Dear Me (from the past),
How's your day going? I bet not too bad. Right now, you should still be at your place sleeping because you don't have any classes on Tuesday mornings. How'd I know? Because I'm you, more precisely, I am you from one year later.
Right, I want to talk a little bit about what has happened to me over the year, and how I'd changed.
Well, the biggest change in this year, for me, is a big conversion in belief that anime and manga aren't exactly pointless. Right now, when you're celebrating your 18th birthday, you're still holding on to the thinking that novels and anime and manga are pointless. You're still thinking that because they're fictional, you can't learn much from them, as it is unlikely that one can apply the lesson they learnt in fictions to reality.
Yes, I'll grant you that content wise, you still couldn't learn much. However, in terms of writing styles, there's quite a lot to learn from, and it's not just from great works like The Great Gatsby or The Catcher in the Rye. Online works, at least those that are well written, is also of great reference value.
You'll never expect this, but seriously, even though I still am not buying into all aspects of ACG, I am viewing fictional works (Mostly anime and manga) in a much more positive light. Since your 18th birthday, you've read a lot more novels and manga than ever before, for example:
The Great Gatsby
The Catcher in the Rye
We Almost Lost Detroit (Although you haven't finished it yet)
Girl Arms (Fan fictions，《少女兵器》)
Battleship Girl (Manga，《鋼鐵少女》)
Kantai Collection (Fan fictions)
Date. A. Live (The actual novel and fan fictions)
Now, from the list there, you can see quite a number of them are fan fictions. Yes, they are, but seriously, many of them are quality works. And you're so influenced by it that beginning in May of 2015, you've embarked on an amateur writing life of your own.
And that brings me to the stuff I want to talk about the most: Your writing life. Right now, you're still about a month away from your debut work, which is still just a documentary-type article. But there will be a twist in April of 2015, because that is when you'll read your first ever fan fiction in your life. It'll impress you so much that you'll be motivated to think about the background settings (Mostly aviation, road, and railway network) of that fan fiction universe. And for the coming months, you'll become a member in a large gaming forum called Bahamut（巴哈姆特）and begin posting your settings there.
Now that is still within the non-fiction boundary, but in the latter half of 2015, a bulk part of your works is fictions. Well, mostly fan fictions. So what happened?
Well, a large part of it is due to you finding out that the settings series is not going to go on forever, so there's a need to diversify your works. And since you're getting fond of the online game Kantai Collection (AKA KanColle), your first attempt in fiction writing will be a letter to the KanColle characters of Yamashiro and Fuso. As for the reason for addressing the letter to the Fuso-class battleships, it's mostly because you're under the influence of the 2003 BBC documentary series called Seven Wonders of the Industrial World, in which the pilot is covering the story of the profoundly unfortunate ocean liner called S.S. Great Eastern. You found the story in resonant with the Fuso sisters and decided to share this story with them, and that is what opened the floodgates.
You then participate in the "Town Novel"（小鎮亂入小說）, a novel universe in which anyone could be the resident of a peaceful township, living without worries. The novel started great for you but very soon, it ran into troubles because you have a hard time finding ideas suitable for this particular work.
But hey, despite that small problem, your venture into fiction writing is not going to end that quick because by this stage, I am still churning out letters and short stories of different types. The background settings project is also still ongoing but it's nearing its end by now.
As for the other aspects of your life, well, there is not much change. You're still a nerd, and getting nerdier, nothing to be shamed of, by the way. And your studying life is still like that, plagued by strikes and laziness. You know, classic British Disease (Or Longbridge Syndrome, as you'll later call it). That doesn't mean everything remains the same though because by May of 2015, there's resurgence in your interest on railroads. Thanks, mostly, to the settings project and your lifelong crush with steam locomotives.
Speaking of your academic life, yours after September of 2015 will be absolutely bonkers. I mean, you will be told to write a narrative essay (essentially a short story) and you'll become incredibly anxious about it and then you'll suddenly get an idea out of nowhere and totally absorbed by it. Then, when you actually commenced writing, you'll be so absorbed by it that you'll break the word limit 3 times over. Then, you'll have to ask for all available help to trim it down and because you're such a sentimentalist, you'll feel sorry about not doing anything with the longer version of your story and continued elaborating and ended up with an 8200 word novelette.
That novelette, by the way, will make you feel incredibly satisfying and wanted to share it and you'll, for once, be brave enough to send that to a publisher in the hopes of having it actually published. That's why I call your academic life really bonkers after September 2015 because everything I just told you originated from a take-home assignment you're reluctant to write.
All these happened, because you've changed your mind on how to view anime and manga. Isn't 2015 equally dramatic as 2014 for you?
Anyway, happy 18th Birthday to you and 19th Birthday to myself.
Best Wishes,
Raleigh Wolseley
2 December, 2015
不想多說，就是一篇記錄自己在 2014 至 2015 年間的變化的短文。
謝謝各位自五月起小弟再這開台後一直駐足觀看小弟的作品。感謝了，雖然為數不多，但是連這一點讀者也沒有的話，小弟現在可能已經對巴哈失去興趣。離開是很容易的，留下是需要很大勇氣的。
至於下款「Raleigh Wolseley」，是小弟將自己一篇英文故事拿去投稿時用的名字，那篇說長不長的短篇故事將會翻譯成中文放在這，只是小弟不保證能不能在今年內完成。
謝謝各位的閱讀，也感謝您們的支持，能令小弟有動力寫下這些連小弟自己也不相信自己可以寫出來的東西。希望接著下來的一年還能這樣；冀望接著下來的一年，小弟還能繼續創作。
創作內容
【English Channel】My Present to my own Nineteenth Birthday: A Letter to Myself
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