Second Returnaversary!!!!11! · 4:52am May 27th, 2018
Hear that, guys? It's two years ago to the day since I announced my return to the world of horsewords!!!
As with last year, I want to spend a little bit of time reflecting on my output, productivity, and the different stories that saw release over the course of the last 365 days. By this time, I'd hoped to have a lot more to talk about than I actually do, but the sad fact is, I was far less productive this year than I was the last.
I announced last August that I'd gotten picked up for a new job, and I warned my readers in that blog that my productivity would, in all likelihood, see a significant drop-off. Still, I wasn't expecting it to be as steep as it turned out to be. It's not as if my enthusiasm or my desire to write has waned. It's just that work demands so much of my time, energy, and general Poshness that there's very little left of me to invest in my writing at the end of the day. And, because of that, I haven't been writing as much. I haven't even posted a new story since March.
The first leg of the year, from the end of summer to the end of the year, was especially bad -- Often Rhymes was my last hurrah before a long, long period of radio silence, ending around December with One Good Turn... When the new year rolled around, I was optimistic that I could pick up where I left off, and release a steady stream of horsey goodness for my readers. I got stuff out the door for the first three months (a writeoff fic, and two contest entries), then, subsequently, failed to release anything in April and in May, despite having multiple stories that I'd planned to write and release during that time. I also missed participating in two consecutive writeoffs; I hadn't even missed one since August 2016.
Looking back on the last year, it's easy to see why I wasn't writing as much. Looking forward, it's equally easy to see why this cycle will probably continue. Work will start, pick up in intensity, demand my attention, blood, sweat, and semen, and no matter my intentions, I will inevitably burn out and be unable to even think about writing until the end of the work cycle. And then the whole thing will start again, lather, rinse, repeat, time and time again.
I don't like this whole "real life" thing...
Still, despite being a year of missed milestones and deadlines, I wouldn't consider my time entirely wasted. I did release a few decently reviewed and received stories, won a couple of contests, and got to have sex with Oroboro. Who is a surprisingly stingy lover, let me tell you. And, overall, I still wrote more frequently than I did during my first few years of activity on the site, even if the amount that I wrote wasn't nearly as high.
The year to come will, undoubtedly, be full of additional Poshwords. I have a bit of time over the next couple of months to invest in writing, and a few stories on the backburner that I'm eager to either start, or resume working on. I'll detail them a bit at the end of this blog; for now, check below for a breakdown of my stories from the past year, along with a bit of reflection on each of them. As with last year, I'm excluding blog posts, supplementary material (Document of PGS-type stuff), unpublished work (especially writeoff entries, of which there are several), and am only counting published horsewords on FiMfiction from May 26th, 2017 to May 26th, 2018.
Let's get to it.
New Horse Stories Published
Sales Pitch: - One-shot, 1,629 words
Just a bit of fun, one-shot (fun-shot?) nonsense meant to plug a plothole in an episode from last season. While I don't care for fix-fics in general, I am a noted fan of Starlight "WOW!" Glimmer, and enjoy any opportunity to write for her. Even if it means catapulting her through the roof of her own home.
Keep it up! Prouda you!
Take Us Back: 1 chapter, 2,173 words
It's not a coincidence that I came back to writing MLP fiction in the summer of 2016. Summer always gets me nostalgic for the days when I discovered the show, way back in 2011. My life's quite different now than it was back then -- not for the worse, to be honest -- but there's part of me that really longs for those months of kicking back, with nary a care in the world, and gradually falling in love with this random-ass horse cartoon and the improbable fandom that sprung up around it.
This story was an expression of that nostalgia. It's supposed to be set in the season one timeframe, but in a meta sense, it's supposed to be written form the perspective of the fandom when it was still in its early days. Back when most of the waters were uncharted, the canon loosely defined, and the future of the series yet unwritten. Besides a shout-out to Dangerous Business, which I'd just read last summer (it was fine), there isn't much of that in the one chapter that I posted. But it is, if nothing else, another installment in the ongoing Posh-saga of Spike/Twilight WAFF-ies.
These two make me so happy.
Want me to blow your mind? This story can be read as a counterpart to The Old View. In that story, Twilight has a dream about watching the sunrise on the balcony of the library. And in this story...
