Growing Pains · 2:56am Dec 16th, 2023
And so ends another chapter in the Alternate Beginnings saga.
If it feels like an abrupt ending, well, you’re probably not wrong.
Growing Harmony tackled both more and less than I originally envisioned. It was never going to get to the introduction of the alicorn foals (more on that later), instead covering the period of adjustment for the members of the herd as well as the surrounding nations. However, with so much ground to cover, there was rarely enough time to spend on any one topic, and as it bounced around the other areas got left behind, only to need dusting off as they got reintroduced.
What also didn’t help was my posting schedule. Days, if not weeks between posts, made it harder to keep track of what was happening, which I feel is unfair to you, the reader. (More on this later.)
When I first started writing the Alternate Beginnings series, I had been married for about four years and my wife and I were struggling to have a child. Part of my ‘inspiration’, if you will (maybe impetus is a better word), for writing the series was an escapism of sorts, a ‘wouldn’t it be nice to be plopped down in this wonderful universe and have a family’, and then exploring the (potentially negative) ramifications of such an abrupt entrance into a culture that, especially at the start, is quite xenophobic.
Fortunately for us, my first child was born in November of 2017. If you will note, Year One was published in May of 2018. I kept up with writing, though, more for myself and a desire to see the project to its ‘completion’ when Twilight arrived in Ponyville. I had built up a decent buffer of around ten chapters or so, posting every second or third day to keep it there. As that buffer got larger, starting around Year Four I shifted to posting a new chapter every day, a trend I kept up for nearly a year and a half with a few breaks. After my buffer was depleted, though, I posted each chapter essentially the day I finished it, which led to some long (and sometimes extremely long) times between hitting the publish button.
I would write for 2-3 hours a day, research on top of that (yes, watching the show counts as research), and It was a pretty grueling pace, one I couldn’t keep up with as other demands entered my life (my second child was born in February 2019, my third in November 2020). And once I let it slip once, it made it that much harder to push myself, especially as the topics got further away from the show and more philosophical. I write best when I have a concrete idea of what needs to be depicted, and a harder time when I have lots of possible routes the story can take. I hate scrapping material, and will dither over sections until I have the whole storyline (or at least the chapter) laid out. At the same time, I have a hard time making an outline for the same reason: I can keep the outline in my head, it’s ironing out what the outline includes that is the problem. So, I spent less and less time writing, and the writing time got less and less productive as I struggled with the multitude of directions the story could (or even should) have gone.
Am I happy with the finished product? Overall, yes. There are sections that I wish I had fleshed out better, especially the motivations of Grogar and his acolytes. They were meant to be the authoritarian side of Harmony, one that wanted to enforce Her will on everypony and everycreature, but whose morals precluded them from subjugating any who disagreed. This led to an ineffectual villain, one whose ultimate ‘triumph’ over fell flat. A similar thing happened at the end of Errant Finale, which I will again blame on too broad a scope and insufficient focus on our main characters.
Which leads me to how I can (hopefully) fix both issues, of me posting infrequently and too broad a scope. Hopefully. Stories are going to be limited to a particular topic, hopefully with an end in sight, and will be completed before they are posted at a chapter a day.
Branching off from the end of Growing Harmony, there are three plot threads.
First up, and an immediate counter to what I just said before, is Infant’s Journey. This sprawling slice-of-life would follow the four alicorn foals of Doug’s from their birth onwards, with occasional glimpses to the other fillies and colts of the herd, with relatively little in the broader universe. (It would also be a pseudo-replacement to a potential mature rewrite of Year Two, in that many of the themes that ‘The Second Year’ would focus on would be repeated here. I may still do a rewrite of Year Two, but I started one and burned out quick on it, so don’t count on much.)
Second is Stone. Chrysalis has committed to helping rebuild Griffonstone; Stone follows Slaughter Smiles, who goes by Laughter, who operates a slaughterhouse and is uprooted as one of the pony families tasked with supporting such a massive effort. However, feeding the griffons is only a fraction of their real goal, which is to eviscerate Griffon society economically, culturally, and genetically, and replace it with one more in line with Pony values. But is this the right tack for ponies to take?
Third is Top Metal Bolt. The Dragons are becoming far more aggressive towards ponies, with regular incursions requiring immediate responses with dire consequences. The Wonderbolts have been tasked with putting an end to this, but to do so they need to drastically increase recruitment and introduce Storm Creature weaponry capable of stopping the dragon threat. Rainbow Dash, despite being pregnant, volunteers, and must complete basic training as well as observe firsthoof the devastating consequences, both to the dragons and to the ponies firing on them. (This is a cross between the episode Top Bolt and the movie Full Metal Jacket.)
Horse in Equestria (Girls) is still rumbling around, but I haven’t yet struck a plot line I like. It would follow Doug at the end of Continuity Disrupted, when he goes through the mirror portal to find Sunset Shimmer and get her to return, only to find out he’s transformed into a horse.
Of these, Stone is the one I will likely finish first. I don’t know what I’m going to do for Infant’s Journey, in that I expect it to be another 100+ chapter monstrosity with no specific ending in mind.
If there are any other areas you want to see expanded on, let me know!
TLDR: Expect to see long intervals between completed and regularly updated stories. Thanks for reading!
Even with your growing responsibilities, thank you for taking time to continue this great series.
5759220
I second that.
You have created an amazing AU and I have loved reading and rereading the whole series. I'm looking forward to reading the next stories when you post them, DG.
5759242
Thanks!