January Blog: And Now To Try This "Regularly Scheduled Blogging" Thing On For Size

I remain standing after another year has passed. That feels like reason alone to celebrate.

To say that 2022 was up and down for me would be an understatement, and I'm not in the best of spirits going into 2023. I'm still in recovery mode, and for anyone whom this is the first blog of mine you're reading: Hi. I have no job right now and that's a problem, but I do have a Ko-Fi and I've recently opened up commissions. Slots are wide open on the latter, so if the rules and rates suit you, go ahead and shoot me a PM.

And for those who've already sent me Ko-Fi tips: Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I just hope I, and my work, are worth it.

I've decided that, moving forward, I'm going to try to do blogs on the first Friday or Saturday of each month, using them as a way to track milestones and keep folks abreast of what I'm doing. Maybe placing the deadlines I give myself out in the open will help me better stick to them, and tracking how things grow will help combat discouragement. As I've said in a previous blog, if this is what I'm good at, I might as well commit to it.

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And if I'm going to track my progress on a monthly basis, it makes sense to put down the starting point. Here's some stats, as of today:

Current Ongoing Stories: The Long Eventide, Lesbian Sheep Syndrome
Current Completed Stories: A Moonlit Storm, Dawn of the Chiroptera, Every Dog Has Her Day

Current number of followers: 38
Words I've published so far across all my stories, both completed and ongoing: 72,383

Completed story with the most words: A Moonlit Storm at 16,411
Completed story with the most views: Every Dog Has Her Day at 536
Completed story with the best vote ratio: Every Dog Has Her Day at 62:0
Completed story on the most bookshelves: Dawn of the Chiroptera at 187

Number of contests I've entered: 3
- Ancestral Tribute: A Moonlit Storm, first place
- SPOOK: Dawn of the Chiroptera, results pending
- Species Change: Every Dog Has Her Day, results pending

Number of times I've been reviewed: 1
- By Mike Cartoon Pony: A Moonlit Storm, Excellent rating

Canon characters tagged in my works so far:
- Mane 6 (The Long Eventide)
- Princess Luna (The Long Eventide)
- Night Light (A Moonlit Storm)
- Fluttershy (Dawn of the Chiroptera and Every Dog Has Her Day)
- Twilight Sparkle (Dawn of the Chiroptera)
- Luster Dawn (Dawn of the Chiroptera)
- Rarity (Every Dog Has Her Day)
- Applejack (Lesbian Sheep Syndrome)
- Rainbow Dash (Lesbian Sheep Syndrome)

Species representation among original characters (counted if they have both been named and given a speaking role) so far:
- Earth Ponies: 3
- Pegasi: 3
- Unicorns: 2
- Bat Pony: 1
- Zony: 1
- Zebra: 1
- Kirin 1
- Sheep: 1
- Hedgebeast: 1
- Abada: 1
- Nyx: 1
- Crocotta: 1

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My current plans are, tentatively, in this order:

• Finish Lesbian Sheep Syndrome (one more chapter, barring any unexpected additions to the outline late in the game)
• A oneshot that will be my first time attempting to write Discord
• Publish the next chapter in The Long Eventide
• Start sprucing up the would-have-been-M/M-contest-entry story I have in rough draft form into a publishable state.

So that's what I, and you, have to look forward to. We'll see how much of that I get through in the course of a month and check back in February.

Happy New Year everyone. I'll do my best to give those of you who give my words a chance entertainment through to the next one.