The story hit a snag as I was writing the second chapter, though. That one was/is supposed to be about Fluttershy -- a bit of FlutterMac, if you will -- but I found the premise of the chapter too weird, and the chapter itself uninteresting. So I shelved it while I tried to think of a new idea; one did, eventually, occur to me, but by that time the work cycle was starting to ramp up, and I'd gotten sucked into the SunLight Shipping Contest... which we'll get to in due time.
I have other chapters in mind for this, though, one for each of the mane six. The Rainbow, Rarity, and Fluttershy chapters are pretty fleshed out, while the Applejack chapter is a bit fuzzy in my mind, and the Pinkie chapter, I've... just plum forgotten about. I think it was supposed to make fun of Cupcakes, though?
Eh, figure it out later. Still, more content for this story is forthcoming. Expect Scootalove, early-PGS metacommentary, and a special appearance from bae.
Pictured: Bae.
The Eating Habits of the Genus Strix: - One-shot, 1,102 words
This was actually supposed to be the first chapter of Take Us Back, if you can believe it. "Owl's Well That Ends Well" was the first episode of the show that I watched, and I felt like revisiting it in my S1 compilation for that reason. But I thought it lacked heart and sincerity, and it didn't have the sweet, nostalgic note that I was going for, so I published it separately. Because I also liked it quite a lot.
Which doesn't mean everybody will, I realize. But, as SuperTrampoline put it in his review, if you've ever wanted to read a story about Spike and Twilight watching an owl eat a mouse, this is probably for you.
...But It Often Rhymes - 8 chapters, 12,578 words
Alright, now shit's starting to get real.
Like I said, Often Rhymes feels like my last hurrah before the end of my prolonged period of horsewords authorship, a final show-stopper to close out one chapter of my life, and open up the next. It's probably significant that it's set during Sunset Shimmer's graduation; much like how "Teach Me Goodness" was allegorical, this one is also probably some sort of metaphor (if less explicitly so).
I've always felt good about this story. Despite its content and subject matter, it feels like one of those rare stories that I've published which I actually stand behind. Looking back at it, almost a year after publication, I can't say that there's any part of me that wishes I'd done things differently with it. It won the Sunset Shipping contest, was critically acclaimed, earned me some mad horsepoints, and enabled me to buy NieR: Automata.
I guess I feel bad that it won over all the other entrants. There were some fantastic-ass stories in that contest, and I highly recommend that you read them. In particular, Love Is In Doom, by the incomparable Aragon, and Tripped Out, by the indescribable Majin Syeekoh, were wonderful.
I also preread for the latter story. You know. Nbd.
Anyway, I have a sequel in mind for this story, one that's mostly planned out. As I've said elsewhere, Cheerilee's character in this story is intentionally written to be emotionally fragile and unstable, and her relationship with Sunset Shimmer is probably not tenable. It's going to start to strain, sooner or later. It may even collapse. What happens next?
Well. That would be telling. For now, though, let's just let the two of them have their moment.
Credit to SciSetDaily for the wonderful art -- part of the contest's spoils.
You know. Nbd.
One Good Turn... - 2 chapters, 12,285 words (Ongoing)
This just breaks my heart.
This story, the second sequel to "Teach Me Goodness," was supposed to be my big comeback after being away for the better part of the fall. I'd been eager to write and post it for months; I commissioned some pretty fantastic cover art for it; I put my heart and soul into yet another allegory, using Cheerilee as a vehicle to explore my own feelings... and nobody read it.
And nobody reading it meant that I didn't have much motivation to finish it. So, there it's sat, on my queue, untouched for half a year. Much like Cheerilee, herself, in-universe.
The one constant in the Poshverse? Cheerilee can never find a boyfriend.
To be fair, there are probably several reasons that it didn't attract much attention. The cover art wasn't actually finished until after I posted the story; the story was posted incomplete; it was one out of a veritable deluge of holiday-themed stories to be released around that time; it was posted AFTER Christmas had already come and gone, and I probably overestimated the power of the "Teach Me Goodness" brand in setting it apart/attracting any readers.
I do want to finish it... I don't know if I want to wait until Christmas to do so, however; I've been waiting almost two years to write this bad boy. I have a lot to say about it, but I'll save those more detailed reflections until after I've wrapped it up.
