prolog
Creative Notes 1–99
Epilogue

99 faithful records for me who keeps falling
“There is an end to a losing streak.
“That fact is always new and surprising.”

This creative notebook, which focuses on the process of writing the novel "Only One Person," contains the scenery of Seoul and Jeju that Choi Jin-young saw while conceiving the novel, the wondrous moment of encountering the novel's first scene, and the author's efforts to soothe himself and move forward while writing the novel in earnest.
In particular, this creative notebook contains the three years he spent in Jeju, during which he published five major works and received major awards. The mere fact that it records important spaces and scenes in his trajectory as a writer makes this book invaluable.
It's almost too much to call it a creative note, as it's filled with Jinyoung Choi's signature sharp insight and dazzling love. As you follow the process of completing a full-length novel, you'll find yourself enjoying the pleasure of reading "a novel called Jinyoung Choi."
This is why the novelist's time flowing within it is also read as a full narrative like another novel.

"My Pocket is Clear and Strong Wind" consists of 99 creative notes between the prologue and epilogue.
The notebook I started before writing a novel contains the daily experiences of writing and not writing, sometimes indifferently, sometimes passionately.
As an avid fan of the professional baseball team Hanwha Eagles, the author often places "playing baseball" and "writing" side by side, promising to "break the losing streak" and "definitely start a new novel."
And even if the baseball team is losing, I never think they will lose.
It is also the earnest hope of a writer who hopes that even if the novel does not go well today, “tomorrow I can write better than today” (p. 17).
Just as “even a losing streak has an end” (page 207), a novel that had been stagnant has now found its way into the flow, and a full-length novel that did not even exist as “0” before “Creative Note 1” began has been filled to 100 after “Creative Note 99” was written.
Perhaps creation is a process of endlessly repeating the time from 0 to 100.
In that infinity, Choi Jin-young writes.
There may be times when I fall down while writing, but I will easily get up and write again.
Because I have such a blue creative notebook in my pocket.

Here's a notebook and pen.
I can write today.
I can live a day.

Someday, what I write will lift me up.
I won't be the first to extend my hand, I won't be the first to ask you to walk again, but just by being there, I will make you get up on your own.

I write every day for myself, who keeps falling down. (Prologue, pages 8-9)

From the epilogue

The sentences in this note are my most personal and intimate stories.
A record of anxiety, loneliness, and love that was special at the time but is now extremely ordinary, poured out on paper because I couldn't tell anyone.
The conclusion that we have reached today after going through those days.
So, even if you falter again, it is a prophecy that you will eventually be okay.
(…)
I keep that feeling and that moment in this note.
For me, who will fall again and again someday and try to rely on despair and unhappiness.

Between spring and summer of 2025
Choi Jin-young