Looking Forward · 1:24am Apr 10th, 2013
While my lovely co-author works on the next chapter of "The Life and Times of Love and Harmony", I realize that the story only has one or two chapters left after it (whether or not I want to drop one of them) and then the story is wrapped up, since I wanted it to only take place up to the end of Season 2.
As for what I'm doing next, I'm trying to decide that. When I first started "Love and Harmony", I thought be going back to finish "Elements of Larceny" after I was done and got some more experience writing comedy. But if writing L&H taught me anything, it's that I don't have that much fun trying to write joke after joke without much plot or movement behind it. What the two stories boil down to is that they're basically sitcoms--you get one episode with little to no relation to the rest of the story, and then you go to the next one. There's no real coherence or flow, and that's not a great way to write--or at least, I don't like to write that way.
But because I still love the characters of Masky and Patsy (after writing for them in more stories for more audiences than you know), I want to do something with them again. I'll tweak the dynamic between them and the level of Masky's rottenness, but it's still the same core pair you've seen in EoL and Head Full of Cotton Candy.
But as for what I really want to do with them, I want to do this:
This is the early idea of the cover I worked on a while ago. Maybe I'll use this one if I can polish up Masky's back legs and AJ's hoof, but I might ask a friend of mine to draw up something if he has the time, too.
But yes, I want to write a spaghetti-Western story about Masky and Patsy and Applejack. The basic plot would be that Luna orders the criminals to investigate a series of bandit attacks in AAAAAAAAAAppleloosa (or some other such town) in exchange for not being executed, and Applejack is sent along as their parole officer. I think that the character's personalities would all really fit in right at home in the setting, where there's that gritty line between the law and outlaws and where even the innocent folk aren't all that innocent, but neither are the outlaws all that fiendish.
The trick with that is, to do a good job of that, I'll need to get some research on it. Read books about Western outlaws, watch some spaghetti western movies, things that are going to take some time. Which should be perfect with summer break coming next month. But that also means there's going to be nothing coming from me for most of the summer while I bone up on Clint Eastwood and... Insert Western Author Here.
tl;dr: the next thing you hear from me will be the last thing you hear for a while
If anyone's got some suggestions for authors and movies, please feel free to share.
Dude that spaghetti-western themed story would be pretty cool.
Edit: Obviously John Wayne and a bunch of Lone Ranger stuff would help.
That does sound like a good idea. Well, can't wait!