Chapter 8 – There Is A Reaction
-Pat!
“Araghh, f***! This shit again!”
“Meow.”
Rika who was eating her cat feed meowed in surprise as she heard the profanity.
In front of the computer, Jaegun buried his face onto his two hands. The screen was now of a blue color, filled with error messages.
“It’s hasn’t been long since I fixed it and now it’s acting up again.”
He was complaining, but it was a computer that he had been using for a long time. He owned it since his college days, so it has been in use for about 7 years already.
“Damn it. At least I sent my project in before it busted.”
He had sent the third martial arts novel of the series to the publisher. He was about to write the fourth one before it crashed. It wasn’t the worst situation to be in, but he was in the dark on trying to write from now on.
“Is it time for me to buy a new PC?”
He thought it wasn’t a bad idea to buy a new computer now.
He still had about 1,500,000 Won left from his contract payment. He gave 300,000 Won to his dad and even after buying Rika’s cat food, and the living necessities left him this much.
‘No. Not yet. I can’t relax.’
Jaegun shook the thought out. He knew that money always seemed aplenty, but it always had a tendency to flow off.
The rent and the utility bills would take him under 1,000,000 Won. Without even thinking about the next month, was he going to buy an expensive computer? This was the mindset of someone who wanted to live for one day and die.
‘I should just go to a PC bang. I could cut my rent for a month and use it there.’
His head was filled with ideas for his novels. He had to write new these things down or else he thought that his mind might burst. Jaegun suddenly kicked his chair and shot up.
At that moment.
“Right! I have that!”
He glanced towards the corner of the room. The old and tattered laptop was in sight; however, there shouldn’t be a big problem if he just used it to write.
‘It even has ‘Word’. It works fine, so why not use that?”’
He put his broken computer below his desk and replaced it with Seo Gunwoo’s laptop. As he connected the power cord to the laptop and turned it on, it made a BEEP sound and the booting started..
‘You are, indeed, older than my 7 year old computer.’
-Winnnnnggg!
A phone call from the editor-in-chief came.
Jaegun double-clicked on Word from the desktop as he picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Yes, hello. How did you write 3 books in a day? Did you already write these?”
“Haha, no. That’s not it. The story just came to me.”
It wasn’t a lie. After he obtained the new memories, his writing has changed.
It wasn’t his choice, but everything changed. It gave him motivation and new thoughts. He could tell from his writing.
“Wow. Then this seriously wasn’t written before and was written in a week?”
She was really surprised.
Jaegun’s normal speed was about 1 book per one month.
“I skimmed it and book 3 was good too. There isn’t much to change there as well. Good work, Mr. Ha.”
“No. The compliments should go to you for checking my work.”
“Hahaha, no. But there’s a surprising piece of news.”
“Surprising?”
“You should hold onto your phone.”
With those words, Jaegun tightened his grip on the phone.
“What is it? Is it something bad?”
“It should be good. After all, there’s no writer that doesn’t like their books being copied”
“….?”
Jaegun couldn’t believe his ears.
My writing? Being lengthened in copy?
Jaegun couldn’t believe his ears. Across the phone, the editor was laughing.
“Are you listening? Mr. Ha? Mr. Ha?”
The editor asked even though she knew that he was listening.
Jaegun stood up and walked around until finally he sat down on to his chair.
“Yes. Yes. I’m here. I’m here.”
“The reception of your books was amazing. The stores loved it. Therefore, we decided to print 1000 of them.”
“What? How-how many? 1000?”
Jaegun’s legs shook as he listened to her, completely flabbergasted.
With the development of the internet and e-books, regular books were in distress. It was amazing that the book even got lengthed. It was impossible for that to be in the thousands.
“Are-are you joking somehow? Or are you pulling my leg?”
Jaegun knew that she wasn’t, but he had to ask. His two eyes were still in disarray.
“Do you really think I would joke with something like this? Congratulations, Mr. Ha. It was your perseverance coming through. You’ll soon be making money and your living will be much better.”
Jaegun signed a contract with each book at 8%.
A single book costs 8 dollars, so he got about 640 Won. For 1000 books, it was 640,000 Won. There was the 3.3 % tax to worry about, but he could still make a flat profit.
Contrary to the flabbergasted Jaegun who was unable to respond, the editor continued her cheerful talk.
“Then, keep on working. I’ll be waiting for your next episode. Don’t overdo yourself either. Ah, and let’s have lunch together some time.”
“Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Really, thank you.”
He headed straight for the fridge. He took out cold water and started gulping it down.
His chest was bursting. He needed to vent this feeling with someone, but Jaein and Jongjin were working right now.
