Bad News · 9:34am Sep 4th, 2014
I hate to do this. I really do.
But I just haven't been able to do anything about it.
*Sigh* I'm afraid I have to drop out of the FlutterDash contest. The deadline for the contest is in 10 days, it started a good more than a month ago, giving me plenty of time.
However, I've got next to diddly squat. Seriously, not a single chapter is complete. They're not 11,000 words either. It's barely anything. And I just don't know what it is.
I don't think its writer's block, considering the amount of other fics that enter my brain and things I've written. I haven't written much anyway, but I'm not entirely absent. Could it just be the fact it's FlutterDash? Don't get me wrong; I really like the ship. Just writing the pair is... hard. I'm finding Fluttershy a ridiculously hard character to write, especially without falling into the traps. She doesn't just shy away and cover up at every comment, and balancing her fragile personality is just hard for me.
In New Toys in Town, Fluttershy may be a main character of sorts, but it's not entirely based around her. If anyone has read that fic, could they possibly tell me if Fluttershy is well-written or not? I thought Rarity was hard, and after writing her for a bit, Fluttershy is the new enigma. So focusing a fic where she's 50% of the main cast is just... difficult.
At this rate, this fic would be complete in 2 years. I'm serious, absolutely nothing. So if I forced myself, pushed myself to get it out within 10 days, then what would be accomplished? It'd probably be bad because of that. I've rushed things before, and well... it's not a good thing to do.
I want to write what I want, when I want. Not sticking to a strict guidline or keeping a schedule. And I just don't get any motivation for this FlutterDash fic. I've got plenty of ideas, but I just... can't... translate... into words. And with such a short time remaining, that's not good.
In short, As The Seasons Go has to be put on hold, or hiatus. Possibly even forever, as sucky as that may sound. I like the idea; I really do. I think it could be a very nice fic to read, but I just can't write it. All this time I've had, and I can't do anything.
One day, perhaps. One day I may return to it, and write it, stating that it was originally for the contest, though I dropped out. At this moment, I'd never get it out in time to a quality that I would be happy with. And for that reason, I'm not releasing it anytime soon.
I'm sorry for those that have been waiting for it, or had some kind of excitement built up for it. I feel like an ass doing this. All I can sense is disappointment. But there's nothing coming to me.
...Ugh.
Because I'm effectively putting it on hiatus, I don't know what to do now. Update Violet Reflections, perhaps? The Parties of Party Ponies? Wait, that fic exists? When was the last chapter? 5th July? Jesus... Truth is, that story was a spur of the moment type fic. I got the idea and posted it quite quickly, only to be stumped. Considering that it can be seen as a series too, that kind of makes me look stupid.
Perhaps I should stick with some one-shots for the time being. There's not really any sense of 'pressure' there. If I've learned anything, writing a series takes bigger commitment than I thought.
Or perhaps I should just write porn. Be the next darf. I mean... I've gotten a bit of cloppy ideas lately.
I'm sure this is just a phase. It's just As The Seasons Go has been a big set-back. And it may be a small case of writer's block. Could be, or I'm just unmotivated.
There's also some bad news of sorts in real life too. I'm going back to uni later this month, thus I shan't be as attentive to writing about ponies as before. Whatever attention I had, anyway. What may be a good idea, is possibly just hold onto a single series, or just work on one-shots. Getting an overload of many ideas screams that they must all be written, but they never do, which gets me in a stupor. Only handle what I can manage, and go easy on myself.
So again, no FlutterDash anytime soon. One time, hopefully.
But what to do now? ...
I have a problem writing Fluttershy too.
Honestly, I'm not all that fond of Fluttershy. I just always think her life is like an episode of hoarders where she's just a few animals short of having the Ponyville guards come out and empty her house.
On a more serious note though, she tends to be very one dimensional as far as the characters go. You'll almost always fall into a trap when writing her.
I'm sorry to hear you've been having trouble with the story; that's very unfortunate (says the judge for the contest which doesn't have any entries yet)
Hopefully you find something to motivate you.
As far as writing Fluttershy goes - I personally enjoy writing her, but the tricky thing about her is making sure the story she's in works for her. The Butterfly's Burden is my only story written from Fluttershy's point of view, but I rather like it, and I've written a couple other stories - The Stolen Date (which was my entry for the last FlutterDash contest) and Abandoned Sanctuary - which featured her heavily, though the latter is very much a short story.
The problem with Fluttershy is that she has a lot of contrasting aspects to her and can easily fade away into the background if you don't work to make sure that she has something to do and some important reason to be invested in the plot. It is also very easy to write the "Fluttershy is shy" story, which has been written a bunch of times already and, thus, kind of suffers from having to compete with several episodes of the show and about a billion other fanfics.