"Therefore I Won't" Week—K-I-S-S-I-N-G! · 7:26am Oct 10th, 2014
So I don't even remember how the conversation originally started. Jaxie was involved, since we were brainstorming horsewords, but somehow the discussion came up about a friend of mine, who isn't on this site but he normally goes by the handle TreeGoat, and I was explaining the origin of that name to Jaxie. Now you may not have known this little factoid about goats before reading K-I-S-S-I-N-G!, but goats are so pro at climbing things, that it's not uncommon for them to climb trees in less mountainous regions like Morocco. The results are as impressive as they are hilarious.
So, Jax and I are having a laugh on the topic, and we start to speculating that in Equestrian society, "go climb a tree!" might thusly be some form of insulting remark, akin to "go take a long walk off a short pier." Yadda yadda, AJ has trees, yadda yadda, romantic pairing since I'm an incorrigible pervert, yadda yadda, Jax dares me to write that fic. Right there, right then. And even after having been in a slump and not having poked any of my GDocs in several months, I slammed out the first 2k in a single evening. And from there, there was no going back.
(As a side note, TreeGoat is a close lifelong friend of mine, yet he absolutely detests bronies, and thinks that becoming a brony was the single worst thing to ever happen to me. We're still best buds, but he's quick to bust my chops with pedo jokes, and I counterharass him with cute AJ pics when he least expects it. He knows that I write horsewords, but not that I wrote a story inspired by his handle. This is a primo trolling opportunity, people! I need suggestions!)
Anywho, after a bit of a lull in the midweek, with Well-Praised Fic Except Donkles, and with Flutterspaghetti, we finally found us a winning formula: absurdist humor! I've always personally found the Comedy tag to be pretty intimidating, because momentum is everything, and even 5k can be a long time to maintain the hue-hue-hue's. All said, though, I think this fared quite nicely! Commenters seemed to love it, especially the final scene/line. This was even flirting with the tail end of the FB for a while, though it didn’t quite have enough steam to get itself in there. But all said, I’m quite pleased with the performance here! Maybe I’ll be less gunshy about comedy one-shots going forward.
Uh. Wow. What even the hell do I say here? Last updated seven hundred and ninety days ago. Let’s not mince words: this fic was a large part of what brought about my hiatus. I had a great idea for a story to tell, putting my own spin on the first ship I truly appreciated and which quickly thereafter became my OTP. But my brain was plotting story elements which I had no hopes of doing any justice with, back then with my amateurish writing abilities. Thus, meticulously crafting Ch2, which all my prereaders hated, which led to complete rewrites, which led to plotholes, which led to more complete rewrites, which led to abandoning focus on other fics in order to focus my energies, which led to stagnation and a loss of motivation in the bottom of a pit of futile self-imposed standards, and ultimately, a lack of updating anything for a year and some change.
I mentioned earlier in the week that MLCT was the fic of mine that I felt the most guilty about putting on hiatus. This fic is the one that I’ve worked the hardest on, to actually do my idea justice. And now, after all the rewrites, settling upon a final draft, nitpicking the wording for months, getting hype, finishing other fics like K-I-S-S-I-N-G! to build up a proper “welcome back” week-long celebration, and sitting on the eve of finally sharing its second chapter with you… suddenly, I’m terrified. Terrified that I haven’t improved a lick as a writer in the past 790 days. Terrified that, after overhyping the work I’ve put into this chapter, it’ll have a stupid spelling mistake in the first sentence. Terrified that no one remembers or cares about a two-year-old first chapter that several readers mistook as a completed fic. Or on the flipside, what if Chapter 2 does great, and I’ve now built up even less realistic expectations for the inevitable Chapter 3?
Clever bit of planning on my part, for this week. Put this fic on the schedule for Friday, so that I’d have built up too much hype and would be unable to wuss out at the last second. 
But, nah. I worked hard on this. Updating this fic at long last is something I’m proud of, no matter how it’s received. All that modesty and doubt aside, if you liked the first chapter, I truly hope that I’ve made an update that was worth the wait. On Friday afternoon at roughly 2pm EST*, please enjoy the continuation of Thesis.
* Note: If it is currently Friday after 2:10pm EST and the chapter has not been uploaded yet, I am probably in the middle of a massive panic attack. Cute Twilestia pics would be significantly appreciated at that time.
Well, I can speak confidently and tell you for sure you've improved as a writer and to think otherwise is silly.