Buckle Up · 3:19am May 22nd, 2018
New chapter is entering revision phase. As per my last blog post, please use spoiler tags where appropriate.
Also buckle up. It's going to be a wild ride.
New chapter is entering revision phase. As per my last blog post, please use spoiler tags where appropriate.
Also buckle up. It's going to be a wild ride.
I would like to remind readers of Equestrian Horizon that spoilers in comments should be covered with the requisite markup tags or avoided in the first place. This will be relevant now more than ever. Just saying.
So I got sucked into Final Fantasy XIV and left Equestrian Horizon to languish unfinished. Then my computer died.
All data is safely backed up on separate drives or in the cloud but I am sans gaming rig for the time being. I am still going to attempt to finish EH by the end of the year. The next chapter, Ouroboros, is done and currently in the proofing and revision phase.
Onward.
The next chapter to be released will be a quick interlude. It will be released very soon; I just need to make another revision pass with fresh eyes.
The next few chapters will have serious plot development. I am both excited and terrified. The previous chapters have been a lot of development, some filler, and a lot of setup and I can't wait to make it pay off. The fact that a huge status quo shakeup is on the horizon makes me nervous. I don't want people to hate it.
Third rewrite for the next chapter, Prey, is currently in progress.
My muse has been extremely stingy lately and as a result it has taken far longer than I feel it should to squeeze out something comparatively simple. I am still committed to remaining narratively and militarily sound in my writing. Trying to do that alongside keeping everyone in character -- development and all -- is difficult, especially for such a long-running story.
So it seems the original ending I had drafted for the end of Equestrian Horizon is now moot. A series of Epiphanies and crazy mad scribblings in the dead of night revealed just how much the characters had grown throughout the course of acts 1 and 2 and how much the story line had to change to reflect those developments. There is also a significant tonal shift that is in the process of occurring and will be in full swing by the end of Act 2. We're close. The next chapter - The Hushed Empress -
Progress is slow. Between loading my google docs into Scrivener, working on my non-pony novel, trying to study for A+ certs, and suddenly picking up a writing competition from a local college, it's been hard to focus on the next chapter.
Outlines are roughly finished and some of the key themes are have been specified. Just need to sit down and hammer things out amid all the other IRL chaos.
Just thought I'd let you guys know I was still alive and the story is still in progress.
I just recently acquired a copy of Scrivener on discount and I'm in the process of learning how to use it. It's nice to have project manager software with built-in versioning and an easily accessible chapter list and notes instead of trying to manage everything in separate google docs. I may end up further subdividing the next chapter for faster release and easier scene editing. I'm ballparking about a mid-February release, but as usual, I make no guarantees.
Happy New Year!
The next two chapters are outlined and just need to be written: a character-focused interlude called Rehab and a plot-focused chapter named Black Rain.
Rehab will revolve around Firefly's attempts to reconnect with her squad following the fallout on board the Sova while simultaneously attempting to wrap her brain around the extra burden of leadership placed upon her.
What it says on the tin. There were a lot of life changes that took place in the past 2 months which included a cross-country move and yet another round of job hunts. I'm still not exactly where I'd like to be, but I'm settled enough to resume work on the book.
After a break to work on job applications and Smolder, I figured I needed to dust of Equestrian Horizon again.
The next chapter has been outlined and needs to be fleshed out. I was originally intending this to be a shorter interlude-style piece with more action, but as I continued outlining, I found there were additional things that needed to be set in motion. The plot thickens further.
Once again, ETA is "when it's done."
Welcome to yet another episode of tales from the cutting room floor!
This time, we have a physical altercation between Firefly and Skywind. The bulk of the source material is too rough to publish, but the idea of the scene has been around since the story's inception. It was originally supposed to be a climactic confrontation between the two where Skywind finally lets his true colors show and Firefly finally gets some catharsis by beating the shit out of him.
I will try to publish the next chapter today sometime. The meat of it is done, but I want to get in a bit more polish and get last minute opinions on whether or not everyone is in character.
In terms of format, I cut this chapter short because it was already dragging on at about 10k words. There will be a followup interlude hopefully with a much shorter turnaround time than a full chapter to further flesh out some of the character stuff before the story proper continues.
I’ll admit it. Being a Timberwolf was a point of pride. We were the biggest badasses in the Royal Equestrian Army Air Corps. We scored so many air to air victories against ANA forces that everyone thought we were untouchable. A couple of the older fliers had a saying, “Those who survive a long time on the battlefield start to think they're invincible.” We thought we were, too.
Light faded to darkness. Warmth vanished into freezing cold. Clear sky gave way to black snow. The earth below had disappeared, replaced by the gaping maw of an infinite abyss. Into the choking miasma of gunsmoke and combusted aether, Firefly dove.
I told myself that I wouldn't drop 12k word monster chapters anymore. They're difficult to write, stupidly hard to edit, and no one reading them has the attention span to really read them. But here I am, doing it again. I'll do what I can to pare it down once I finish writing it, but I've got 8.3k already and there are still substantial portions of the chapter that are only skeleton outlines.
A few updates for everyone:
Chapter 12: Red Moon just went live. This is the fastest turnaround that I've ever done, but I think it helps that the chapter was not as narratively dense as some of the other ones in Equestrian Horizon. It's mostly straight action and not a lot of layers to peel back.