One Awesome Mom Followup: · 6:20am Jul 4th, 2014
So, One Awesome Mom finally dropped off the featured list after roughly...three days...I think...probably a little less. It certainly stayed there the longest of any story I've ever written and managed to net me my followers up through 700. Totally awesome! I was a bit surprised that the oneshot I finally kicked out the door because I was tired of sitting on it for months on end turned out to be one of my most successful stories yet, but maybe not all that much. After all, it's a feel-good bit about Scootaloo and her family that doesn't involve her being either and orphan or abused, the latter of which is a very overused plot device. I know this because I've used it too (self deprecation for the win).
I'm fully aware that the story doesn't feel complete, especially since there isn't much in the way of conflict. At the time that I was writing, I didn't really feel like taking things farther than that and was happy (and am still happy) with what I have. I don't believe in writing sequels or continuations of something just because other people think I should. If I'm done with something, I should be allowed to be done with it. If some people don't like that, it's sour grapes for them. I don't pressure other authors to continue or write sequels to stories that they feel they're done with and I don't bow to pressure when people do it to me. Authors who do buckle to that pressure generally produce sub-par work because their heart isn't in it. They start to get frustrated and vent it in the blog and it really starts to sour their relationship with their fans and this site as a whole and a few of them seem to drop off the face of the earth (or fimfiction...which is more or less the same thing) as a consequence. I don't want to do that. I hope you don't want me to do that. Maybe things would be different if I were writing professionally and I was getting paid for this stuff (I think we'll all agree that I'm not exactly professional-grade when it comes to my writing). But I'm not and this is a hobby project that I do mostly to amuse myself and, hopefully, amuse and entertain some other people while I'm at it.
However...I've recently been reconsidering my stance on this project being "done." Since I've started thinking about it a lot (what with it being on the front page every time I go on this site the past couple days), my creative juices for it have been flowing again I've gotten some pretty nice ideas. I'm not sure whether I'll change the story's status to incomplete and add additional chapters or simply make a sequel (most likely the former since I don't want to end up on the site rules regarding sequels and additional chapters), but it probably won't happen for a while. I have other projects that I'm working on (you know which ones) that I feel that I have an obligation (particularly to myself) to finish before I start pumping out chapters to another story. So I'll let this one stand complete as is right now, just in case I never actually get around to that continuation. I don't want to get your hopes up too much after all. It'll be a ways in the future.
One last thing before I sign off. I am very lazy. It's a fault that causes me enough problems in real life. That said, I'm not one for answering comments and I don't have time for it anyway. If someone is gracious to point out errors in my text, I generally fix them, but can't be troubled to respond "fixed" to every single comment that points them out. Generally, when I respond to a comment, it's because an error that someone pointed out has caused confusion in the understanding of the text (one of those happened for this very story), which I feel that I do have an obligation to respond to. So, if you point out textual errors in my story, don't think I'm ignoring you just because I haven't replied to your comment. I will fix errors in my own time.
Otherwise, thank you all for your support, your favorites, your watches, and your likes. I'm thrilled everyone liked this so much.
It's a great story but I implore you not to do a sequel unless you really feel you have a new (or extended) story to tell. I've seen too many stories ruined because the author has felt obliged to the readers to write a sequel but didn't have any good ideas or the focus to pull them off.
Either way, 'Awesome Mom' was one of the better discoveries I've made on this site! Thanks for sharing and spending the time to talk to us about it!
'Awesome Mom' is one of the best 'Scootaloo's family' fics I've read, and while I too would like to see it continued, don't feel you have to if you don't feel you can do justice to the continuing story.
At least give us Rainbow Dash's fangirling
Other than that though, I can't really imagine anything interesting, unless Daring invites them on an archaeological dig that ends up awakening something that Ditzy then puts into one of her books...
If you do get around to a sequel I think it would be funny to have 7000+ words of Daring making friends with the rest of the mane six, the whole while RD is losing her mind until near the end when she realizes Daring is really, really boring.