More Blog Posts68

49 weeks
Probably the last update on Smashing Down for the foreseeable future

When I last posted about it, a year ago, I talked about how the Invasion of Ukraine left me unwilling to write it because of the central focus: The Russian team that is the primary POV of the story. Back in 2020, I even started preliminary work on a rewrite, but that was before the invasion, before I started to read up more on military equipment, and before I improved further as a writer.
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111 weeks
Rewriting Smashing Down: How the Pandemic and the Invasion of Ukraine smothered most of my will to rewrite it

The title is descriptive enough, but I don't think I need to tell any of you how rough 2020 was. For me, 2020 and 2021 were both years of stress, near-homelessness, loss, joblessness, and many other difficulties. Writing slowed, and then stopped.
And then, once I was finally pulling myself together, the invasion of Ukraine happened.
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2 comments · 256 views
197 weeks
On Rewriting Smashing Down, And Writing Again

I have tried thrice to rewriting Smashing Down, or to pick up where I last left off. Every time, I am reminded that the story was written when I was sixteen, in 2013. My writing back then was decent enough to get attention, but I look back on a lot of it with embarrassment, for a large variety of reasons.
Smashing Down, as it stands, cannot be rewritten.
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13 comments · 458 views
321 weeks
Sometimes, to make something better, you have to burn it down first...

I last posted an update nearly two years ago stating that I would be editing Smashing Down. That turned out to be a lie, a task I gave up on several months and barely a couple chapters in. Within that time, I have become a far better writer, and thought up far better ways to introduce the story and setting in a way that will both make more sense and make for a far more interesting story than the
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14 comments · 562 views
408 weeks
On the future of Smashing Down

I should warn you that the following will contain criticism of my writing and my plans for what to do with Smashing Down.
It was one of my first stories, and certainly one that gained a fair bit of popularity. It even hit the front page a few times on FimFiction. Plenty of people have enjoyed it, and it maintains a very good like ratio.
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4 comments · 618 views

Jul

7th

2013

The first few paragraphs of the STALKER fic · 4:58am Jul 7th, 2013

Just to show my progress on Chapter 1, which will be (sort-of) 'An Idiot's Guide to the Zone (and what the hell is happening)', as well as the introduction to the main character. Don't worry, it does involve ponies (probably after Chapter 2). Remember, this is still heavily WIP, and could be changed at any time.

Well, here you go.

Remnant Shadows
Chapter 1
The cold winds swept across the country side, scatters patches of grass swaying in the breeze. Dead trees dotted the landscape, reminding all who passed them of what had happened to this once pristine environment. The fields were vacant of all but the rusting hulks of cars and the occasional anomaly: Features as much a part of the Zone as the creatures that inhabited it.
That was how it was: The Zone was a dreary, sad place. The years since the original expansion had not been kind on it. Wildlife still inhabited some fields, if you could call it that. Horrible aberrations of nature were only one hallmark of life in this desolate land.
A lone figure stood on a small hill, looking out over the expanses. The figure was encased in a suit that covered him entirely, sheltering him from the horrors outside, be they natural or otherwise. In the Zone, not much qualified as ‘natural’.
The man inside the suit, for it was a man, breathed onto the cold glass inches from his face. The only sound he could hear, aside from the muted roar of the wind, was the whirr of the closed-cycle breathing system. He looked out of his transparent visor, scanning the desolate landscape for the one thing all STALKERS both loathed and loved in equal measure: Anomalies.

I hope you enjoy this brief view of it.

Feel free to give suggestions. This will be a long project, probably around a month away from the first chapter even being published.

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