TFT Chapter 4 · 2:23am Nov 15th, 2012
Hey everyone, I know it's been a long time, but I have finally published chapter 4 of Termina's Final Twilight. I wanted to apologize to everyone who has waited for it, (especially those who first saw the story on Equestria Daily). It's been over a year since I first published chapter 3, and since then, I have had a lot of bumps in the road. Although I have always felt bad about making people wait, I didn't want to just cancel the story. I honestly feel like I can finish it, but it will take much longer than I had planned.
At times, I would walk home from class and an idea would come to me about a future chapter. All I could really do was jot the idea down on a notepad at the time, because chapter 4 was still sitting on my desktop. Around January, I actually finished the chapter, but it went though so many revisions since I finished it, I eventually gave up on it. Between different people telling me conflicting ways to change it, and my own desire to edit it quickly disappearing, it pretty much died during the summer when I had hoped to wrap it up.
Eventually, I did pick it back up, and asked around for someone to look at it once more. It was then that I realized that the reason why it ended up taking so long is because I relied too much on someone else to tell me what to fix rather than going by my own gut feeling. I became too worried about others and how they feel about it instead of actually enjoying what I wrote. It was a chore to me, not a hobby.
I took to heart everything I had learned from the editors that gave me advice and revised it one last time. I gave it one final read afterwards and here it is. Saying I hope it was worth the wait would be incredibly unrealistic at this point, but I really do hope that everyone who enjoyed the previous three chapters finds this one much better. I really tried to improve based off of criticism and comments from everyone who left feedback, and all in all, I took this chapter much more seriously than the others before it. At times, I think it might feel parts were rushed, but that's mainly because I didn't want to draw out a particular scene for too long. Instead, I chose to expand on other scenes, such as the painting scene near the end of the story. It was originally much shorter, and didn't go into detail as much as I wanted. I decided it was a very important part of the overall story, so I made it longer.
Based off of comments on here, I'll hopefully submit this to Equestria Daily in a few days. The story was first published there, and I really want to continue with it there as well as on this site. So...yeah. I'm terribly sorry for the extended delay, but here's hoping the rest won't have such a long gap separating them. Cheers!
Extended delay...?
Extended DELAY?
EXTENDED DELAY?!!!
You have no idea how long I have waited for the continuation of this fic! No idea, buddy!
Glad you will continue though.
Wait, submitted well over a year ago? I think I've been living under a rock that whole time, so I am/was unaware of such. Though seeing the story update was rather enjoyable and a great change in reading material here, the occasional same old story of "(x) crossover with MLP" can be a bit bland as there's so many of said crossovers. Your story however is one I am particularly enjoying.
FINALLY! I mean, I appreciate your tribulations in attempting to write. Here's hoping there aren't too many more, eh?dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Twilight_Sparkle_lolface.png
Alright with me I just started reading it and finished chapter four can't wait for more... hopefully won't take a year like you said for the other chapter.
That was worth the wait
I'm one of the readers who started following this story from EQD, and I have to say, this chapter is a vast improvement over the others, even though I liked the first three.
My favorite part of this update was the scene with Fluttershy, good to see this fic staying true to MLP and Zelda by making Twilight's friendships relevant to the Zelda quest. The music choices are great too, I went with the links you picked for every scene but the forge one. For that I played both at the same time, because I couldn't not have silly shop music playing while Tatl argued with the smith, but thought the fire noises were appropriate for the forge.
Update when you feel like it. Honestly, people who pester for updates puzzle me - as sad as it is to see a fic get abandoned, in my opinion it's worse to see the writing quality degrade because the author isn't having fun with it any more.
Hope the comment wasn't too long, the blog post indicated that you value feedback.
508100
It's because of people like you that I continue writing, or even started for that matter. People who genuinely value your work and provide honest and good feedback goes a long way. Even those who don't like it, yet still provide some insight on why is helpful. I want to say thanks for following the story way back when it first started, and I really respect your comments. It can get frustrating when a writer tries to balance what they feel is right, and what they think the readers feel is right. That happy medium may force you to sacrifice things you liked in order to favor someone else. That was the biggest snag I hit and it really drained my motivation in finishing the last chapter. But like I said, it was the people who enjoyed the story that made me keep going.
508452
I see a lot of writers on this site struggling with the same issue. I do visual art, so I can sympathize too. I don't have any spectacularly helpful wisdom to impart here, balancing audience opinion against yours is tough with any creative medium.
The only thing I know for sure is that creative projects should be enjoyable, or at least therapeutic, rather than another item on the chore list. I hope this gets finished, and I'll be happy to see each update, but only if you're actually having some fun with it.