For those of you who are curious, and a thank you

Tomorrow I'll be posting the first 2 chapters of Hunt and Toll. I planned on waiting for the EqD response, but their post queue is actually much shorter than I thought it was, which means if I don't submit to FimFic as soon as I get a confirmation (assuming I do, of course), then a lot of readers from EqD will be linked to a story that doesn't exist yet!

Also, cover art! Source will be posted along with the story.

So I'd like to blab about how this story came to be. I'm lucky in that I can actually nail down the moment and source of inspiration for this fic; such is rarely the case. On one particular night, decided to make a blog post about a song. Instead of linking the whole blog, which is boring, I'll just quote the excerpt here:

I listen to a lot of music. Most of it just fades into the background, though some of it can really get to me. Sometimes it makes me happy, sometimes it brings me down.
It’s the nature of the beast.

I’ve always liked to look up the titles of songs that I love. Lyrics, too, if there are any. I want to see what the artist was thinking when they made it, I want to see if we had the same ideas. Usually, we’re not of like minds. What else would you expect, though? No two people have the same mind, so why would they react exactly the same way to everything. Especially something as subjective as music.

I found one song in particular that captivated me. There were no lyrics, just an intriguing title: “They Move on Tracks of Never-Ending Light”. I thought about it for a while, at first, and came to a simple conclusion: it’s about death. More specifically, the afterlife. ‘They’ represents everyone, so the song is about something universal. ‘Move’ means action. ‘Tracks of Never-Ending Light’ is the most symbolic part of the title. ‘Never-Ending’ means these tracks are eternal. What’s an action that is both global and eternal? Death. ‘Light’ probably came from the idea of ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, and ‘Tracks’ because it’s a path everyone must follow. That’s what I thought that title meant for a long while. Every time I heard the song, it sounded like a contemplation of death. It was so clear.

Then something occurred to me: I hadn't specified an emphasis. In every word in our language, there is always an accent, an amplification of a certain syllable. This accent is incredibly important; it’s the difference between saying the word right, and saying it wrong. When you say a word incorrectly, it loses its meaning.

So where is the emphasis in this title?
What changes?
I’d had it wrong the entire time, I realized. Completely wrong.
Because the emphasis is on the word ‘Move’.

The song in question can be found here for the curious, though I realize most people won't bother with listening. I can't blame you, everyone is always pushing their own music on others when, really, the chances of you having the same tastes as some stranger on the internet is quite small.

Anyways, that's the night the story (or, more specifically, the ending scene) came to me. If you listen to the song with my words in mind, you may even be able to figure out the theme I seek to convey in Hunt and Toll. Oddly enough, my story also adapted a bit to fit the lyrics of Secret Pint by Mogwai. Ghosts are scared of falling down / It's hard to see, he said to me / Tried my best, failed the test / Did my worst, came in first.

Last thing about the story I want to mention is the title. I like bragging about things I come up with when I think they're clever. The words "Hunt and Toll" is both specific enough to the story so one who has read it can see how it relates, and vague enough that one can draw deeper meaning from it. In truth, the title has four meanings, due to the possible interpretations of the words. "Hunt" and "Toll" are both nouns and verbs.

Enough about the story, though. I have some thank-yous I need to say, even if none of the individuals I'm thanking will never see this. These words deserve to be said.

Tactical — For being the first and most thorough reviewer of Hunt and Toll. I think this was the first story I've written where pacing has been a major issue in the early drafts and I've been called out on it. I think it would be closer to 16k words and a lot more boring without Tactical's help.

Lychee and Digi_Lord — The reviewers who helped me polish the fic. They caught plenty of grammar/spelling mistakes that would have made me look silly.

Ezn, Pav Feria, and, surprising to me, Seattle_Lite — The people who helped my drive and confidence. I don't know if they even realized it, but they made just the right comments, and their words meant a lot to me. They had no motivation to appraise my work any better than I had made it, yet they all had something good to say, beyond constructive criticism.

Lastly, and most importantly:

AppleJinx! A very long time ago he gave a rather scathing review of "In a Story", a fic I'd labored over for months. It was... difficult to accept his criticism, especially with how much time and emotion I'd put into the fic. But his review gave me a lot to think about. As time went on, I was able to actually comprehend more and more of what he had said, and merge that knowledge with my writing. "His Heart Too Full For Words" was actually the first story I wrote with some of these things in mind. "Hunt and Toll" I hope reflects a much more mature writer than I was when I finished "In a Story".
He taught me two edicts of writing. One: a story must not be forced, or even told in some cases. It must happen. It must be a result, not a thesis. This has been exceptionally difficult to practice, but I think I'm beginning to figure it out. Two: characters are built not from their major elements, but from their subtleties. Twilight Sparkle is not Twilight Sparkle because she loves to read and overreacts in times of crisis, but because she was the one to go to help Luna when no other pony would. She is Twilight Sparkle because she became disappointed in, not hateful at, Spike when he misbehaved. Twilight Sparkle is a quick thinker, modest in many things but not all things.
To me, intentions and motivations are incredibly important. Applejinx was just reviewing a story written by a stranger on the internet. He had no motivation to help me outside of his own altruism and selflessness. Yet he did help, and in a powerful way. So thank you.

See you later, readers.