Bad News & Good News: Grim Hearth's Warming & The Iron Horse · 6:02am Dec 21st, 2023
One thing that saddens me more than almost anything else is to disappoint my readers, but I'm afraid I've got no choice: there will not be a new chapter of "Reaping Rainbow: A Very Grim Hearth's Warming" this Christmas. Keep reading for more details and some positives...
First off, the story is not cancelled or "dead" as one reader asked. But it is on "indefinite hiatus." I mean, the story has basically been that way for its entire life, but now it's official.
The problem I've had with the story is that it's too good an idea to just drop, but updating it once a year around the holidays is just kind of shitty to you, the readers, and it's also at a time when I want to spend the holidays with family, which makes writing it difficult. One of these days, I want to sit down, reconsider where to go with it, and actually give it a proper conclusion. If I can't do that, then it may get the axe permanently.
Either way, I know many of you enjoy the story and would like to see more of it, and I feel really lousy for disappointing you around the holidays. Sorry. 
There is some good news to share, however:
First of all, I do have a holiday story this year. It's a one-shot featuring some popular side characters that I've never written a story about before, and I think it's quite fun. The one downside here is that it was written as part of a fic exchange, which means that I can't publish it until the event is over, so it probably won't be in time for Xmas. This is the first time in my years here on FiMfiction that I won't have a holiday story ready and published before the 25th, and it really sucks to see that record go out the window, but I hope the story is still good enough that you'll all forgive me for it. 
And if you want to read my older holiday stories, then you can find them all HERE in this bookshelf!
And here's the other good news: there's one more chapter of "Mummer's Dance," which I'm glad people are also enjoying, and after that, finally,
finally
FINALLY
...my plate will be clear to work on the next Turing Test story.
Gonna be a good 2024, folks!
If I might... Why not write it off season and then update it yearly... It's not shitty if it is a yearly tradition... Like the holidays or one's Birbnniversary
5760017
Oh, no, I couldn't do that... that would make too much friggin' sense!
But yes, that is what I should have done. I just always got in the mentality of putting it off until around the holidays and then not having the time or energy to put out more than one chapter.
5760020
I mean. I have my "nightmare night one shot" that's taking me almost 2 decades to finish...
Maybe set a reminder somehow for the coming Halloween to come back to it? At the very least, I do think doing an actual shelving can help with sorting out priorities, so a fic isn't just hanging around in one's mind being a distraction and preventing ever looking at it with fresh eyes; hopefully it works out in this case.
Ah, sorry. Good luck with the positives, though!