So Jaegun picked up Rika and shouted, ”Did you hear that? I’m getting more books! And 1000 of them too!”
“Meow.”
“It’s now 3000 releases for one book! That’s about 1,900,000 Won for a book. This is crazy! Really! To think I could get about 2,000,000 Won for one book! Do you think this makes sense?”
“Meow. Meow.”
This was probably nothing to successful writers, but to Jaegun, who received almost nothing for 5 years, it was a success like nothing ever before.
“Yeah! To continue this feeling, I want to write book 4. I’ll write book 4 in a week as well! Just you wait, by the next month, I’ll be freaking rich and I’ll buy you a cat tower or whatever that is!”
With immense happiness, Jaegun set off on writing on Se Gunwoo’s laptop. He knew the general outline of book 4. He just needed to calmly write it down.
-Tap! Tap. Tappp! Taptap!
On the monitor screen, words were flying on the page.
‘Now here, the main needs to get hit. And then he needs to retreat quietly… Hmm?”
While he was typing, Jaegun had a mysterious feeling.
‘Something feels weird.’
Usually when he was typing, the mind went faster than his typing. However, today, it was the opposite. It felt like his typing was faster than his mind.
‘Wait-wait-wait, what? What is this?’
He looked at the clock; only an hour had passed since he started. Yet, the document he was writing on read over 20 pages.
‘What? Is the file wrong? How much did I write?”
Jaegun suprisedly looked at the document information tab. Then, he took a heavy breath; his mind went numb. He lost his sense of feeling; as if he was free falling.
-Letters: 10798
‘Whaaat? I wrote about 10 thousand letters in an hour?’
Jaegun’s typing speed was not slow, it was about the same as the average writer. Yet, even in a good condition, his fastest was about 3500. To write at this rate, he needed to spend about at least 2 hours and a half.
‘This isn’t only about a good condition?’
This wasn’t writing or revising an old book. It was making a new one from scratch, and it was 10 thousand characters for one hour, he couldn’t believe it. It was out of human reach. His mind felt the numbness and shock again.
‘If I can write like this, I would be able to write about 1 book per day.’
The book he was writing was about 140,000 letters. Therefore, if he could write at the same speed, he could write a book in 14 hours.
‘Let’s do it.’
Chapter 8 – There Is A Reaction
-Pat!
“Araghh, f***! This shit again!”
“Meow.”
Rika who was eating her cat feed meowed in surprise as she heard the profanity.
In front of the computer, Jaegun buried his face onto his two hands. The screen was now of a blue color, filled with error messages.
“It’s hasn’t been long since I fixed it and now it’s acting up again.”
He was complaining, but it was a computer that he had been using for a long time. He owned it since his college days, so it has been in use for about 7 years already.
“Damn it. At least I sent my project in before it busted.”
He had sent the third martial arts novel of the series to the publisher. He was about to write the fourth one before it crashed. It wasn’t the worst situation to be in, but he was in the dark on trying to write from now on.
“Is it time for me to buy a new PC?”
He thought it wasn’t a bad idea to buy a new computer now.
He still had about 1,500,000 Won left from his contract payment. He gave 300,000 Won to his dad and even after buying Rika’s cat food, and the living necessities left him this much.
‘No. Not yet. I can’t relax.’
Jaegun shook the thought out. He knew that money always seemed aplenty, but it always had a tendency to flow off.
The rent and the utility bills would take him under 1,000,000 Won. Without even thinking about the next month, was he going to buy an expensive computer? This was the mindset of someone who wanted to live for one day and die.
‘I should just go to a PC bang. I could cut my rent for a month and use it there.’
His head was filled with ideas for his novels. He had to write new these things down or else he thought that his mind might burst. Jaegun suddenly kicked his chair and shot up.
At that moment.
“Right! I have that!”
He glanced towards the corner of the room. The old and tattered laptop was in sight; however, there shouldn’t be a big problem if he just used it to write.
‘It even has ‘Word’. It works fine, so why not use that?”’
He put his broken computer below his desk and replaced it with Seo Gunwoo’s laptop. As he connected the power cord to the laptop and turned it on, it made a BEEP sound and the booting started..
‘You are, indeed, older than my 7 year old computer.’
-Winnnnnggg!
A phone call from the editor-in-chief came.
Jaegun double-clicked on Word from the desktop as he picked up the phone.
“Yes?”
“Yes, hello. How did you write 3 books in a day? Did you already write these?”
“Haha, no. That’s not it. The story just came to me.”
It wasn’t a lie. After he obtained the new memories, his writing has changed.
