Alright, getting a start on the final chapter.

Since I thought it might help keep me motivated, I thought I'd post my writing schedule here so you guys can monitor my work.

Here's the link!

I'm trying to build my way back up to writing more regularly. The word count goal isn't set in stone. Neither is the completion date, necessarily, though I am hoping I can stick to at least within a week of my goal for when I finish writing the chapter itself. And needless to say, there will probably be a bit of time needed afterwards to make sure everyone is happy with it and tweaking the bits that need changing.

But, I figure this way I have more motivation to stay on schedule if everyone else knows what my deadline and schedule are supposed to be. let me know what you guys think!

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That's an interesting schedule maker. I might give it a go, although I not show how well I'd be able to finish it certainly I've had some difficulty writing for the last few months, I've tried to write a mid length Cadenceverse story this month and I'm only managed about a third of what I'd planned despite having several days holiday to work during.

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Here's what I'm trying with it.

1. Set a reasonable sounding word count as my goal. Since this next chapter should be more action-packed, I set it at ten-thousand words just as a benchmark since that's where my action-heavy chapters on my stories seem to average.

2. Don't put too much pressure on yourself with the time frame. I gave myself three weeks because that seems a reasonable amount of time to finish in. The site lets you tell it what days you have more or less time to write on. You can set specific dates or recurring days of the week (Like every Wednesday for me) and even tell it what days you can't write. That's why mine goes up and down so much.

I also keep mine set to "Adjust based on my progress", so the days where I overshoot my goal help bring down the workload for other days.

3. Remember this little secret to beating writer's block: "Give yourself permission to write garbage." Just work on reaching your word count for each day. It doesn't matter if you know that you're gonna go back and change it, write something that moves the story along even if you think you'll hate it. Maybe you'll surprise yourself with how well it works, maybe you'll toss the idea and never mention it again, but either way it gets forward momentum going on your story. That's the important thing I've found. It's way easier to just keep going even if you rewrite a lot of it later. Taking too long a break just saps motivation to try and pick up again when you're in the middle of a project.

Granted, I'm still only two weeks into using this program myself, but it already feels like it's working for me. Here's hoping the advice helps a little!

Wowza. I have been making some progress.

Not gonna pretend I won't go back and rewrite the living daylights out of it before it's posted, but I think the Pacemaker planner has really helped with making forward momentum on this and my new Flipverse story!

5172642 Good to hear. :) It's been a great tale so far.

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Glad you think so.

That being said, I might actually wind up breaking the schedule and use the next day or two to rework this part. Don't be surprised if I wind up extending the deadline I set by a couple days.

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Almost done!

Just need to add a bit of a denouement to give Ink the element and wrap things up with Discord spiriting the team away. So, who was next and how should Discord carry them off?

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Oh, I'll have to have a look through what you've written tonight (and possibly tomorrow)

I think it's me up next, currently the version I have written just has them arriving in a generic flash of light but that can be changed. They leave mine in an explosion because I think Striker wanted to used the 'exploded twice' joke in his.

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5182616 Yeah, Talon is next. I'll go after Talon. Then hopefully we can drag Grass and Trinary back to this. :p

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5182616

And the denoument is DONE!
Course I still need input from you guys, so feel free to speak up!

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Ok, I'll have a look at the last bit tonight.

5186988 Well, I just read it, and absolutely loved it.

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I agree now I've had a chance to read through the last bit, great way to wrap it all up and a nice bit with Discord.

5188380 Okay, then. I'll put it up in a little bit.

Now, then... your chapter's next. I think beyond some stuff maybe with Spike it'd be good to go, barring also figuring out chapter divides. Them myself, then we need to get Grass and Trinary back here. Or at least ask them. Or something...

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There's probably a few continuity issues to sort out, I'll need to read through it again to pick them all up, mostly I think my element 'sparking' scene doesn't fit the others and a few other issues.

