Why Chapter 4 of Insanity's Truth Has Taken So Long

As many of you may or may not be aware, it has been something like half a year since the last chapter of Insanity's Truth. It's less than a 500 words from completion, if I had to estimate. It's just a matter of choosing where to end this one and where to start Chapter 5. Besides that, I just have to write up what I've written down, edit it, then get someone else to edit it too.

The holdup is that this was just generally a really hard chapter to write. I think it turned out alright, but it was slow going. Part of the problem was that I went into the Nightmare Moon fight in the first place without a plan of how she would be defeated. I decided arbitrarily that they shouldn't defeat her outright, but that forced me to stretch this whole thing over multiple chapters. I have ideas and plans for what happens next, but I was simply blindsided by this one.

That's the general gist of why it's been a goddamn pain in the ass. I don't write this sort of... adventure, thriller, or whatever you want to call it well. Every time I go to write another 1000 words or so, I just think to myself, "What the hell am I writing? Where am I going with this?" And I don't usually have the answer. Like I said above, that's only for this Nightmare Moon portion of the story, which ends with Chapter 4. Thank god.

This sort of villain conflict was never and will never be the focus of the story. There may be villains here and there, and possibly an overarching villain at some point, but that's not what I set out to write. I know where the overall story is going, and it's lightyears from where it is now.

Now, I know with the long waits I put you guys through for each chapter, it may seem like I've given up on it each time. That happened to the other stories I wrote, like Am I the Nightmare?, Teaching Lies, and Of Nights and Changelings. So, I can see why you would jump to that quite reasonable conclusion.

But that's not the case here. With the stories I mentioned above, they ended up cancelled for a few reasons: schoolwork, real life stresses, and writing too many stories at once. Those are only secondary causes though. The biggest reason why those failed was because there just wasn't a story to write. For each of them, I got a fun sounding premise, and then I wrote a chapter or two. I published them, and then I realized that I didn't have anywhere to go.

I guess for the two HiE stories, I could have just done the whole, "Oh no! I have to hide who I am and get back home!" which would have been a story, sorta. But that just isn't fun to write, and even less fun to read.

For Insanity's Truth, however, there really is a narrative to tell. I must admit that I have a hard time with commitment when it comes to writing. It's difficult to just stick with one thing, and I will more often than not abandon it to maybe coming back another day. Nonetheless, I made a promise to myself that I would keep writing this one. I would never stop, even if there was an entire year between chapters. Like Pinkie Pie before me...

I never break promises to myself.

So! Even if the ride is extraordinarily slow going and breaks down a few times here and there, it will never end.