Keeping people in the loop, plus author agonizing over unimportant minutiae · 8:46pm Nov 29th, 2014
Just a quick update so people know what's going on.
I know I've been absent for a while, and that's intentional. I didn't say anything beforehand, but it was kind of a spur decision, so I didn't really feel like writing about it. I've taken a short break from writing to recharge, relax, and refresh before diving in again. I'm not positive how long this break will be, but I have been feeling better recently, so it could be as short as two or so more weeks. I may even start writing again before then. Hard to say.
For those of you who don't care about my personal thoughts and feelings, that's the gist, and you can move on. For everyone else, I feel like chatting personally a bit, so indulge me if you're interested. Writing is surprisingly exhausting work. At least, doing it well is. The challenge of taking a long plot and weaving it together from numerous disparate strands--as I have with TMUP--is harder than it looks, and even getting a chapter out once a month is a challenge when those strands are really, genuinely far-flung. For example, finding a way to weave together Silver Spoon's misgivings about life in general and coupling it with Scootaloo's deeply hidden self-doubt in a way that makes them both appropriately--but frustratingly--prone to foolish hyperbole and social faux pas is hard when it's all too easy to make Silver Spoon seem like a mewling flunky or to play Scootaloo off as a one-dimensional closet-case. Sometimes I have to rewrite the same paragraph, section, or whole chapter two or three times just to make it feel okay without ever really approaching good.
Here's where I cry about something no writer should ever whine about at all, so feel free to skip this section too, because it's a lot of "woe is me" and masturbatory bitterness. Sometimes I wish I couldn't see my comments. It's not to say I don't appreciate what they say, or that I dislike knowing how invested people are in the story--especially if they're invested enough to be upset when the writing or the storytelling or the plot or the characters don't live up to their expectations--but there's something profoundly devastating about posting a chapter I'm proud and then see people commenting on how they don't believe certain events would play out as they have, or certain characters would act the way they do, or even something as simple as pointing out that they don't like that I've had to change something in the world to make it make sense (not even that they don't like the change, just that they wish I'd never had to in the first place).
Part of the problem, I think, is that I'm already pretty unimpressed with my own work. I enjoy it, and I enjoy reading it, but when I share it I think I expect myself to be better than I am, and proving not to be is disheartening. No one's perfect, I know, but a part of me just assumes somehow that if I was going to bother sharing my FiM stories with other fans that they should be high enough quality that no one has anything negative to say. Otherwise I'm just wasting time and letting other people down. The worst element, I think, is coming across complaints against character actions. Knowing someone else doesn't believe my characters would act they way they do takes me out of the groove so severely that I can't bring myself to write for several days afterwards. Cheerilee is the primary focus, recently (although obviously Apple Bloom is a close second). The idea that people don't believe Cheerilee would have ever set up the premise of the entire story makes me wonder why I'm even writing it, since it apparently doesn't have a plausible premise. Then you have Apple Bloom's apparently uncharacteristic irrational reaction to Scootaloo in the most recent chapter, and it becomes hard to find a way to motivate myself to continue writing characters I guess I don't really understand as well as I'd hoped.
And of course there's always the fear that I'm losing track of what I'm doing. Despite evidence to the contrary, I swear I remember how this whole story started. I remember the MacGuffin I introduced to force my main characters to interact, I remember every loose end I've unraveled, and I have plans to tie them all together. I do, however, realize some of them are getting frayed. The problem in this case is that the deepest plot line is purely meant to drive the rest--hence MacGuffin. It pops up from time to time to remind the reader that the two characters in question don't have a choice whether to interact or not, so their conflicts are more dire when they lead to actual rifts. They can't just go their separate ways. It prevents unfulfilling resolution, or should, anyway. Conversely, other characters have nothing forcing them to stay in contact (the CMC, for example), so their conflicts are more concerning because they actually could lead to schisms that can't be repaired by fiat. Of course, I'm a conflict junkie, so whenever there's an opportunity to introduce a conflict, I will, and sometimes that takes away from the deeper plotlines. We all knew Scoot was going to have to come out sooner or later, but perhaps she should have waited? Perhaps she would have. I can't say. The only thing I know for sure is that now I have to resolve this conflict as well as several others before I can hope to move the original plot line (the Dash, remember?) further. It's a problem, and I'm not pleased to have created it.