The Sky Gazes Back: One-shot, 1,006 words
First horsewords of the new year! Gold medalist in January's writeoff! A nifty, if somewhat conventional, story about Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, and suicidal ideation. Or something.
As I recall, I had some trouble coming up with an actionable idea for that prompt, "Lie Me A River." My first idea was about Starlight lying to Trixie about being in love with her, but that wasn't going anywhere, so I ended up keeping the same general structure, but changing the characters and the subject matter to something slightly different.
Despite being yet another clicheic installment in the "wah wah scootaloo's wings don't work" saga that's plagued horsewords since 2011... I dunno, I like it. I like that it puts the focus more on Dashie than on Scoots, and looks at that angst through Dashie's character. Scoots is a vehicle to explore something about Rainbow Dash, and that's what I find compelling about the story.
I mean, from my own perspective. Maybe other people found their own reasons to like it? I can't speak for everyone, I realize.
Got me a gold, though.
Nbd.
I am just all about Dash today, aren't I?
Daring Do's Adventures in Whackademia: 4 chapters, 10,759 words (Complete)
First multichapter story of the new year. A comedy contest entry which, sadly, didn't rank, due to not really being much of a comedy (though I have it on good authority that the judges hated voting it out of the running, and that it was, at least, pretty close). That's not self-deprecation; in all honesty, it's not really comedic, and is more of a character study of Anna Karenina "Daring Do" Yearling than anything else.
That joke, by the way, is so obvious that I'd be shocked if I were the first person to come up with it
As I often do when writing these kinds of stories, I drew from my own life and experiences to inform the story's content. I don't especially miss formal academia the way Daring Do daring does, but I daring do catch myself reminiscing about grad school and student life more often than I used to, and I miss the camaraderie that came from being in a grad cohort and a department like the one I had. Daring Do's nostalgic musings on the Filly U campus are based on my own feelings whenever I visit my own school, some of her conversations with Dashie reflect my own feelings on academia (the good and the bad), and Pfeffernuse's physical description -- if not his character -- is based on my old department chair.
So, while not strictly allegorical, there's still a lot of me in this story, and it's one that I like a lot. In part because it stems from an idea I had while writing Pony Gear Solid. People familiar with that story would probably recognize that Daring Do's previous encounter with Dr. Bailiwick, while a noodle incident in this story, is actually fully explained in PGS's supplementary material. And the lecture he gives Rainbow Dash, summarized in the story, is also drawn from PGS. Could there be a plot connection?
Yes. Yes, there could be a plot connection.[/spoilers]
Canon.
Be Good to Your Daughters, For They Become Mothers
My most recent story, as of now, and my #2 highest rated overall, though it jockeyed with "TMG" for the #1 spot for quite some time. And a Scribblefest winner, to boot!
Despite being named after a John Mayer song. Or a lyric from one, anyway.
As you all may know, I fucking loved "The Perfect Pear," and I consider it one of the best episodes of the series, if not the best out of all of them. I knew right away, after watching it, that I wanted to do something with it, and I came up with a couple of ideas pretty quickly. This was one of them. Granny and Pear Butter's relationship seemed to be on the mend at the end of the flashbacks, but decades of animosity doesn't just go away overnight. I wanted to tell the story of that wound closing, or at least, of it starting to heal. And that's what you wound up with here.
The writing process wasn't without its hiccups. As I recall, I was busy with work at the time, and rushed this out in a single draft in one night (in hindsight, that was probably a portent of how the next few months would play out). As a result, it isn't quite as polished as I like my stories to be before publication, and there are a few minor tweaks I'd like to make here and there. It seemed disingenuous to make them while the contest was ongoing, but I feel more comfortable about going back over it now.
I'm glad this resonated with so many, regardless of my own feelings about the final product. And I had fun writing it, especially coming up with all those calls forward to future episodes. Seeding Applejack's personality in Granny Smith, especially, was a delight; I'm glad so many people caught on to those references. Not that I was being particularly subtle about it, of course. 
It's also a prequel to Pony Gear Solid
That about does it for the original stories. On a final note, before we close off this part of the blog, I want to give a big shout-out to my friend and personal hugmuffin, Dubs Rewatcher, for all his hard work with the last two stories. He really helped me nail them down, and make them what they were, and I don't think either would have been as good, or as successful, without his assistance.
Pictured: Dubs and I, discussing rewrites and revisions.
