Improvements, feedback, and cloppin' to them ponies

So...as I type this at 4:36am, listening to "Runaway Train" in my headset, I have spent the last five hours either writing, or trying to write. I've spent an average of 3-4 hours a night on this for a few days now, rewriting this and cutting that. Current word count is at 8,344 words, and I don't even feel like I'm 3/4ths of the way done with what I set out to accomplish with this chapter. Needless to say, this is going to be a long one. Hopefully it's well-written.

Since I'm here, I figure I'll throw this blog post out before finally forcing myself to bed.

Before I begin...
*ahem*
THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to everyone who has read my story so far! The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and I appreciate every single one of you who were kind enough to favorite my story, follow it, or follow me. You guys rock.

On the first chapter of my story, I received a lot of comments, the vast majority of them extremely helpful and kind, and I appreciate every single person who took the time to let me know what they thought of my story thus far, be it good or bad. Finding what works and what doesn't was the big, single purpose of the first chapter. I'm here to write engaging stories, and damnit, I intend to follow through. Every bit of constructive feedback has been carefully considered.
So far, there are a few major points that I want to address, and they have become the main focus of this chapter.

In no particular order:
-Back story, back story, back story. Since this is a multi-chapter story, I'm still going to be dolling out the "audience character's" back story a bit at a time. Expository dialog, if done properly, is alright. I still try to avoid long chunks of someone (or somepony) explaining shit, but sometimes it's necessary. In that case, setting and emotion make the difference between "blah blah blah here's a story, who cares" and "this is what happened in the past, and how it affects things today". The two major back stories, that of the Audience character, and that of Cashmere, are going to be expanded upon in this chapter. The Audience character's past will still be pieced together over several chapters -- after all, you ARE that character, and keeping a bit of mystery to it keeps things interesting. Cashmere's past, however, will be told to a large degree. It was only hinted at in the previous chapter, but I feel like I've got a good grasp of what's going on and what her story is with Rarity, and she has the potential to be a great character. We'll see how it goes. Hopefully, you find her and Rarity's story worth reading about.

-Intimacy, romance, and sex. Two of these are easier to write about. The last one is not.
See, when I wrote the first chapter, it was basically made with the mindset of "clopfic with a story in it". I make no qualms about being open about sexuality, and indeed, I feel like sexuality is the glue that holds romantic clopfics together (forgive the mental image). I wanted to write a clopfic that I would want to read, and that means sex that isn't just "insert part A into part B, hold for 30 seconds, story's over". The best clopfics I've ever read have had strong elements of romance and intimacy; the little things that feel real, that you could imagine a real couple doing, things that draw upon your own personal experiences (if you've had them). After finishing the first chapter, it has shifted to "A story with a clop fic in it".

That said, a few people voiced concern that they may have felt rushed, or lacked intimacy. And that sucks. Admittedly, the first sex scene does feel rushed a tad bit, now that I've gone back and re-read it after posting it. Some readers liked the casual foreplay beforehand, others thought it felt odd. I honestly can't say who is right on this, since it's a matter of personal opinion more than anything. I do feel, however, that the second scene, near the end of the chapter, feels properly intimate and real. Again, sex is one of those funny things that will either really strike a cord with people because it's relate-able, or feel off. Without going into too much detail, such a scene as I wrote there is drawn from none other than my own past. Minus the pony part, that is. Some readers said that they thought it was an example of sex being not just A-to-B, but of an intimate act that felt plausible.

So far, I have not even begun to write any sex into this chapter, so I can't say "oh, it'll be like this", because I have no idea right now. To answer your question preemptively: Yes, this chapter is going to have a sex scene. For all of the character development and such, this is still an adult story, and will remain so. I am going to start putting a little advisory note at the start of my chapters from now on, though, so that those who wish to skip the sex entirely can do so(but seriously, come on, bro, it's got "sex" right there in the tags).
As much as possible, I am going to try and avoid such scenes unless they can be done proper justice.

Finally, there's mixed opinions on whether the scenes aren't descriptive enough, or too descriptive. I am not going to cut out descriptions entirely -- we're all adults here (or you SHOULD BE, if you're reading this story, guy), let's not pretend like sex is something icky and taboo that needs to be avoided. That said, I am going to make them as tasteful as possible while still being erotic. It's still a clopfic in spirit, just as it was meant to be from the start. Rest assured, you will not see internet porn-slang for anatomy, just as I promised when I published the first chapter.

Holy shit, I can't believe I wrote all that. Wasn't I supposed to be going to bed?

Alright, I'm gonna wrap this up.

tl;dr back stories will be explained, characters will be fleshed out, sex won't disappear but it will be improved, story is still about cloppin' to ponies in the end.

Good? Good. Take care, everyone. I shall see you soon. I don't want to set an ETA on Chapter 2, since things happen, but I will fully try and get it published within a couple of days.

Later!
-Dref