Rock Dog: The Final Call

Conclusion - A Million Miles Away

In the Real Human World

February 2022

Jeryl "Blaziker" Koh's home in Punggol at North-East Singapore

9pm Singapore Time

"And..." I clicked on the button, "Done! The final chapter." I would have posted a Tweet that the final chapter has been released on Wattpad and AO3.

I took this time to look around my home, appreciating how much I felt grateful writing the Mengcheng Dreaming. It was almost at the end of the hectic audit peak season where I was an auditor at an international mid-tier firm, assuring my clients that their financial records are immaterial of any errors that could affect their shareholders' decision-making process.

Four years ago, I was a wide-eyed, naïve student from Singapore Polytechnic who re-ignited his long-time love for writing. Writing stories was not just a hobby, it was also an examination of my expression during primary and secondary school. I had written some of my most favourite stories during these times, but as soon as I entered polytechnic, I thought I lost most, if not all my writing interest.

However, in 2018, something clicked on me when I was drafting through my short stories, seeing through the potential of a Rock Dog fanfic that fixed and enhanced the movie that came out the previous year. Suddenly, I found myself down the rabbit hole, realising I could never stop thinking of that Rock Dog fix-it novel inside my head.

Eventually, I decided to take the opportunity to write that novel during NaNoWriMo 2018 and now, four years later, rather than writing one Rock Dog fanfic, it became a four-part fanfic series, combining Sing and Arctic Dogs (yes, Arctic Dogs, even though I publicly hated it), even writing a spin-off Arctic Dogs fix-it novel in the third book. I also wrote three Camp NaNoWriMo novellas, all part of the Mengcheng Dreaming series.

As I read the final chapter of the whole series one more tie, I reflected on the statistics of this series:

· 4 years writing the series during NaNoWriMo and Camp NaNoWriMo

· 4 Mengcheng Dreaming novels

· 3 Mengcheng Dreaming Camp NaNoWriMo projects

· More than 300,000 words for the whole series

· A total of 291 songs in the main series

· 115 chapters written in the main series

· Endless number of hours conceptualising the novels

· Endless support from my friends and family

· One Singaporean autistic boy's belief in writing

I could never believe that I spent a long time writing the stories, word by word, especially coming from a family who felt writing would never get me anywhere. Well, I've created this path on my own and for it, I forged new friendships, found new support from readers like you and more importantly, finding out why I enjoyed writing in the first place.

Just like the final song, "Final Chapter" by Mayday, it may be the last chapter of the Mengcheng Dreaming series, but to me, I was just getting started. Because someone had to turn the page to begin a brand new chapter.