• WATTYS 2022 WINNER •
When Iris Monet married millionaire Jared Darling, she had only one rule - that he could cheat on her with anyone except the household staff. This arrangement of theirs would have gone on quite happily if she hadn't caught him...
I'M MINDBLOWN. I'm over the moon right now. Just thinking about the fact that on 11 January I posted this:
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and now as of 16 April -
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You guys did this. You. Guys.
From the silent readers to the vote spammers to those who sacrifice sleep to chase one more chapter. To the readers who take effort to type out comments - you think you laugh hard at the shenanigans of Iris? You should read some of y'all's comments ... I've been dying of silent laughter at work these past few weeks 😭
And yes I DO read every single comment. I try my best to react as much as I can, but being the avalanche of supporters you all are sometimes I get overwhelmed :'D on my harder days, you guys are pretty much THE only reason I keep banging my head on the keyboard - I mean choking words out of Microsoft Word - I mean totally not googling 274892 synonyms for the word said -
(because writing is so easy and all you need is a latte, cafe window and soft jazz music am I right?!)
But I digress.
A long time ago someone shrugged their shoulders at this book and told me at the end of the day it doesn't matter because "it's just cliche anyway".
It's just cliche anyway.
Those four words struck a barb in me that to be honest, even until now, it's not yet plucked out.
Sure, this isn't some Interstellar, Tenet-style fare. True that the story of Iris and Akai can't compare to Peeta and Katniss. But you know what it did have?
It had my heart. A lot of it.
I took pride in my culture when crafting Akai. Some of Iris's defensiveness came from mine - something I didn't even know until I reread. The Satohs' love language feels all too familiar. Whenever Heather and Iris interact, it always strikes a chord. Then there's the actual effort itself - late midnights, early hours, days of frustration when not a single word would come out right ...
Which is why hitting 100k matters so much to me. Why YOU guys matter so much to me.
Because it lets me know, cliche or not, there is at least something in this book which you all love, and perhaps most importantly, relate. It lets me know I'm not as strange or odd or alone as I thought (do I depend too much on external validation? Probably. Am I planning to change this? Yes, only if you guys think it's okay ...)
And now for your regularly scheduled shameless self plug!
If you enjoyed this story and want more slow-burns with smoking hot Asians and too much secondhand embarrassment, consider supporting me on
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/drizzlestar
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If none of these work just hit up my profile!
Basically you can drop me any amount of money you like.1 dollar? Awesome! 10 dollars? Cool! 100 dollars? GIMME YOUR NAME YOU GET A CHARACTER AFTER YOU -
All you need to do is input your email (so I know who to thank :) ) and a number of coffees. NO SIGN UP REQUIRED.
I can't stress this enough - thank you guys so, so much.
I won't rest until I've given you another worthy book. ❤️