The crux of all of this is that the longer the story gets, the longer it runs, the more attention it garners, and the more conversation there is about it, the less confident I am about any of it, and the harder it gets to keep going. I honestly know where it's headed. I've had the whole story planned out since I wrote the first chapter. The minutiae have changed, but the major plotlines have all been pretty much set in stone. Someday I want to pull them all out of my head and put them into text. I'll do my best, and try to have fun as much as I can, but I'm going to need the occasional break to keep from driving myself into despair and giving up entirely. I hope I don't run out of steam before that happens.
Cheers.
That's a normal way to feel, so don't be disheartened. Everyone writes a story and people will find fault with how things are going, or be upset with how things are if they are invested enough... all good authors here have been through that. Sometimes, people will judge things more harshly not because things are not progressing naturally, but because they start rooting for something to happen, and you can't please everyone here.
If you need a break, that's cool, no worries, but don't let a few comments dishearten you. It's feedback, and as an author you have to look at it, consider it and put it in perspective. Sure, some people might complain about a detail, but you know where the story is going as well and you know your characters.
If they had been acting all strange at the beginning of the story, there might be an issue, but you've had them evolve with your story into who they are, which is NOT the same ponies as the show. If in your story the evolution and decision feels natural (even if it seems rash for a character to do something) then you're doing okay.
Well, that sucks, and I'm not sure what to say about it. Because I sympathize with all the insecurities, since I share them too, and I was also one of the readers who questioned Apple Bloom's behavior in the last chapter. I greatly enjoy TMUP (in fact, since my reading list is currently empty, I think I'm gonna reread it from the start), and I'm proud to be a prereader for it, and I'd hate to think that my comments were making things harder. I was just trying to make substantial comments, rather than the easy but empty route of generic encouragement.
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Don't get me wrong, I don't really mind constructive criticism. This isn't intended to be a knock against people who HAVE negative observations (or even just neutral ones), it's just reflecting on my own reactions to such observations. More concerning than those observations being voiced is my inability to dispel their points. A large part of me assumes if I knew my characters and my plots as well as I want to, I'd be able to convince my readers to see it from my point of view. When I fail, it's pretty hard on the soul, because it means (to me) that I'm not making sense, or at least not ENOUGH sense. Even if they say something like, "I don't agree with what she's doing/saying/thinking, but I understand WHY," that's fine, because that means the character is acting irrationally, but APPROPRIATELY irrationally. SHE'S to blame, not the writer. That makes me happy, because I know I've created a deep enough character that they can act realistically (people being, as they are, irrational sometimes). Being told by someone they don't "buy" how I've written a character--or worse, that they are interpreting them completely differently than I was intending (as is the case with Cheerilee)--is upsetting, because it means I missed the mark, and it leaves me wondering where I went wrong and how.
In any event, I went back and looked at the comments and didn't see yours. If you were referring back to our PM convos, I WANT you to call me out on character missteps there, because that gives me a chance to fix them AND bounce alternative ideas off you before I post a train wreck.
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To be fair, events in my writing "career" have only just sparked a small streak of frustration and depression that got fanned by other events elsewhere, and I used my blog as a ranting board because I can actually pin down and air out the things that upset me here. I really appreciate your feedback. I try not to let other peoples' opinions here get me down, but I can't help it. I just want all my readers to enjoy my stories
You should do whatever you can to kill this here. It will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happen.
FWIW, I have never had a complaint about the work, Each step followed the last in logical progression and good order. NLL and TMUP have laid a solid foundation for everything Scoots and Silver have done, and, sorry, guys, I can see Bloom stoking herself up into that... particularly unfortunate display of outrage. (Recall, that, first, she heard this out of the clear blue sky, and that, second, she didn't seem to be half as pissed about Scoots coming out in and of itself as she was about perceiving herself to have lied to her sister about it,) These aren't angels of perfect love and tolerance, even in canon, guys - let's not project too much. They're kids in pony clothing, and kids are often thoughtlessly cruel...
As to the other aspect, I generally don't look too hard at the comments section, so I missed the contretemps over the last chapter post, But, again, FWIW... I recall a police firearms instructor and gun writer who once dedicated a column to what he called, "Turd Suckers." He defined them as people who, no matter how good, rich, and rewarding an experience might be, would strain themselves to find something to get shitty about. He cautioned that there will always be at least one out there, sometimes, more, and, sometimes, they will get shitty about what you're doing. I'm not sure but some of that might be going on here...
As for me, it's still a good story, and it's still on my faves list. Need I say more?
