Well, it's been quite awhile.

If anyone is reading this, thanks for sticking around. I've never claimed to be someone who was very attentive to my writing endeavors. I suffer heavily from procrastination and a poor sense of motivation. The desire to write is within me, but the will is not. I guess many people can say that about a lot of things. Call me lazy, not dedicated (which I'd have to agree with you on that one), or what have you. I'm not a stranger to long writing hiatus', I've had quite a few, but I've never wavered in wanting to write.

To be fair to myself, this particular lax in writing was caused by a big event in my life. Around Christmas, someone I cared a lot about abandoned me, leaving me completely unmotivated and without my muse. I suppose you could say I've bounced back since then, but I am, as I said, without a muse, or a proof reader. However I hope I will be able to jump back into the writing game.

A lot has changed in the fandom since I last wrote anything significant. I've never been one to keep up with the shifts and changes in a fanfiction fandom to begin with. I much prefer to isolate myself and just write what I want, rather than feel pressured to flow with what's trending. This practice has always allowed me to be my own author, rather than attempting to copy another's success. Even if it means not exactly being popular, but I pretty much bring that upon myself with my erratic writing schedule and long absences anyway.

A thought or two on changes in the show that will directly impact my (if any) future writing: To me, Princess Cadance doesn't exist. She was a shallow, forced attempt at the staple 'pretty pink pony princess' with no real personality or depth to her character, and I want nothing to do with her. More recently: the alicorn Twilight debacle. Like many, I felt the season 3 finale was rushed and fell pretty flat. Twilight becoming an alicorn wasn't exactly unforeseen, but it was too forced and unexplained. Much like how the writers of the show will have trouble writing future episodes around her, I'm sure writers in the fandom will have the exact same troubles. Any attempt to reason around the Twilicorn issue will surely be invalidated by any Deus ex Machina the writers decide to pull in an attempt to shoehorn some sense into the entire problem come season 4. As such, I won't even bother acknowledging that Twilight has become an alicorn in any of her appearances in my stories. Well, that's that.

A word on Skyward: I wrote and published Skyward as I was going through a rough patch. I really shouldn't have published it at all, but my proof reader convinced me to put it out in chapters. Originally, Skyward was a one-shot, but I felt it was too long (around 10K words). I've released lengthy one-shots in the past (12.7K words or so on my anime fanfiction account). But really, it was just once. One-shots have always been my strength, plus, as anybody that's been waiting on Skyward can obviously see by now, I can't keep a chapter-story schedule. To those that have been waiting on Skyward's conclusion: I'm sorry that you've had to wait so long. It is my hope to put the finishing touches on the epilogue (it's actually all ready finished, it just needs refining) and release it soon. I will also be returning Skyward to the original format which I intended for it to be: a one-shot. I will compile all the chapters together and release them as a single entry, while hiding the individual chapters.

Whenever I get around to it, I actually do have a story that is 99.5% complete, laying, hidden, in the stories section of my account. It's actually been there since August of last year, and all I have to do is literally write the final two sentences, along with proof read it a little. It's a simple little AppleDash that I cooked up, nothing earth-shatteringly insightful. This goes back to my point of writing whatever I want. I'm an amateur writer - I do this for fun - and even though I'm not popular, it's still nice to make people's days, even if it's just a few people.

Well, this has been quite a long blog entry. I really do hope to return to the writing scene, no matter how much the fanfiction landscape has changed, or how outdated my ideas and concepts may be. There'll always be those that enjoy what I write, despite what it is. I've always strived to put as much quality and care into my writing as possible. Even though I'm an amateur, I go at it with a professional mindset (just not a professional dedication), I.E. I'm always trying to improve.

One final thing. For those of you that enjoyed the best story I have ever written (and the best I probably ever will), I found a very well done reading of Tears of a Goddess on YouTube just the other night. The reader has a nice, clear voice, does sentence tones well, and doesn't mispronounce anything! (well, except for 'ichor', heh).

Here it is:

And an actual link: Fanfiction Reading - Tears of a Goddess

Please leave him all your likes, comments, and favorites.

Well, that's all for now. Here's to my hopeful return, very soon!

~Rabidfangirl