Thirty Days of Fabulosity · 8:11am Apr 24th, 2013
You may or may not know, but lately I have been participating in a thing called Thirty Minute Ponies. Every day, they put up a writing prompt, and you try and come up with a story you can write for that prompt in thirty minutes. You can take as much time as you like to think about and plan it out, but once you start writing, you're expected to stop after thirty minutes. It's been great practice for me in all sorts of respects. It's really helped with my story-planning and estimation skills, since I need to know what I am and am not able to write in a given amount of space. It's helped me figure out some creative workarounds to a variety of writing problems. And it's allowed me to experiment with styles and techniques that I probably would not have tried out otherwise.
In addition to the standard rules provided by the blog, though, I added my own personal rule to follow while writing for it: Every story had to feature Rarity. Keeping to this was more of a challenge for some prompts than others. Some prompts were designed specifically to focus on characters that were not as fabulous as our favorite fashionista, and I had to reach for a rather creative interpretation of the prompt a few times. But overall, I had fun, and I feel like I have a better grasp on how to write for her than I did a month ago.
Oh, did I mention I did this every day for thirty days in a row? Because that is what I did, and why I'm so excited about it. Getting myself into a consistent habit of writing has been a challenge for me in the past, but doing this has made it part of my routine and I am much more productive now because of it.
If you haven't read my compilation, Thirty Minutes of Fabulosity yet, I recommend that you do it. It comes in nice bite-sized chunks, there's a little bit of something for everyone, and I am quite proud of a number of the stories in there. Five Minutes, Snowstorm, and You Were Rarity, to name a few of my favorites.
Anyway, now that I've done a month of Rarity, I feel it's time I broadened my horizons and picked a new theme for my thirty-minute ponies. I've got two possibilities I am entertaining. One is to do a month of Rainbow Dash--a character I am desperately out of touch with and could use the practice. My other idea is to write Apple-Pie shipping for every prompt. That one sounds like more fun to me, though there may be some prompts where it becomes infeasible to write Apple-Pie for it.
I dunno. What do you guys think? Should I work on The Dash, or should I see if I can write the Most Delicious Ship every day for a month?
Pies of the apple variety.
ApplePie is Best Pie, but it sounds like your writing skills would benefit more from a month of Dash. That seems like the better option, I suppose. *shrug* I don't know. As a reader, I'm good with either option, so pick whatever's best for you.
I personally find TMP to be the safest place to try new things as a writer, so I'd say go with the Dash for a month. If you can make Dash as awesome as you've made Rarity, I will probably explode into song and dance, fully choreographed. As much as Apple Pie is delicious on all levels, it sounds like spending some time with Blue Pone would be good for you.
ApplePie sounds like fun but as you said you could use some more work on Dash.
What about alternating?
Nuh-uh, Twinkie is Most Delicious Ship.
1031489 Out, heretic! Thy preservative-stuffed convenience store snacks are but pale shadows of the One True Pie!