the beautiful song "Kimi no Shiranai Monogatari" by Supercell, a particular verse from the second stanza caught my attention. Here is the Google translated meaning of that verse.
" 'That's Deneb, Altair, and Vega'
With your finger, you pointed out the summer triangle
I remember that as I see the sky
I finally found you, Orihime
But I wonder where Hikoboshi is
At this rate you'll be all alone"
I was curious to know who Orihime and Hikoboshi were, so I asked my Japanese friend, Yui, I had met on an online learning app. She told me the heartbreaking story of these star-crossed lovers. She also told me about one of most beautiful romantic festival, the Tanabata festival.
A few days later, one of my best friends jokingly compared his one-sided romance to latest romantic movies and told me that his love story is more dramatic than those in these films. So I tried to take that joke a level higher as I decided to write a short story based on his life. I wrote a story with about 2000 words and he loved it so much. As a die hard novel hard, he urged me to turn it into a full novel. That is when I found about the writing contest on MyAnimeList. The only problem was that the novel had to be over 50,000 words, and as someone whose first language isn't English, that was not- you know- a easy task.
But I refused to give up. I added more to the story, and while it's 99.9% my imagination, there's a small touch of my friend's life in it. I submitted it to the contest, but I didn't win. However, it taught me that I could do it if I tried. So, I started to spend my time to work on it. More precisely, from September of 2021 and finally, I finished it last day.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed the novel!