Completion Afterword
Man… we actually made it all the way here.
I started serializing this back in September of the year before last, so this work has been running for a little over a year now—and it has finally reached its end.
Looking back on the serialization, the biggest issues that stick out were almost all health-related. My body always fell apart faster and harder than I expected. It drove home, bone-deep, that if you want a long career as a writer, the first thing you have to take care of is yourself.
From the middle onward I put you all through a lot of trouble with one thing after another, and honestly, even right up to the very end I was still staggering under health problems… but somehow, somehow, we got to the finish line. Yeah. It feels strangely new.
Of course, I know I caused a ton of inconvenience throughout the run, so if I started listing everything I should apologize for, there’d be no end to it. Haha…
The moment you start taking other people’s money, you’re a professional—that’s the baseline. The fact that I showed you such a disappointing update schedule from the middle on, health or no health, is something I have to keep reflecting on.
So… yeah.
Dowd’s story ends here for now. I might come back and tack on extra stories if something occurs to me later… but I’ve already pointed him toward a happy(?) future, so I figure I should just let him live it out on his own.
To every reader who so generously overlooked this unworthy writer’s always-inadequate prose: I am always grateful, always thankful, and always sorry.
Serializing for over a year, thanks to all of you, became an experience I’ll never forget.
This story ends here, but I’ll be back before long with a different one.
Thank you.