If I were at all caught up, I could probably offer some specific words here regarding AB characterization or whathaveyou. As is, though, all I can really say amounts to platitudes. Nobody's perfect, but you're better than most. You have flaws, and the key is to recognize and work on them. Even if objective perfection were achievable, no reader truly thinks entirely objectively. Stuff like that.
Now hear me tell you more things you probably already know.
I recall these as being the only problems worth mentioning that I've personally ever had with your storytelling, and even then, the extent of the problems wasn't major. It was really just that unsupported (within the story) portrayal of Mr. Cake in No Longer Lost that I brought up back then.
All things being equal, a reader's expectations for how a character will behave come from said character's portrayal in canon and from the reader's personal thoughts about the character. Portraying the character believably then becomes something like writing a persuasive essay. The Mr. Cake I saw back then (not sure if you've changed it since) was jarring to me because he was all harsh action with, from my perspective, inadequate reason for it—it was akin to reading a persuasive essay where someone has stated his or her main point but has forgotten to do any arguing. If you are making an argument for your perspective on a character, something—be it canon or be it that demonstrated evolution that D mentioned up above—has to be backing it. If canon isn't explicitly supporting your perspective on the character, and if you aren't evolving the character there within the story, what's there to inform a reader in the event that their headcanons aren't yours?
Though, if you had actually taken the time to demonstrate your Mr. Cake and his differences from most folks' interpretation, it would probably have raised its own issues. While the latter problem I quoted (the readers' expectations one) would likely have been solved, the former problem (the focus and conflicts one) would likely have been exacerbated, given that Mr. Cake was far from being a major character. You said as much to me at the time, too. I think that then is when the old "kill your darlings" advice comes into play. You have an uncommon take on a character, but that character is not the focus, so the take would be difficult if not unfeasible to develop within the frame of the current story. Something then has to give. You fit your characterization to the common one, maybe. Or if you're worried about keeping the character consistent throughout all your work, or you just feel very strongly about your take, then maybe you remove the character from the story or otherwise work your scene(s) around him or her. If you don't do either of those, and if you can't find away to support your take without excessively shifting focus, then the last option is simply to accept that people will be bothered. That last one is a lot more viable than it might sound, really—there comes a point where you have to accept the potential for confusion for the sake of subtlety, for example. Tough type of thing to judge, but it can be important.
From earlier comments, it sounds to me like you have a guy to give you outside-your-head views on your characterization, which is the right way to do things. Maybe grab one or two more, is all I could really suggest in terms of catching the missteps. Now, in terms of motivation, I don't have any kind of leg to stand on regarding advice; I've written just a few thousand words all this year. Best of luck, is all I can offer.
Take your time, recharge your batteries. It's something we all have to do now and again.
I entirely empathize with the tension between wanting to write the best possible thing and feeling frustrated when it's not perceived in the manner that you wished. It's something I freak out about every time I post something new, basically, except I generally start with the conception that it's all terrible and then get varying degrees of reassured when people have positive opinions regardless.
Just understand that there's plenty of us out here really interested in what you're doing and confident in your skills as a writer. There will always be someone there to say they don't get it or don't like your choices, particularly when you're treading new or tricky ground, but there are plenty of us who are willing to follow you and are excited for the ride, too!
I can only imagine how difficult writing is. I know how it feels when people criticize your work (justified or not), I have to deal with it fairly regularly and it can take a lot out of you. Taking time off to recharge is an excellent idea, it'll definately help.
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Hah, you should talk!
Saw you caught bookplayer's attention with your Rarijack fic. Apparently you're a pretty awesome writer. 
Seriously, though, I appreciate your perspective. Honestly, there are a few people on this site whose opinion I respect enough that as long as I have their support, I can keep going. Of course, the caveat of that is that I end up worried I'll disappoint you guys, which would be way worse than just disappointing most other people.
The inherent risk of attracting sharp, skilled writers as followers, I suppose.
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I've often wondered if there might be some value in writing a spinoff about the Cakes that would further inform Mr. Cake's attitude in NLL. I probably won't, because as you said,
which is what I've chosen to do with that particular plot element. It doesn't bug me too much that some people just don't "get it," so to speak, because the Cakes in the show are (to me, anyway) so vapid and blank that there's plenty of space to go all Jackson Pollock on their personality and their backstory. The Cake twins in particular made me giddy with the possibilities.
In any event, all of you have given me a huge boost these last couple days. You guys are the best, and you remind me why I started writing and posting here in the first place. I think I'm going to get back to the grind tomorrow, try to give you a reason to continue thinking the best of me.
