Hello there, readers!  I'm really sorry about being gone so long, but I've been working on a very interesting project with a recent friend of mine named Samantha Sprocket.  If you don't know who she is, she's the one that does the Gadget Steelmare text-based story Tumblr (Diary of a Unicorn Soldier is the name of the Tumblr ).  Go check it out sometime, read through the whole thing!  It's actually a really awesome storyline, I know I enjoyed every bit of it!

That being said, her character, Gadget Steelmare, will be a central character in this fanfic she and I've been working on together.  I do the heavy writing to make a rough draft, she reads over it, checks for errors, then converses with me about changes and ideas that she might want implemented, maybe correct me on her character's behavior and personality, things like that, and by the time we're done, we have an excellent end product.  So far, two chapters are done, and the third is almost finished.  When we've gotten through the prologue chapters, I'll start posting them here for all to read!  We look forward to feedback, we really do. <3

As for Taming the Rage, I'm still working on the freaking title, though I've gotten one part of Chapter 1 finished, Twilight's side of it, which is basically Side A.  Side B will be focusing on the investigations and activities of Wind Strider and the rest of the Shadow Guard working with him and around him as a part of his own personal squad.  Sometimes the activities of the Shadow Guard will overlap with the activities of Luna, Twilight, Celestia and the other Mane Six, but other than that, there will essentially be two parts to every chapter that will be of importance....usually.  Sometimes things will simply be going on for the sake of character development and plot enrichment, as I like to call it, along with several side-stories and side-romances that may or may not come and go.  Here's a hint: Wind Strider's bisexual!

I know it's basically been a year since I finished Taming the Rage, but just be patient.  I'm promising that the wait will be worth it.  After all, the wait was worth it for the ending of Taming the Rage, right?  I hope I'm right, for most of you.  After all, there are tons of other great fanfics to read alongside my own....like The Dark Apprentice or Hard Reset!  The Dark Apprentice is NSFW because of extremely awesome cloppy goodness, yes, but it's still a really awesome fanfic!  Don't even get me started on the awesomeness that is Hard Reset, either.  That fic is just....wow.  Go read it.  Nao plz.

Hey there, all you loyal readers!  I'm happy to say that Taming the Rage is almost done, and it's been damn fun to write for all of you, albeit at my own pace!

I would like to thank all you readers for putting up with my delays in keeping the story updated in a timely fashion.  Sometimes I run into extensive lengths of 'can't-be-bucked', as I like to call it.  Essentially, I have the story done in my head, it's there and I have the time and the ability to do so.  But when my fingers touch the keyboard and I begin to think of the words, I just can't be bucked to get to typing!  It's the most annoying thing, I swear! =(

Regardless, the next part of the story will have some more adult themes to it, especially due to the nature of Void Magic and some of the things that certain characters will begin to take interest in, not to mention the growth and evolution of several relationships.  I can't say much more than that, but I WILL be leaking this one little tidbit of fun, juicy secrecy....

Trixie Lulamoon is gonna be a fairly constant character in the second part of the story, and I'm not gonna follow the usual 'total bitch in public but insecure and tsundere off-stage' stereotype.

With that aside, do expect some clop material in the next part of the story, for the aforementioned reasons above.  I will be creating both clean and clop versions of the chapters that actually include such things in them, so the clop won't be adding to the ratings of the fic because it's clearly labelled as separated from the story.  If anything significant related, somehow, to the sexual activity itself would be missed by anyone only reading the 'clean' versions, I will make sure to find a way to work it into the clean version without getting explicit as best I can.  Either way, it's gonna be damn good!

I'm still working out the name for the second part of the story, but I'm sure it'll come to me.  But I think in-between this part and the second part, I'm gonna maybe add some chapters to my portfolio in the form of some clopfics and maybe a few one-shots or short multi-chapter fics, who knows?  I might even restart 'Living in the Past and Present', that's been a fic idea that's been taunting me from my desktop writing folder for MONTHS now!  It's a damn good idea, I just need to put my fingers to work on building it some more.