Additional Horsewords for Additional Horse Stories:
Well, this shouldn't take too long...
Pony Gear Solid: 2 chapters, 30,311 words
I've basically given up trying to finish this before its seventh anniversary rolls around, and I'm going to stop giving estimates on when it's going to be done. It's finished when it's finished, and that is that.
Also canon.
I wish I'd made more progress on this over the past year, but despite my best efforts, I only squeezed out one (1) full chapter, and an interlude. Both move the plot along, in their own way, but they're also both all set-up with minimal payoff. It was nice to reunite Dashie with her friends, after leaving them hanging for so long, and there are a couple other moments that I'm glad I finally, finally got to put to paper. But after this...
The story's starting to hit its climax, and I feel a lot of pressure to pay it off effectively. The next chapter, which is partially written at present (and has been since November-ish), takes a lot of planning, and follows a lot of characters who have either been peripheral up until now, or who haven't yet been introduced. And blocking out actions for them to take within the chapter, on top of writing characters who haven't really been part of the story, is extremely challenging.
To me, it speaks of poor planning on my part. I've been frank, from the start, about PGS being a learning experience. The lessons I learn from this story, I'm going to apply to future stories. That's... some comfort, as I work, but it doesn't take away the fact that I have a VERY messy ball of yarn to untangle.
Still, all's not lost -- now that I have a little bit of time, I plan to get back into this chapter. With Editor Man's help, I'm sure I'll get it up to code... more or less.
The Long Arm of Murphy's Law: 1 chapter, 5,819 words (Ongoing)
Despite my insistence upon finishing this story last summer, I only got one chapter done. It's a doozy, but it's still only one chapter. There's one left, plus an epilogue that I want to use to set up a future story. As with last year, now that summer's rolling around, I'm starting to get the same creative spark that launched Spike and Rarity's date in the first place, so it's entirely likely that you'll see a resolution within the next couple of months.
Plus, I have a date at a local fair coming up -- the same fair that inspired the setting for this story. Hopefully, it'll go better than Spike and Rarity's. If I spill fried ice cream on my girlfriend's outfit, I promise you'll all be the first to know.
Fun fact: This was almost the cover art for the story.
Miscellaneous
Dragonfall: 1 chapter, 4,583 words (Ongoing)
Dragonfall is DannyJ's ongoing, comment-driven story about a mercenary company deployed to the worst city in the entire world. It follows a sociopathic officer, a batpony named Agony, as he tries his best to manipulate every possible situation he encounters to his advantage, and sexually propositions more people and things than a healthy person would. If any part of that entices you, then I urge you to swing by and give Dragonfall a read. Hasn't updated in a while, but I have it on good authority that Editor Man has picked it up again, so we'll see.
A few extra comments would certainly encourage him to keep writing it~
I've been editing this story from inception, occasionally writing pieces of it, here and there. I wrote the entire eighth chapter, back in September/October, but I also contributed material to previous ones, too (I'm only counting the eighth chapter in my total word count, however). For this one, I basically followed Danny's outline to the letter, although I embellished here and there, where I could. I like to think it was, mostly, to the story's betterment.
I have fun writing Dragonfall; I like playing around with that cast of characters, and making them as horrible as possible. I hope I get another chance to, soon.
hear that, jidya, you fuck?
SunLight Sliders II: 1 chapter, 5,088 words (Complete)
The most recent horse-related thing I've written, back in April.
SunLight Sliders is Novel-Idea's annual Twilight/Sunset shipfic collab, featuring a stable (HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA) of notable authors, all spitting into the same jar and swishing it around until our saliva and mucous coalesce into a single, literary loogie.
I didn't participate last year, but I helped edit Oroboro's entry, and was intrigued enough by the premise of the story to sign up this year. It was a compelling idea, but in practice, SLSII was... uneven, let's say. I was placed at the end of the story, tasked with wrapping up 31 chapters' worth of material, and reconciling 31 authors' interpretations of what the story was and should have been. A daunting task, to say the least, but I think I made the most of it. Even if I went more than 2k words over the limit.
And took a week longer than I should have.
Remember what I said about being too tired and burned out for horsewords?