It wasn’t his choice, but everything changed. It gave him motivation and new thoughts. He could tell from his writing.
“Wow. Then this seriously wasn’t written before and was written in a week?”
She was really surprised.
Jaegun’s normal speed was about 1 book per one month.
“I skimmed it and book 3 was good too. There isn’t much to change there as well. Good work, Mr. Ha.”
“No. The compliments should go to you for checking my work.”
“Hahaha, no. But there’s a surprising piece of news.”
“Surprising?”
“You should hold onto your phone.”
With those words, Jaegun tightened his grip on the phone.
“What is it? Is it something bad?”
“It should be good. After all, there’s no writer that doesn’t like their books being copied”
“….?”
Jaegun couldn’t believe his ears.
My writing? Being lengthened in copy?
Jaegun couldn’t believe his ears. Across the phone, the editor was laughing.
“Are you listening? Mr. Ha? Mr. Ha?”
The editor asked even though she knew that he was listening.
Jaegun stood up and walked around until finally he sat down on to his chair.
“Yes. Yes. I’m here. I’m here.”
“The reception of your books was amazing. The stores loved it. Therefore, we decided to print 1000 of them.”
“What? How-how many? 1000?”
Jaegun’s legs shook as he listened to her, completely flabbergasted.
With the development of the internet and e-books, regular books were in distress. It was amazing that the book even got lengthed. It was impossible for that to be in the thousands.
“Are-are you joking somehow? Or are you pulling my leg?”
Jaegun knew that she wasn’t, but he had to ask. His two eyes were still in disarray.
“Do you really think I would joke with something like this? Congratulations, Mr. Ha. It was your perseverance coming through. You’ll soon be making money and your living will be much better.”
Jaegun signed a contract with each book at 8%.
A single book costs 8 dollars, so he got about 640 Won. For 1000 books, it was 640,000 Won. There was the 3.3 % tax to worry about, but he could still make a flat profit.
Contrary to the flabbergasted Jaegun who was unable to respond, the editor continued her cheerful talk.
“Then, keep on working. I’ll be waiting for your next episode. Don’t overdo yourself either. Ah, and let’s have lunch together some time.”
“Yes. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Really, thank you.”
He headed straight for the fridge. He took out cold water and started gulping it down.
His chest was bursting. He needed to vent this feeling with someone, but Jaein and Jongjin were working right now.
So Jaegun picked up Rika and shouted, ”Did you hear that? I’m getting more books! And 1000 of them too!”
“Meow.”
“It’s now 3000 releases for one book! That’s about 1,900,000 Won for a book. This is crazy! Really! To think I could get about 2,000,000 Won for one book! Do you think this makes sense?”
“Meow. Meow.”
This was probably nothing to successful writers, but to Jaegun, who received almost nothing for 5 years, it was a success like nothing ever before.
“Yeah! To continue this feeling, I want to write book 4. I’ll write book 4 in a week as well! Just you wait, by the next month, I’ll be freaking rich and I’ll buy you a cat tower or whatever that is!”
With immense happiness, Jaegun set off on writing on Se Gunwoo’s laptop. He knew the general outline of book 4. He just needed to calmly write it down.
-Tap! Tap. Tappp! Taptap!
On the monitor screen, words were flying on the page.
‘Now here, the main needs to get hit. And then he needs to retreat quietly… Hmm?”
While he was typing, Jaegun had a mysterious feeling.
‘Something feels weird.’
Usually when he was typing, the mind went faster than his typing. However, today, it was the opposite. It felt like his typing was faster than his mind.
‘Wait-wait-wait, what? What is this?’
He looked at the clock; only an hour had passed since he started. Yet, the document he was writing on read over 20 pages.
‘What? Is the file wrong? How much did I write?”
Jaegun suprisedly looked at the document information tab. Then, he took a heavy breath; his mind went numb. He lost his sense of feeling; as if he was free falling.
-Letters: 10798
‘Whaaat? I wrote about 10 thousand letters in an hour?’
Jaegun’s typing speed was not slow, it was about the same as the average writer. Yet, even in a good condition, his fastest was about 3500. To write at this rate, he needed to spend about at least 2 hours and a half.
‘This isn’t only about a good condition?’
This wasn’t writing or revising an old book. It was making a new one from scratch, and it was 10 thousand characters for one hour, he couldn’t believe it. It was out of human reach. His mind felt the numbness and shock again.
‘If I can write like this, I would be able to write about 1 book per day.’
The book he was writing was about 140,000 letters. Therefore, if he could write at the same speed, he could write a book in 14 hours.
‘Let’s do it.’