Ah well.  In any case, look forward to more good stuff, all of my loyal readers!

Hello, all of my loyal readers of Taming the Rage!

I am so, SO sorry for how much I've been taking time in getting these chapters done.  I am working on them, however!  This upcoming chapter 13 is going to be the longest chapter yet, I haven't even gotten to the inevitable encounter between Twilight and the Nightmare, let alone the 'alone time' we get with the Nightmare to get a glimpse into her daily lifestyle.  A lot of things are going to happen that're gonna take some decent time to write and get it all done juuuust right to get the Nightmare's personality across perfectly.  Do please just be patient in waiting for Chapter 13, I promise it'll be worth it.

With that said, I know the last few chapters have been slow coming too.  I've just been having trouble finding time to just sit down and write, and then when I do have time, sometimes I just sit here and find myself unable to get to work on it.  It's not that I don't enjoy it, I revel in every paragraph I manage to finish.  Regardless of that, I just have a bit of a block there every single time that I have to smash through before I can get any decent amount of work done.  But, the slower pace is letting me re-evaluate things and make sure they come out right and written better, so it's not ALL that bad.

In any case, enjoy Taming the Rage, everyone!  You'll get your 'End of Act One' chapter soon!

    Alright everypony, I had a damn good time these last two weeks, gaming it up and relaxing!  But, all good times come to an end eventually, including all of the free time I gave myself, and now I'm getting back to work on Taming the Rage and a couple of other stories I have in mind.  I'm sure plenty of my readers will be happy about Taming the Rage, but the other stories I have planned may make a lot of you happy as well!

    My first story I've got in mind alongside Taming the Rage is the life story of my ponysona, my pen name and the avatar of my real-life self turned pony, Fire Soul.  His story is an episodic series, with Fire Soul taking the time during a visit to Ponyville to do a book signing, to tell the children of Cheerilee's class what the life of Equestria's currently very famous writer was like.  Do remember that much like Taming the Rage, this story will be based off of my own life experiences, my own trial and tribulations, my own pros and cons, ups and downs over the course of my life.

    My second story I have planned is actually a romantic clopfic, though the actual 'clop' part of the 'fic' is not a huge focus.  Though I have done plenty of RPing in my time that has lots of sexual content, I prefer to keep my actual writing, which will be seen by many readers, to only insinuate that character A is unf'ing character(s) B, C, D and so forth, you get the idea.  Still, I have been told that nopony has seen this clopfic idea, nopony I know anyways....so, I opted to write a Twilestia clopfic that will also include some Lunixie/Trixuna.  I hope you all enjoy it, once I get it started in earnest!

    The third story is something completely different than the last two I have planned.  The third one is going to be all about Berry Punch, her daughter Ruby Pinch, their friends and the drinking problem Berry Punch has.  The focus of this story will be the automatic stereotypes that lushes like Berry Punch are labelled with, and the consequences that can hit a family that doesn't deserve such treatment.  It's a potential tear-jerker, it's very slice-of-life, and like the others I'm writing it's going to be several chapters long, so enjoy!

    Now then, I'm going to be updating all four of these at the same time, probably one chapter per week for one of the stories every week.  I may update Taming the Rage, I may update the Twilestia one, I might update the Berry Punch one.  You will never know~!  I will greatly enjoy this though, and it'll give me a chance to do all sorts of different stories So that I don't get a case of burnout on any single story.  I hope you enjoy all four of them!

Alright everypony, we're getting close to returning to normalcy, after this wild stuff that's going on with Wind Strider and these malevolent shadows in Everfree Forest!  I'm sure plenty of you are thankful for that, considering how many people still don't like Wind Strider for whatever reason.  Eh, just no pleasing some bronies.

