A Lot of Updates and My Conundrum · 9:41pm Jan 20th, 2014
Alright so... I've been putting this off for a while, but for those who have me followed for certain story reasons, I feel I should at least explain myself. If I don't, this will be bugging me until I do, and effectively putting off my writing until I do. I have a lot that I want to elaborate on, so I feel I should put a sort of "Table of Contents" so that you could skip whatever you want. Anyway... here we go. Any input would be appreciated.
Where the Fuck Have I Been?
Current Story?
Future Stories (Including my possibly one year fic project)
Branching Off and Trying New Stuff?
Official Dropped Projects (At Least For Now)
My Current Conundrum
EQAD Lagging
Possible Opening Up For Commissions (Story and Editing)
Recent Recommendations
Where the Fuck Have I Been?
Alright so, the past month or so I've been balls deep in looking for jobs, because my previous income that was used for Bronycon is now not available. Coffee and interviews and applications was my life for a full week, with one instance where I was awake for 48 hours and living off of coffee to attend those combinations. So far, no luck besides a seasonal job that only lasts a month. But at least that's something and I might take it.
That, and I've also just been working on my current story: On The Wings Of The Moon. It's definitely something that I've never done before. A dark, semi-chapter story where I intend to test my descriptive capabilities. Either way, this site hasn't really been something that I refresh every hour like I used to. Notifications and all that stuff is down to a standstill, and that's cool. It kind of helps, since I usually write with 16 tabs open, and as you might guess, those tabs get distracting.
Current Story
On The Wings of The Moon is my current story, and one that I definitely enjoy writing. I am minutely disappointed that it isn't as popular as it could be, but whenever I think about that, I only imagine the numerous people that have stories better than mine that get no recognition. So I don't even say that anymore. But back on point. That story is probably not going to get updated for a little bit, considering I am going to be changing up my update schedule.
I've always wanted to have that sort of celebration where I upload a chapter a day and enjoy the numerous amount of everything that comes with it. Increased box time and all that BS. But I came to a minor epiphany that I wish to share, if it only applies to me.
When it comes to writing in general, as far as I know, the final product (or as "Final" as you can make it) is something that editors, readers, and everyone else wants. If you have your product from beginning to end ready, you notice errors more as opposed to rushing out chapters or writing up a chapter and thinking "Okay where do I take this from here?"
Maybe that's just how I write. Or at least my new preference. It irks me to think that I could have had a better product if I kept all the chapters until EVERYTHING was ready, but I downsize quality just because I want the chapters out quicker.
Also, thanks to Amacita for providing edits on the story (which he didn't have to, and I still have to apply all of them). That gives me a possible desire to send the story to EQD since there were only a few problems, but I am hesitant because I might get hung up on sending it in there and delay the fic even more. That's what happened with Dash's New Mom's first few chapters.
As such, On The Wings of The Moon will be updated slower than I was going to update it (within the next week), because I want to finish it first and make sure that the story is 100% what I want to publish before I do. I plan to do this with every one of my works from now on, which brings me to my future stories.
Future Stories
The "One Year Fic Project" I'm speaking of is something that I've been teasing for a while now. I've been thinking about it, outlining it, and overall trying to get myself in the zone to start it. Only problem is that it's ridiculously long. Like... at least 300k words long, from what my outline is looking like. This is also one of the reasons that I'm hesitant to keep up my "update whenever I have the chapter ready" attitude, because if I sink even 50k words into a project and it doesn't get "popular" enough for my tastes, I will get really annoyed. And that is no one's fault but my own. It's just a thing that I'm having a hard time accepting. I call it darf syndrome. A lot of people prefer my clop to my actual stories. And... I understand that.
Within this one year fic project, I'm not sure when I will be able to unveil it, but I'm hoping relatively soon. I need to get back into the writing mindset. Even when I'm throwing words on a doc, my editor found that they weren't that bad, so I just need to start doing that. Throw crap at the wall and edit it for the diamonds later.
I also have a numerous amount of one shot ideas (around a dozen), clop and non-clop that I want to write and sprinkle in along with my one year fic project. Finish them before the project unveils so that the most amount of people see my stuff and those ideas wouldn't be clogging up my brain when I'm trying to focus on the project.
