Lack of Updates · 6:32am Mar 24th, 2013
Right, so I haven't been updating any my stories in a while. Sorry for keeping all of you waiting, but I've been busy with school work and other important things going on in my life. I'm also having a really tough time with where I'm going with the story, Follow the Melody. I have certain scenes played out in my mind, it's just getting from point A to point B I'm having a problem with. So, I wrote other stories as a break from that. But that resulted in creating more problems for me now that I have to think about where I'm going with those stories. I started off writing this fic without much care to the actual plot and more of getting some ideas out. The next thing I know, I'm thinking about character development and finding ways to keep the story interesting. I went from 2000-4000 words per chapter to 8000-12000 words.
Another reason why updates are slow is coming up with dialogue. It is one of the most difficult things I've dealt with. I would just sit in my chair and try to act out conversations between characters and try to sound as real as possible. It's fun some times, but other times, it's just frustrating. How would Twilight react to this? Does Applejack sound like this? If I were Lyle, what would I say/do? Also for Follow the Melody, I wrote all my stories without an editor, which might explain why there are quite a bit of mistakes in the story and why I take so long to update. It's because I end up re-reading the same 12000 word chapter, looking for mistakes I made. It doesn't help that I'm a socially awkward person. No, really. Sometimes I wouldn't know how a person would react given a certain situation, so I have to look it up on the internet and do research for that as well as other things. Oh and another thing I do when I write stories is I research everything from equine anatomy and behavior to Equestria's land and its fictional inhabitants. Moving on, I've never been in a relationship, so I get all the romantic stuff from movies and literary works (Thank you AP Literature). In school, English was one of my worst subjects, and my writing skills were amateur. I'm amazed I got positive feedback from you, the viewers.
As for the newest story I'm working on, To Be Different, I decided to take it more seriously and put in some more effort into it. So, I'm doing some major editing for the chapters I released. This also means I need editors to look over my chapters. The thing I don't like about having an editor, even though they will make your story significantly better, is that sometimes it takes a while to hear from them. I know they're probably busy with other things, but this really extends the time for an update to come.
So summary? I've been really busy. Ideas aren't coming to me. Editing is a painful process for me -- reading, editing, rereading, re-editing, reading again... I'm an awkward person in real life. Getting out chapters could take a while. If you're interested in being an editor for one of my stories, feel free to PM me.
Now here's a picture of my pony OC that I made while on my break from writing:
Blank flanks are cool.
You should look for an editor and probably find someone help you with your story, so they can help you with to relieve some stress you have.