One thing that springs to mind is that Ditzy is still wearing her 'magicians assistant' outfit in mine and get mistaken for a street walker because of it. I quite like the joke but given we've now had them being around for a few days at least it seems likely she'd have gotten changed although I suppose I could keep it saying she's hanging on to anything that reminds her of home.

I'm not sure whether to read through it myself and make changes or to throw it over to the rest of the group and then put through all suggestions / updates at once.

Once it is done how do you want to put it up? All at once? One chapter a week? A month?

On Grass and Clouds front I don't want to put words in his mouth but I know he's busy but I think he'd probably come round if we asked although it would probably depend what his schedule was like. I don't know Trinary well enough to know if he's still likely to be interested. If not, and with his permission, I have an idea for the Dashverse section although I don't know when I'd end up writing it.

5188518 Do both. Throw it up so we can go over it and help you out, but you also make changes as how you see fit.

As for the outfit... eh, Ditzy would probably have changed out of it, if only for convenience's sake and to not draw attention to herself.

Also, chapter's up.

5188535

Ok, here's the link

I'm in the middle of writing for both Lunaverse and Cadenceverse at the moment so it might be a while before I can get back to this one. To be honest I can't remember all that I wrote so I'll need to give it a re-read anyway.

5188606 Okay. But... Cadenceverse? What are you writing for that?

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I've got some idea's from a while ago which I didn't have a chance to play with.

I'm writing a Flim Flam brothers story. The school gets a grant to buy new musical instruments and it looks like Medley's going to get the contract but the brothers turn up and undercut her prices. Cheerilee asks Bluenote's opinion telling her that the school can employer her as a temp music teacher if they go for the lower prices. Bluenote tells her to buy from the brothers and of course it's a con, the instruments are made of sub standard materials and fall apart almost straight away while the brothers hoof it. The schools only hope to get the money back is to enter a music contest but they need instruments, Bluenote goes to Medley asking for her to lend them the instruments but she refuses after being snubbed. Both of them have to swallow their pride to agree to work together to help the school. It's about 2/3rds written but I'm having some difficulty stopping Medley or Bluenote as coming off as jerks.

5188682 Interesting idea, I like it. As for not making them jerks, eh. Nobody's perfect. It's perfectly all right for them to come off as jerks sometimes. Look at Dash in canon, or Rarity, or... all of them, really.

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Thanks for your suggestions and corrections so far.

I've read through the whole thing myself again and made a few continuity updates, mostly I've removed references to Ditzy's element reacting every so often as that doesn't seem to have happened in the other stories.

Re-reading it, I'm actually quite proud of what I've done, particularly chapter 3 with it's flashbacks. I'm a little less satisfied with the fight in chapter 4 though I might give that another work through.

5197134 Yeah, not a problem. I really wish I could be going faster. Sorry. Just a bit on my plate at the moment.

God, after Jackie, Bed Head and then you... I might be seen as a bit of a dip in the quality department.

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I'm sure you can pull something out, if I remember correctly your idea was a little more like a war movie with ponies trying to hold the vines back from overrunning a city.

5197187 The 'Dream Valley Enclave' doing that, yes. We must remember our origin. ;)

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I'm assuming there are some epically powerful artefacts there?

I'm thinking about why the vines seem to be more active in some areas than others, in Manehatten and Fillydelphia they seemed to be fairly quiet, in Canterlot they were always trying to break in but didn't really do all that much until Discord empowered them. Maybe Dream Valley or an artefact there is attracting them? As they were designed to destroy the tree of harmony then they might be attracted to 'Harmonic Energies' maybe they're putting all their energy into crushing the valley so aren't so active elsewhere. It might mean if they are beaten back from the valley the rest of Equestria might actually be in more danger.

5197204 Well, in G1 they did... the Heart of Ponyland, for one. The Sunstone, too. Interesting angle...

5197204 And I have finished going through the entire chapter, Talon! :D *Collapses into a heap* ;)

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Thank you very much for all your hard work making my scribblings readable and grammatically correct.

Now that you've both read it all what do you think? Any continuity issues? Any problems with the general story, suggested changes before we put it up?