In the end, SLS2 turned out to be a good experience, I think, even if the final product gets a little rocky at times (I think that even my entry is a mite... nyeh, despite how long I took to write it). Novel's gonna collect, edit, and post the full story at some point in the near future, and I'll get the chance to write a little reflection about my chapter. For now, if you're interested in reading the collab, you can find it here.
I don't know if Novel's gonna do an SLS3 next year, but if he does, I wouldn't mind coming back for it. 
Alright, so that's everything, I think. All told, over the last year, I wrote...
91,762 horsewords. For comparison, I wrote about 20,000 words more than that for PGS alone last year.
So that's quite a drop-off from 2016-17.
Honestly, like I said, I think it's safe to expect a lower output from me, from here on out. Not because I don't want to write anymore, but because my opportunities to do so just haven't been there. To do it at all, or to do it well. I want to keep going, and I plan to keep going, and maybe someday I'll learn to balance my personal and professional lives in such a way that'd enable me to keep writing... maybe someday soon, even.
I'm still not going anywhere; I'm gonna keep writing for this fandom, at least as long as there's a series to write for. Maybe even after that. Who really knows? We'll all find out together.
As we close off this blog, and put a bow on this past year of horsewords, lemme give you a preview of some stories that I wanna publish before the next blog rolls around, stories that aren't currently listed on my profile page. Some of these, I meant to write this last year, or even within the last few months... and just didn't. Maybe some of them'll come at you over the next couple of months?
Guess we'll see.
Equestria Gear Solid 2: The Phantom Mane
The sequel to the smash-hit original. As before, a collaboration with DannyJ.
Van Helsingard (or Hel-Sing Helgoon)
"Posh, stop Yokoposting." -DannyJ, 2018
Coffee Minion
Blonde Roast, Canterlot's finest slinger of caffeinated goods, is captured and held hostage by the wicked Queen Chrysalis, and forced to serve as her personal barista. Based on a challenge from Estee, to write a story based on another user's screenname.
Untitled Lightning Dust Story
After flunking out of the Wonderbolts Academy, Lightning Dust is forced to confront her own worst instincts. Based on my original comedy contest idea.
Untitled Granny Smith Story
Smith Apple, barely more than a filly, gets roped into a investigating a conspiracy by some out-of-towner cherry farmer. She hopes this doesn't become a Sisterhooves Social tradition.
A prequel to Pony Gear Solid.
The Wheel Turns
Pinkie Pie wakes on the morning of the 1000th Summer Sun Celebration, for the first time, and the last time.
My acknowledgement of the inevitable.
So that's it for 2017-2018. It was a long year, and the next one promises to be even longer. Stay with me, guys, and let's see what it holds together.
The future is always bright when you're here with me.
That look on Twilight's face: "My friends are all idiots!"
Yeah, Twi. We know. You might want to look in a mirror before you start dishing too much on them. We tend to be friends with our friends both despite and because of certain personality traits.
Ah, the old "new job, less time" problem. Hope that's going well for you, at least.
Eagerly awaiting whatever you come up with, whenever. As one of the people who actually read One Good Turn, I can say with some authority that it's actually super good and everyone else who didn't read it is a dumb dumb and you should write more anyway.
...not my favorite description of the process of SLS2, but I'm not going to protest it exceedingly strongly.
You are so odd.
Still, you did a fantastic job finishing up SLS2. And with Oro's contest. Now go finish Cheery's story so I can read it!
TLDR version - Posh is still horrible.
When was this, and why wasn't I invited?
Posh, not a single chapter of PGS has ever been up to code. I can't work miracles; I can only run damage control.
That's a better description of Dragonfall than its actual description.
>Implying you will ever write your part.
After all the horrible things you did to Fire Burning, I am dreading whatever you thought up for this one.
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I did not have sexual relations with oroboro.
we just listened to gc and moshed deprezzingly 2 da musik
I totally hear you on real life interfering with horsey words. Working 12 hour days most days makes it difficult to find time for anything else. Despite that, I hope to see more stuff from you in the future. I was one of those nobodies who really enjoyed Drunkilee hanging out with Starlight and Trixie, and of course PGS. Those new stories look like a lot of fun too (I think I'm most excited for filly Granny Smith).
Best of luck to you, friend!
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You're so confusing D:
4870937 as a goffik boi yourself, i figured you'd understand, PretensePrefect
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:|
Your blog posts always bring a smile to my face.
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