Of Things Past and Those Yet to Come

So here we are in the New Year. I’ve got a few updates to swing your way in sticking with the title of this post, most of them at least tangentially related to ViM. Not all the past stuff is good and happy, but I’m more than optimistic about what the future holds. Now down to business!

Chapter 5 is moving along again, and picking up speed. I say “Moving along again” because in the last month I’ve had a pair of events bring progress to screeching halt. The more recent delay has been illness. I’m just coming out of the crappiest parts of a stomach flu that’s being going around in my area. Was not a good time, but it looks like the worst of it is over.

The delay before that was a family tragedy. I lost my grandmother on the first day of the new year. I don’t want to get into details, but she went peacefully, it wasn’t too much of a surprise, and had a good quality of life up till a few weeks beforehand. Author's endurance might be a goal of mine, but I found I have some hard limits leading up to and after her passing. Some things should be able to disrupt the artistic process to keep us honest and grounded. It's just part of being human, and I'm okay with that.

I can’t thank the people in The Writer’s Group enough. Those who are aware have been exceptionally supportive with kind words and prayer. You guys are a credit to bronies. TWG even helped get my muse back in gear. Trying step right back into chapter 5 after a three week hiatus was more than a little overwhelming, but I a link shared in the IRC chat took me to a prompt that got me thinking. Since most of the content for shorter prompts tends to be silly, I decided to take a crack at writing something with EPIC FEELS. For just 540 words I’m happy with the result, even thought it did force me to be subtle. If you’re curious, you can check it out here, and maybe even write your own response to the prompt.

The last few days for me have been about getting back to business as usual with ViM. We’re back to Twilight as narrator this chapter as she struggles to collect details to help her get her mind around what is happening in Equestria. Its feeling like 6k words will be needed to wrap it up, and I just broke the 4k line yesterday. That would make it ViM’s biggest chapter thus far, and rightly so given that a complete picture of what the griffins have done will start to take from. I even went back and watched the briefing scene in The Hunt for Red October, because it’s some of my favorite “exposition” in a movie. It’s better in the book, but they did to a darned fine job of it so I can’t really complain.

As for the calendar, I’m guessing about a week to get ch5 to alpha, and another week to get it into beta and post it. Again this is a guesstimate, not a promise, but I felt it was time to share a progress update given the delay. Thank you all for the faves and follows: ViM is back on track and soon to bring you more epic pony tales!