In any case, Chapter 8 will be coming out a little later than usual.  You see, Assassin's Creed: Revelations came out this week, and I'm inclined, after six weeks(?) of hard work on these decently-sized chapters, to take a week or two off and get back to enjoying a really enjoyable game.  No, this is not an open invitation for you to send me hate-mail, exclaiming 'LOL ASS CREED SUX FUKR', I will delete it and block you from being able to message me on here ever again.  Now, if you'd like to talk to me about how very, very sexy this game is?  By all means, I love talking about awesome games!

The next few chapters are going to finally hint at what all of this has to do with Twilight and the others, and it's also going to emphasize what needs to be fixed and dealt with before Twilight can really be herself again and put this depression behind her, and not all of it is going to have anything to do with these shadows or whatever's behind their activity aside from the beacon Wind Strider took into the forest to call them to him.  With that said, enjoy!

Hello again, everyone!  It's just me, making another update.  For those of you that didn't catch the first notice, I am finished with Chapter 4, it's up for your reading pleasure, and I am now working on Chapter 5.  I really enjoyed writing Chapter 4, but for some reason, I just can't shake the feeling, the chapter feels....bloated, for lack of a better term.  Maybe it's just me, but I sense the stench of redundancy and yet I did not catch it while writing it.  Maybe I just don't like writing up padding?

Then again, this feeling may have something to do with the fact that I barely even had to try hard to get this chapter to flow through my fingers and onto my keyboard, and it's slightly longer than Chapter 3 which took infinitely larger amounts of effort on my part.  I dunno, let me know what you think, maybe I'm just paranoid!

So I got Batman: Arkham City when it came out, and I fully blame that game for this chapter coming out so late.  Well, that and the three 'papers' that I scrounged up from Twilight's old schoolwork under Princess Celestia.  She's a smart filly, I gotta say. /egostroke

Alright everyone, 'History of Equestria' is now known as 'Studies of a Bookworm', and the first of the two posts I'll be making to that is currently available for your reading pleasure.  Please, enjoy my fantastical ability to absolutely make this stuff up as I go!

Just kidding about the 'as I go' part, I've had this in mind from the very beginning, including the creatures from the second bit of studywork I'll be posting there.

I would like to, quite frankly, state that Loony Luna (http://ask-loonyluna.tumblr.com/) for the inspiration for the general design of the creatures that we'll be seeing plenty of as the story progresses.  Trust me, they're not pleasant, and I'll be putting everything I can into describing them with the best clarity I can achieve for you all.

I highly recommend keeping up with 'Studies of a Bookworm', because a lot of the things I'll be posting there, not everything though, will have a lot to do with fully understanding the creatures and events that we'll be running across in the rest of Taming the Rage.

Enjoy!

Okay you pretty mares out there, now that I'm apparently doing a good job, you can come and try to hook up with me.  I'm clearly studly, what with all these compliments I'm getting about my writing!

I'm joking of course, I'm just being goofy and feeling good now that I get to continue into Chapter 4.  GOOD LORD, am I glad I get to move forward with all of this.  With that said, there are TWO stories I need to get updated, one of them being the beginnings of 'History of Equestria', which I'm tempted to change the name of to make it something more appropriate.  I'm not sure how much it will be pure history, and how much of it will also be factual scientific evidence of how Equestria works.

Chapter 4's going to be a far more interesting thing to write about this time around, and it's going to limit its focus.  I will let something slip and say that Zecora's in it though!  Oh, I'm so not good at rhyming though, I should get some interesting reviews about that.  Maybe I can get someone to help me....eh, we'll see.

I've read some concerns that I might overwhelm myself with the full span of this story, and at least one or two people are afraid that I'll wind up going on hiatus.  That will NOT be the case, I have no reason to go on hiatus for more than a full week or two.  I love this story too much, and I'm loving all of the reactions I'm getting from everyone that's read it so far, it's great.  The feedback is wonderful for me, it's good to know my writing and creativity are enough to create a worthwhile story, because I'm planning on writing my own book after I'm done here.  However, how many chapters it'll take to be done here, THAT I don't know.  It could be ten, it could be fifteen, it could be twenty chapters or more.  I'm not sure, I'm a novelist and a creative writer, how big this story will get I just don't know.

