An orange stallion made his way through town merrily taking in the sights, sounds, and smells around him. · 5:05pm Aug 26th, 2016
Two days ago was my five-year writerversary, the first time I put metaphorical pen to paper for something that wasn't school related. It's weird, this path I've taken in my hobbies. I never stopped my avid consumption of video games (that's actually way way on the rise, lately), but I somehow made room for this creative side of me I never knew existed until that day, August 24, 2011.
I went back to read through the original chapter of Transcendence that I have locked away in my google docs, and I can't help cringing and groaning at almost every sentence. But at the same time, I can see the wonder of it all, clear as day. The butterflies I had at my fingertips and the stars in my eyes. The way writing made me feel whenever I sat down at the keyboard and pecked away another sentence about Scootaloo and her journey through the skies.
Transcendence's original write was The Worst Possible Thing, but it's still me, and knowing my beginnings helps me know just how good a writer I've become. So today I would like to share with you all 'The Original' draft of Transcendence in all its terrible, atrocious, and gag-inducing glory—the one that no one has seen since I took it down a good four years ago for the rewrite, the one that was first posted only to EqD in google doc form, and the one that, somehow, earned a 6-star rating from you all back when that was A Thing.
Once you're done taking that trip down memory lane with me, I invite you to see just how far I've come in these five years and give my newest fic, Into the Dark a try. Like Transcendence, it is a tale of two forever-intertwined souls overcoming hardship and striving for the impossible that lies just out of reach. Like Transcendence, it is a story of regret and perseverance in spite of all the world throws at them. But unlike Transcendence, it is much more. It is a love story, and yet not; it is a searching story: a search for day and night, a search for the truth and a life unrestrained by the everlasting darkness encroaching upon the world, a place where the sun shines and all is good. A search for a feeling that has never existed—that their collective written language has no word for, yet is nonetheless grand and worthy of sacrificing everything to give.
In a world that has never known love, how does one find the courage to let it bloom?
To those of you waiting for an update to Flock Together, I've actually drafted the next two chapters. I plan on getting back to it once I finish Into the Dark, which is completely drafted and awaiting revisions, with the next chapter to be released pretty much right now. To those of you awaiting an Into the Dark update, read the previous sentence!
P.S. I might make a thing of posting the original versions of all the chapters in the future, but I know for a fact that the original-original chapter 9 is lost to the nether of internet-space. Sorry for that.
P.P.S. If you're curious how I got my GDocs to look like it does above, go here. It will change your life.
Yikes! For some reason, I honestly thought I already followed you
Anyway, pretty brave of you to post this, feeling as you do about it. I can certainly relate. I had a reason recently to reread my own six-star story for the first time in like, three years or something? And even though I know that people liked it back in the day – heck, some people flat out loved it – all I can see now is mistake after mistake after mistake. And that’s not even mentioning the deleted chapters which exist now only on an old hard drive in a box at the back of my wardrobe.
That’s not to say that there’s not stuff I like about my old stories. But this, right here:
This hits the nail right on the head. For as awful as I think most of it is, I’m still very proud of my old work, and it’s nice to revisit it every now and then. I enjoy writing as much as I ever did, but nothing will ever match the giddy sense of wonder and discovery from when I started taking it seriously first when I was 16/17 or so, and then a few years later with pony fanfiction. It's good to remind myself of that feeling, occasionally.
Also, I just read the first chapter of Into the Dark, and there’s some seriously cool stuff going on there (and yes, the improvement in your writing is quite, quite something). I have a ton – like, a ton – of reading to do before the start of uni, but I’ll certainly try and make some time for the rest of it.
And cheers to growing even more in the five years to come!