Maria-sama ga Miteru:Volume17 Chapter11

Afterword

It's nice to have a story like this occasionally.

Hello, this is Konno.

And so, we have the field trip.

As one would expect from Lillian Academy for Women, Italy. Incredible. I bet the first-year students place a deposit for the field trip.

Now.

Before writing this book, in October of last year (2003), I went to Italy. The Lillian Academy field trip was at the end of September, so this would be a bit later than Yumi and friends. The Cobalt editorial department sent me. My first press tour.

It was roughly the same three-city itinerary as Yumi and friends: Rome, Florence, and Venice.

However, mine was an adult's trip. Yumi's was a group trip with a school for rich girls. So it's not like you could say the two are identical. No matter what happens, you would not take a taxi on a field trip. So I had to write many parts with imagination. Of course, I also let the Lillian students share my experiences.

Writing for this field trip edition was "trouble." Roughly speaking, what should I do with things that have changed in recent years or even months?

For example, they switched currency in 2002 from the lira to the euro.

The Leaning Tower of Pisa underwent restoration from 1990-2001, so it was closed to the public.

Art galleries loan out their works and change their exhibits, so there are many situations of things no longer there.

It was troublesome to write, limiting the time period of this story. So to avoid those problems, the story's subject matter was confined. Well then, isn't that getting one's priorities backward?

It's the result that matters.

I don't show units of currency in Italy. Everything is converted to Japanese yen. I don't worry about construction or loaned artwork. I decided that they will exist in their original shape, in their original place.

Because of this, it is pointless to try to calculate "Yumi was a first-year student in year X." But even with that, some readers would extrapolate from Christmas and Valentine's Day that "It must be year X". But the author herself hasn't even thought of that (or at least should not).

Yes, yes. Speaking of trouble, there was trouble with the computer that I use to write these light novels. It seems there was an accident with the hard disk. Just in case, I put it on a floppy. That file could not be read.

I called the word processor support, we tried all sorts of things, nothing worked. "Oh, my 80 pages of novel!" I really was in a panic.

Fortunately, someone in the Cobalt editorial department was familiar with computers and amazing skills at prying open files from corrupted disks. So I survived without loss. The restored novel was garbled in a few places, and one part (about 7-8 pages) was gone. But compare that to thinking about the disappearance of all 80 pages. Thank you, thank you. If it hadn't been restored, it would not have been ready in time for the release date. Even just thinking about it is scary.

So while writing this book, I had support from the Cobalt editorial department from beginning to end.

Konno Oyuki

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