This Author Is Not Dead · 1:52pm Jun 17th, 2022
Aside from a small sample of blog posts here and there, I haven't been all that active on this site. That doesn't mean I haven't been writing, however; on the contrary, I have. Relatively speaking, I started writing a new story around the end of April, early May, just before the Make Your Mark special aired.
I'd meant to start a new story a bit earlier, after The Parable of the Toymaker was finished in February, but floundered around for a bit looking for the right idea. Eventually I settled on one, and started penning out a couple pages. In my head this would have been another short story, perhaps another light novella in terms of length.
Well, I can safely say the first draft of the story has been completed.
It's just that - I wrote it all by hand, it's about 271 pages long, roughly 62 thousand words... So no longer a novella so much as it's an actual novel.
Whoops.
Anyway, I'm hoping to transcribe this and have it edited and prepared before summer's over. Anyone who's familiar with my work knows that I'm rather meticulous and slow-going when it comes to the processes between first draft, second draft, third draft, and final draft, so this is largely a generous estimate than an actual timeframe.
But I think it's going to be a good story. It's got a bit of everything in it: adventure, drama, romance... It's got a pulse. And I'm hoping to evaluate its circulatory system soon.
I hope you all look forward to it!
This is good news! Always looking forward to more stories from you.
Fair play! Given I've been working on a Pony fanfic of a similar 60-70K wordlength, and after a year-and-a-half it's still not in a readable-to-a-newcomer state, let along publishable, a five-month timeline (I'm ballparking you beginning on this around April) is still plenty fine. Way more than fine. Course, I don't know how much your stories change between the four drafts you list here (that's still two more drafts than most fanfic writers will ever do for any fic), but you've been doing this for a while, you know what you're doing.
And I agree with Pascoite; I've gotten to a point where a story from you is always one I look at least reasonably forward to. I'm sure this will prove to be no exception!
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Glad to hear I still hold some degree of readership.
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My output has slowed considerably ever since the end of high school, but since then I've tried to write and revise with a certain amount of diligence, even if it takes me a bit. In practice I generally make three or four drafts, depending on the story - this is one where I feel the second would easily lead to the third, such that both drafts might be considered one long one.
That is, this story is going to require a lot of polishing for me to get it to where I think it needs to be - but I do hope you look forward to it.
Why would you not just write on your computer to begin with; you're just making extra work for yourself.
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There are a few reasons. For one, I had begun writing this as a short story, which I write by hand anyway. When it got to the point where it was far longer than that, I was too invested to pause and transcribe or continue it on a computer.
For another, writing by hand leads to a greater "intimacy" between me and the work. I hear its natural voice and can pursue it without too many hiccups. For a story such as this where I unraveled its thread with each page written, that proved important enough to keep going.
Of course it's extra work, but transcribing it after the fact usually makes editing easier because it means I can look at the earlier pages with a fresh set of eyes. Either way, though the workflow is different, the work gets completed.