Of course, that's not a bad thing.  A mix of creating things on-the-fly and looking ahead to make sure you patch up your plot points is always an interesting way of developing a story.  Someone messaged me about Razor Witty by the way, and I'm not sure yet if I'm going to include him in the story, but if I do, let's just say that he tried to do something REALLY despicable.  You'll find out more if I choose to include him.

Some of you may feel like your anticipation of where the story with Twilight is going is vindicated by Chapter 4, but I will only say that you're entirely WRONG.  It may have something to do with it, but no, none of you have entirely called me on it yet, only partially.

Thank goodness that's over....seriously, you have no idea how much I forced myself to finish this chapter.

For those that don't know why, I'll sum it up rather easily: it was a set-up chapter, one of the most amazingly BORING chapters for a skilled novelist to write.

To explain it better, a set-up chapter is the chapter where the novelist puts together several scenes in the hopes of setting up for future incidents and situations.  The problem that proposes though, is the fact that it's a chapter where generally NOTHING happens for the person writing the story.  It's really interesting for the readers, don't get me wrong, but the WRITER already knows what's going to happen next usually.  This means, this chapter is incredibly BOOOOORING to write.  It's a lot like writing about your morning routine, if you catch my drift.

Quite frankly I wanted to do something to spice up this chapter, but I've made sure that Chapter 4 throws more of a curve-ball and remains more interesting to write for myself, as well.  I've finished the set-up chapter, now I get to have the fun times again.  SO!  Enjoy everyone, I hope it becomes foreboding enough for you all.

Hi there everyone, it's Fire Soul here with a quick update on how things are going with Chapter 3, and a couple of other things I'm going to be adding to this project to both make things easier on myself, and to give you all a little bonus flavor to the material you're already apparently enjoying quite a bit.

First off, the main purpose of this update: the schedule I've decided upon.  I'm going to be sticking with a schedule of 'at least once a week'.  I will have one chapter done per week, that much I can promise because there's no reason for me not to, I'm a good writer, I always have been, and I'm very passionate about this project.  Outside of sudden illness and family matters getting in the way, I have no reason not to be able to manage a once-a-week schedule.  As it stands, I have until the 16th to get Chapter 3 done before I'm 'behind schedule', so that you all know exactly where we're at with the storyline.

Second update, I have finally decided to use a secondary writing subject to use as a basis for all of the stories I may write.  This secondary, smaller project, is actually going to be something called 'History of Equestria'.  I'm pretty sure the title of the project is self-explanatory.  A lot of the updates will actually be useful in understanding what certain things are, and what exactly is happening between characters during unusual activities over the course of 'Taming the Rage'.  However, I will try to make sure that History of Equestria is only used to add some extra 'flavor' to Taming the Rage, so that I can still say that Taming the Rage is a good story that stands tall on its own.

There WAS something else I wanted to touch on with this blog post, but I think it basically boils down to this: there ARE going to be sexual themes in my story, eventually.  However, I don't want to be known for writing clopfics, even if I am perfectly capable of doing so, so don't bother asking me to write some kind of separate, 'uncensored' version of Taming the Rage with all sex scenes included.  All anyone is going to get is obvious indications that sex has happened at most, and it being the subject of before or after-coitus conversations here and there.  I'm aiming for realism in interactions, so the conversation for such things is plenty believable, but the sex alone has no bearing on the storyline itself aside from establishing obviously stronger bonds between certain ponies, so going into detail about everything that happens during it isn't necessary for this story to be as good as it's intended to be.

That's all for now, everyone!  I hope you'll all be patient for a little while longer, I'm getting close to finishing Chapter 3, so just give it some time and you'll have some steady updates!  After this one, I might even break past this multi-character trouble I'm having with Chapter 3 and get Chapter 4 out much more smoothly.  Here's to hoping!