Updates, updates, and soon to be updates · 11:04pm Jan 14th, 2017
Starting off, Zedew on Deviant Art has updated My Little Death Dealer2. (below) Awesome job. In related news if you haven't seen this already, Miyajima has finished Binky Pie after quite a few months of interruption (which I slightly nudged him on at one time).
Now for the soon to be update: Drifting Down the Lazy River, the sequel to The One Who got Away, is now on the last chapter. Over the next two weeks, I plan on finishing up Chapter 18 and doing a top-to-bottom examination of the whole document (killing 'as' phrases, eliminating as many 'that' clauses as I can, and trying to make the sentences flow into each other. Oh, and trying to figure out what color I made Turpentine, because I lost his physical description somewhere.) So if you've done editing for me before and you want to have a few leisurely weeks to browse through the documents (split into two, because Gdocs goes a little weird at 100 pages), drop me a line or use the page of project links I sent you earlier. As proof I'm getting things done, I'm including a snippet of Chapter 17 below the break and the picture. (No, that's not Turpentine. War does paint, but he only uses one color.)
-Begin Chapter 17
Drifting Down the Lazy River
Fatherhood
"…because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum! bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and another sockdolager."
— The Adventures of Buck Fin
The adventure book which had given Turpentine the idea to drift downstream on a raft had a scene in it where a fierce storm rocked the character’s raft, all crashing and booming with thunder and lightning filling the night and the wind screaming along. It was all fantasy, of course, because no pegasus competent enough to get on a weather team would ever let a storm get out of control like that, but it was something to fantasize about while he would lie in bed at the house of whatever family was trying to adopt him and listen to the rain fall in long, gentle sheets. The families always tried to give him his own room, mostly painted in what they considered creative patterns with appealing colors. It never really made him feel comfortable as they had hoped.
When the nighttime thunder rumbled at the orphanage, Turpentine would always creep down the hallway and sneak onto the little rug right next to Mother Windrow’s bed, listen to her soft snores until the storm was over, then sneak back to his own bed without anypony noticing. He never did that at the foster parents’ houses, no matter who it was attempting to adopt him or how colorful they had made his room. He was a big colt. He did not need to go hide from the thunder like Ripple when the storms were rolled in. Hearing from Gaberdine’s mother how the brave and kind baron acted when he was Turpentine’s age had been a little disconcerting. After all, Turpentine was eleven now. Next year he would be twelve, and the year after that, thirteen. Someday he would be old, like twenty or something, and with that age always came nose-dribbling and stinky-ended foals who would be afraid of thunderstorms and want a big strong father to hold them like he had never been held.
The unwelcome realization really would not have been that bad if Turpentine had not been in the bed of the Speedy Delivery wagon while the pegasi sisters descended into the rainstorm covering Baltimare, and might not even have been so bad if the rain slicker they loaned him had not been only slightly worse than useless, and seemed in an oversized way to be funneling all of the pouring rain into the insides of the waterproof garment. At least there were wingholes in it to drain, or Turpentine thought he might drown from all the water he had picked up during the trip.
He heaved himself over the edge of the wagon to land with a sodden splash in front of the paint store and scurried for the relative dryness of the overhang. The traffic was thin, which was why they managed to drop him so close to the store, but Turpentine only had time for a brief wave over his shoulders to the sisters before they hopped back up into the air and vanished into the driving rain. The marketplace they were headed to was covered, and therefore dry, but Turpentine would much rather be inside and dry than try to keep himself warm with the outdoor firepits scattered around the market stalls which let the native Baltimare residents enjoy their fresh vegetable and fruit shopping even in the upcoming winter snow.
It only took a moment for Turpentine to shoulder open the door and stand dripping in the atrium of the paint store, which made it obvious why there were hooks by the door. He shucked out of his oversized rain slicker, hanging it on the second hook to drain into the loose grating under his hooves, and most likely into the sewer system below. Likewise, Turpentine also dripped, or more correctly streamed water off his sodden coat in a way that somehow felt even wetter than when he had been swimming with Ripple in the lagoon.
One of the hooks already had a rain slicker on it and the store lights were on, so somepony was in. The store was quiet, but it had been so both times Turpentine had visited before. The difference this morning was in the clerk who came around the corner and spotted Turpentine, giving him a brief frazzled smile before darting back into the store.
“Hold on, little dude!” The young pegasus returned, bearing a fluffy towel over his back, and winged it over to the sodden little earth pony still dripping in the doorway. “You better dry yourself off before you catch cold.”
Turpentine had really been expecting the much older Caractère. This young pegasus was just barely out of his teens if that, and had a number of metal or plastic objects jutting out of his face and body which made him look somewhat like an unfortunate victim of some sort of explosion, even if they did go well with the dark blue of his coat. It would have been easy to stare, but Turpentine restrained himself and tried to get dried off as much as he could while sneaking little glances in the direction of the teenaged store clerk.
I will take this as a hint to go do my editing duties n_n
Enough teasing, more publishing!
More serously, it's getting harder and harder for me to not read any of your snippets (I want to keep it all fresh when you'll publish it).
I don't know what can we wish you except good luck with the final stretch of editing, so I'll wish you that. Can't wait to be able to read it.
Oh thank god. I'm not the only one that forgets simple stuff like that. To be fair I've got a fic I'm working on that the third most important character has no more a physical description than "pegasus"
He's also not got a name.
4382964 Well, it's not difficult to lose track of his description since he's the primary POV character. How often do you really look at yourself?
Sometimes, coming up with a name can be the most difficult decision. MLP names have a great deal of characterization with them. Silver Spoon, Diamond Tiara, Fluttershy. When I needed a name for a magic tutor, I wanted something so ordinary and plain that everypony would tend to look over him, thus Green Grass was born. The ferret from Three Tail Hairs has been nameless through most of the second draft chapter and most likely will stay that way. Sunshine Symphony from Child of Nightmares and Everfree actually came from one of the fan comics.
4382983 yeah, you don't see many randomly named ponies. Their names are usually their personalities or physical description.
I'm guessing it's Spike, Big Mac, and Peewee.
Ooooooh , a sequel to "The One Who got Away"? Awesome :D
The fact that I started reading through the story you're currently finishing up a sequel to tickles me. Especially since at the time of writing this the last story was finished about 72 weeks ago. Talk about timing.