State of the Scribe: January 2023 · 10:43pm Jan 1st, 2023

Happy new year, everyone! I'm ready to enjoy an awesome year of the rabbit, because buns are the best and much cuter than rats let's just be honest. Another month, another calendar. Not quite full every day of the month, as you can see here. But there's a lot of good stuff, so let's get into it.

First, you'll see Words of Power is making its debut to Fimfiction. Of course that debut is a little out of my hands--it has to wait for Zutcha's cover, and I won't go live without it. But I'm crossing my fingers we'll see it, and the regular readers on fimfic will get to read it.

Words of Power is a ponies on earth transformation story, something many of my readers are probably excited about. But everyone should be, because this story has tons of original art in its chapters. Remember Fine Print? Expect something similar here.

It will be a bit of a strange situation, since the story won't have weekly updates, but slightly less regularly. We're coming up against a major deadline at work for this February, one that has really forced me to commit way more time than I normally would.

Still, check out Words of Power when it comes onto fimfic, and see if Lotus will ever recover her humanity.

There are three weekly stories updating with new content. Of course Don't Bug Me continues, another one of those stories with an epic scope and a whole world to explore. Amie's quest to preserve her bugs gets harder as the walls close in around her nested lies. But she's fighting for a good cause, maybe that will be enough. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/513304/dont-bug-me

Deep Below is a Splatoon story, following one of the last humans to survive the great flood, and emerge into a world dominated by ink. At least he thinks he's the last--but it's also a TF story, so you might have some idea about where that goes. Anyone can read it for free on the Patreon. I'll post a complete PDF/Epub when it's finished. https://www.patreon.com/RealStarscribe/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=Deep+Below&sort=published_at

Then we have Spirits of Change, a pokemon story crossed with the daemons of His Dark Materials. We follow Hayden, a kid from a family of eevees who throws a whole region into chaos by settling as the legendary Mew instead of what he was supposed to. Also anyone can read this on my patreon, no need to support me. It's just a convenient place to post it. https://www.patreon.com/RealStarscribe/posts?filters%5Btag%5D=Spirits+of+Change&sort=published_at

We also have two formerly patreon exclusive stories posting here on Fimfiction, Frames of War and Diplomatic Solution. First of those is a Warframe story, second is a space opera. https://www.fimfiction.net/story/527313/frames-of-war and https://www.fimfiction.net/story/522236/diplomatic-solution

That only leaves the occasional minific, like another chapter of the Sweetie Bot story, Machine Learning. There's also one monthly story left on the slate, Dreamlands. This one explores dream-magic and bats, trying to survive after Nightmare Moon's banishment.

And that's about it. For anyone who made it this far, I do have one big announcement coming in a few more days. I doubt it will matter to most--but I'm making some big changes to the way I offer my hardcovers. I'd like to try moving away from brief campaigns and instead have a persistent store.

I'll show it off when the time comes. I'm waiting for a print run of stock to fill it to arrive, that way I can ship things out right away. When it gets here, I'll post links.

With my first print run, I was broke enough that I had to use the campaign funds to buy the cover and everything else after fundraising ended. Things are a little more stable now. With luck, I can get ahead of things like that, guess at how many books people would be interested in--and print more of my best stories.

But I'll say more when the first run gets here and I can open the site up.Thanks to everyone who continues to support me. I've said it many times before, but the only reason I'm able to keep writing pony stories is help from my audience. You keep the lights on, and the words coming.

To another great year,

-Starscribe

PS: If you want to hang out, talk stories, do writing sprints, or just join us for random escapades into VR, feel free to hop into the Discord! Everyone is welcome: https://discord.gg/ZrxSEjt9FZ