Updates, revisions, and our own worst enemy · 6:52pm Jan 14th, 2013
Hoo-eeh, it's been a while, hasn't it? At least for my part, December and the first bit of January has been rather busy, not only because of Christmas, family reunions and all that good stuff, but also because the majority of December was spent frantically finishing up a big 100-page assignment for university, and subsequently preparing for the exam that took place a few days ago here in January (specifically on the 10th).
So now that all that is sorted out, I basically have nothing that I need to do until the start of February, which means I will have plenty of time to continue A Head Full of Clay, perhaps even finish it so that I can also start on some of my other planned projects without a guilty conscience.
On that note, I recently got a very helpful review from Not Worthy, and as a result of this, I've made a number of revisions to the story so far, both derpy grammatical errors that I now feel somewhat ashamed that I blatantly missed, as well as details about the story itself that were lacking. While there are a couple of minor changes in a few sentences across most chapters to make the whole thing hopefully more fluid, a couple have had additional parts added to them that are fairly significant, specifically chapters 1, 5, 6 and 7.
(Minor spoilers below)
While we're on that, it's strange how many of the pitfalls you usually frown at other writers for falling victim to that you yourself somersault headfirst into as well without even realizing. It came as a big surprise (and shock) that I had inadverdently written Apple Bloom with slight tendencies towards that most ghastly of tropes, the Sue. This was a particularly startling revelation, both because I usually get frothy at the mouth and feel like grabbing an axe and a horned helm whenever I see a Mary Sue character, but also because Apple Bloom isn't even my favourite Crusader (that'd be Sweetie Belle, followed closely by Scootaloo, although all three are awesome).
To me, this just gives credence that old adage about being our own worst judges, both when it comes to being too critical of ourselves, but most definitely also in not being critical enough. That'll teach me for not having a proofreader to give the story that extra look. You learn something new every day.
I may do a few additional revisions later if I stumble over something, but for now, I'm going to get to work on the next chapter.
