Half the Day is Night, Version 2.0 · 5:50pm Sep 1st, 2014
Even more than three years later:
I continue to be happy with how Half the Day is Night turned out. Mostly, that is: the opening and closing frame story makes me a little itchy nowadays, and I never did manage to work a sub-plot for Spike into the thing.
So I've done a rewrite. A major rewrite. A rewrite that actually removes all the Pony from it... 
Morning, Noon & Night is what version 2.0 is called, but don't worry: the original, all-Pony version will always be available here for free. The new version, though, has another 27,000 words to it including a brand new beginning and ending, and the Spike analog, a talking cat named Chert, gets a sub-plot all his own.
Here's the new version's pitch:
Once every century, the immortal griffon, Princess Equinox, selects six mortals from among the six civilized peoples--humans, cats, dogs, hawks, crows, and eagles--to become the Champions of Andeer.
The Champions' sole duty? To accompany the princess to the ruined temple of Andeer's former Goddess Queen, Equinox's cousin Koyannaset, and cast the spell that keeps the insane sphinx locked away in limbo so she can't destroy the world.
But Larissa Noon, the young human sorceress chosen by Equinox to lead the current group of Champions, has made some discoveries while researching the banishment spell, discoveries that, if she chooses to act upon them, will change everything on Andeer forever.
This is apparently something that happens fairly regularly in fanfiction circles--bookplayer refers to it as "filing the serial numbers off." Here's hoping I used exactly the right grit of sandpaper!
If you go to the Amazon page, it'll let you read the first two-and-quarter of the three prologues for free--'cause you can't have too many prologues, right?--and if that interests you enough to spring the three bucks to read the rest, I hope you enjoy it!
Mike
Mike! I think I finally listened to your radioshow yesterday! Yours was the one with jazz and bluegrass and other forms of Americana on it that started at 4, right? Not the German music show that was before that.
The first thing I thought of was "cats and dogs living together" for some reason.
Anyway, here's to hoping you make as much money as 50 shades whilst getting a much better reputation! :-)
I haven't yet read the original version, but I'll try to remedy that problem in the somewhat near future...
:O You're a Writers of the Future winner?! That's freaking awesome!
"Hey, Your Nose is on Fire" Industries
Interesting... I loved Half the Day, so I'll try to check this out!
Does that mean I've been too slow on editing?
2419953
That was me!
The second song I played, actually, was one Pascoite recommended to me over in my blog post about Derpy music.
2419956
I never quite managed to set things up so I could steal that line. But I do have a few lines about how interspecies romances never seem to work out...
2419982
It'll be there patiently waiting for you.
2419992
My novelette "Crow's Curse" won third place in 1989 and was published in vol. 7 of the contest's anthology.
2420155
That's my entirely fictitious production company, the one that I credit each week at the end of my radio program.
2420223
Thanks! And thanks for the review over on the Amazon page!
2421119
Your comments about the opening were echoed by most of the other folks who read the thing, so I definitely learned where I needed to focus my attention during the last stage of rewrites!
Mike
2421651
Is that supposed to be a jab at interracial marriages? Cause if so, that is REALLY not cool, man. Some of my very best friends are in interracial marriages, and they get along just fine.
2428146
It's not racial:
It's species. Even in this magical world I'm writing about, biology applies. So while a cat and a human can indeed have a loving relationship, they can never have children--that's all I'm saying. Sorry it came out otherwise!
Mike
2428318
Two of my very best friends are also in a marriage where they cannot have children, and they get along just fine. And even if they wanted children, they could adopt, or find a donor. People in same-sex marriages, as another example, find ways to raise children in spite of the biological particulars, if they choose.
2428355
You're right:
And I'm sorry again that I'm not expressing myself very well.
In the book, there are two interlocking semi-romantic triangles among four of the characters: three humans and one cat. The cat is the familiar of one human but is in love with a second. That second human thinks of the cat as a friend, and as the story progresses finds herself drawn to the third human who was once in a relationship with the first human that their parents were more interested in than the two of them were.
At one particularly stress-filled juncture, the first human is feeling unhappy since the cat is spending so much more time with the second human, and it's in her point of view in that state of mind that the lines about interspecies relationships show up. They're not meant to be general truths about the world, just the grumpy thoughts of one character at a fairly sour time in her life.
Mike Again
2428468
I suppose when I read that line, I was a little bit shocked and surprised, and it got under my skin a little. That makes more sense, but I still kinda hope that first human gets bonked on the nose. Preferably with a rolled up newspaper.
2428526
Actually:
A page or two after this, her dark and swirling thoughts conjure up a tornado that she almost gets sucked into.
You can read the scene for yourself, now that I think about it, by going to the book's Amazon page and clicking on the cover image where it says "Look inside." All this happens near the beginning of the second chapter, so it's part of the free preview.
Mike Again