Hi there, I just now read this (shame on me for not following anyone or their blogs o.O) and thought I'd give my two cents. First off, I love your writing, it's fantastic. But I do relate to what you're saying. I wrote so much in my teen years, but now I'm burned out and it takes a lot of effort to get words on digital paper.
Now, forgive me, because I have not read the comments (tired and don't feel like it o.O) so my input doesn't take into account what's already been said. So, I've always lived by this saying 'Write for you'. We can never please everyone and we will always be second guessed on how we present characters. The most important thing in writing, I will always believe is, write what you enjoy. Your readers are just along for the ride.
As far as TMUP is concerned, I love it. It's been one of the best romance/coming of age stories I've ever read (stories, not fanfiction). I have no issue with Cheerilee's actions. As for Applebloom, honestly, I felt it was too harsh. But that's my interpretation of the character, not yours! I can see there's a reason for it, be it backstory or your own views of the character. I want to know more! I'm so invested in this fic and love it so much.
So I guess, my finale statement is, I might do things different as a writer, but I trust you as a fellow author to give us the best fic possible and I'm going to enjoy every chapter along the way.
Thank you for NLL and what has so far been given of TMUP.
Dang just saw this! I was (and am going to anyways) re-read TMUP. It's originating story was by far, above the rest, the most beautiful ScootAdoption fic out there not centered around Rainbow Dash (even better than the GoldenVerse IMO (although hopefully it'll get to NLL someday)). VinylTavi as mothers are possibly the most endearing, and inspirational couple to ever adopt Scoots.
You have depth, great interactions (99% of the time), and good world building. I especially like ScootaDash that was thrown in there.
Now onto the whole, not believable things (and I do apologize if this is sore spot. So I'm apologizing in advanced. Even though I'm not going to be harsh about it. At all.)
Cheers: Honestly I don't know how people can think the premise is a bad one. It is an actual type of pairing, after all there are lots of teachers who will choose partners for the students. Rather than letting children vote for who they want. Although a lot of time the teacher does such groupings by random, at the end of the day, pairing and working partners are up to the teacher and how they want to do things.
Especially if he, or she thinks that it would be the best way to get a student to learn better / get a better chance of getting a good grade.
All in all, you could probably google it, and find teachers resources for that type of pairing (or if you know any teachers out there, you could get word of mouth affirmation.). But still all in all. It's plausable, and happens.
Apple Bloom: Okay, I'll take this one. In the first book, AJ wasn't all hyper-bitchy /volatily homophobic. And we never see any Big Mac so we don't know his actions. But AB was happy for Scoots in NLL, and AJ was cool with Tavs being a fillyfooler taking in Scoots. We never see any hint of hate / holier-than-thou / You're-Gonna-burn-in-Tartarus type mentality from her.
So this book. That being the case raises some eyebrows. Sure we can get a little backstory onto the discrepancy (AJ talking junk about Tavs after she left / her going after Trixie and Twilight when they got married. Or even Apple Bloom just taking things out of context and holding onto being hateful for no good reason.) It could be a rather insightful, and character developing plot point.
And honestly something I look forward to seeing resolved. The CMC have been together since forever, and Twilight is the head of the Mane 6 whose friendship made her into an Alicorn. Then was responsible for defeating Tirek after they were remade by the EoH raw magical energies. Seeing where that prejudice came from, and VinylTavi and Twixie knocking sense (figuratively) speaking into AJ, and AB getting a talk, repairing their friendships and coming out stronger than ever. Would be a rather fulfilling plot point.
No my main prob was Sweetie Belle:
I can get AB. To a degree. Was sad, but there is a chance for resolution. And a wonderful Friendship Report in there. But Sweets is a unicorn. Loves Twilight (as a princess, if you had Twilight Time inVerse, then as a friends as well.) Who was noticeably gay. Her music teacher is gay. And she has no problems with them. So her tossing Scoots under the carriage is something I'd like to know the why of. And she'd need to do a little more apologizing than AB whose being a biggot.
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Those things said. Your writing is exemplary of a ScootAdopt fic. You're family setting and bonds of VinylTavi are superb. And your world building is beautifully done. I seriously look forward to reading it. And while it's true what they say, 'you are your own worst critic', you're still a good writer and the stuff you do give us is something to look forward to / enjoy.
So I hope the Hiatus lifts soon. But I understand the need to re-energize and I hope you get better soon.