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It all looks solid to me, though I can't guarantee I caught everything. Could give it another read through if you want.

As for ideas... well, I don't have any that affect the current story or even the story as a whole, just a little thing I mentioned in the comments on the chapter when the subject of Twilight Sparkle got brought up. I forget which point that was even at.

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Rereadings up to you, it is quite long.

I don't actually remember Twilight getting much of a mention *shrug* it was two years since I wrote much of it.

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Just a little thing anyway. I know we joked about how this world's Spike would be Twilight's dog and I went along since it probably wouldn't come up anyway...

But, idea I had, what if this world's Spike was raised as a dragon, but helped Twilight survive out in the thorns?

Wouldn't be a major thing if it did come up. Just a closing montage moment when the thorns vanish and the world starts to repair itself, Shining finally reuniting with his little sister and getting to meet his own version of his little brother.

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Well if we ever make this a full universe with it's own stories, the quest to find Twilight might be one of them. Its part of the reason why I keep Gambit around at the end of my story so he can be a reoccurring protagonist, same with Cookie's redemption.

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Hadn't considered that, but cool :).

5218075 Looks good to me, too. I probably won't be able to post anything until Sunday at the earliest.

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5218217 Those are some cool ideas. :)

5218217 It's up, Talon.

EDIT: And I'm sorry, but I had to use a different pic for the LOVE Statue. The link you had was giving me some major issues with formatting.

5222125

Fair enough, how often are you planning to put up chapters now, daily, weekly, monthly?

The only possible issue from my side is I'm on holiday next week (15-22) so I may have rather limited internet access if any.

5223317 I can skip next week, then, and do weekly after that.

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You can do them weekly if you want I doubt I would need to actually make any more changes to them unless some huge argument boils up from the comments.

5223844 Okay, cool. And I doubt even with some big argument we'll make changes. :p

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When are you planning to put your section together? Will you try to keep up with the schedule when mine are all published or wait for your other stories to finish first?

5223928 I will start writing it the latter half of May. I really got this non-MLP Hasbroverse plot bunny I wanna get out, and another chapter of United We Stand done, first. Fortunately, both are coming along quickly.

Well, I'm an idiot. I completely forgot about posting the next part yesterday. :( Anyway, it's up.

Next part is up! Ugh, I am so forgetful Sundays...

All right, sorry, but the final part of chapter five is up.. Busy weekend, started a podcast with some fellow writers.

Okay, gonna start on my own chapters tonight. I'll post a link when I do.

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Ready and waiting to see what you end up writing.

Looking forward to the H!Pinkie chapters. It's been so long that I don't even remember whether the Element of Laughter is supposed to end up with Surprise, Cheese Sandwich, an H!verse OC, Boo from FoE: Project Horizons, or one of Pinkie's sisters.

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Keep me posted!

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I'm pretty sure the original plan was Surprise (Pinkie's ancestress from Hasbroverse). I don't think that's changed...

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5263198 Okay, I've started it here. any and all comments/criticism will be appreciated, especially concerning Octavia since she'll be a major supporting character. And yeah, we are going old-school/G1.

NOTE:
There's every chance Pinkie will be be saying and/or referencing stuff from Earth and/or Earth pop culture. Please understand she's been visiting an Earth that, with few exceptions, has had entertainment nearly identical to our own, albeit the Earth she visits , it's about mid-2012. So if she mentions Batman, it's not 'Batmare' or 'Batstallion'. She really means our Dark Knight.

Okay, I think I've got part one of my chapter finished. And it's here, for reminders.

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Looks good.

The only major suggestion I'd give is to have the fact one side of the valley is clear and the other is vine infested to be found out by the reader at the same time as the ponies (so cut it from the first paragraph) and rather than have Spike notice it have Dash see it after her recon.

The other idea is that Pinkie spends some or maybe all of the chapter thinking that they've all died and gone to heaven (Maybe being shaken out of it by Discord being there, as there's no way the one she knows would get in).