Along with those, I plan on starting on the Dash's New Mom sequel.
Branching Off
Alright. For those of you who have seen my blog posts, I am no stranger to trying other stuff. I voice act for The Heroic Tale of Heroically Heroic Heroes and have been trying to get audiobooks off the ground, along with pondering reading fics. Scribbler does that better than me so I kind of ditched that.
But I had a question for those of you that are still actually with me. I was recently asked to be a part of a podcast of the nsfw variety. Mostly spotlighting fics that actually use clop for reasons other than getting hairy palms. I'll be in the first "episode", and I was wondering if you guys would read that. I'm imagining that it would be around the 30-60 minute mark, although I would definitely suggest that it be shorter, since there's a reason that no one watches the EFN review videos. THEY ARE AN HOUR LONG, THATS ONE OF THE REASONS.
But yeah... along with that, I've been working with Alexstrasza on possibly getting into the analysis community, dying however might it be. Considering I want to be a journalist, even if I'm analyzing episodes and putting out videos that have missed the bandwagon so hard that I bruise my ass on the concrete, I was wondering if you guys would be interested in me doing that? Whatever, I'm doing at least one of them anyway.
Official Dropped Projects
Coltbert Report (the fic and the attempted audiobook thing, I don't even know) are officially on hiatus (if that wasn't obvious). I kind of lost my comedy bone for the time being, and that includes trying to emulate Coltbert. Maybe I can revive it sometime. If I do, I'll post a blog or something and you'll see it in the EQD chapter updates, so there's that.
The Therapist Visit audiobook is on hiatus as well, considering my Luna dropped off the face of the Earth and now I gotta find a new one. I was thinking of Hannah May, but she probably has actual paid VA jobs to do, so I can't ask her. Bogyle Bronies have a good Luna, so I've heard. So I might be able to revive it again with her.
My Current Conundrum
I'm two years into fic writing. I started August of 2012 with NaPoWriMo of that year. While I will not say that I am a good writer, I will say that I am decent enough with the written word to actually make money with it. Maybe I have my priorities all wrong, but I am a completely broke college student with dental bills reaching into the 10k because of my lack of insurance. So... money is kind of a priority right now, and if I'm able to make it from my writing... I'm debating actually doing that. I'm sure this would disappear if I actually got a job, but for the time being, financially, I'm pretty fucked. I haven't saved up for Bronycon, and it usually costs 1.2-2k to go since I'm all the way in California. So... as you would imagine... I'm kind of panicking. Thankfully I don't have any bills that I have to pay besides my dental bills (for now, I will in a year when I go to a university), but I had a lot of fun at Bronycon, and I'd like to go again.
Along with this, fanfiction is unfortunately something that I cannot put as a writing example or sample. I do not have anything as credibility towards my writing ability, which is why I'm pondering doing some non-pony writing just so that I could have some examples. So I might post a link to some of my other writings if I happen to create some of them. I've been eyeing Escapist and Cracked, but I also doubt at my ability to writing something at their level. So we'll see when it comes to that...
EQAD Lagging
As you would imagine, job hunting has lowered my ability to post on EQAD. I'm not stepping down or anything unless Alex gets rid of me. I'll still post stuff. It just takes a little bit, but I'll try to have more of a schedule so that I can schedule fics while I'm doing other stuff. I gave up trying to schedule stuff on my phone. I have no idea how Seth fucking does it. Either way... Expect more fics posted.
Possible Opening Up For Commissions
I'm sure you can put two and two together. I wanna make money. And I believe I could convey a decent story. Only problem I have is that the people who I partook within the story swap have still not gotten their fics. (Two of them did, and two are still waiting, but I digress). Since money is being spent and used on me, I'd have more of a priority when it comes to getting out story commissions. I am also debating allowing fic editing as well. How does story commissions for 5 bucks for 1k words sound? Along with editing. 2 bucks for 1k words? That seems cheap to me. Even if one person wants it, I'll probably publish a commissions page soon somewhere.
Recent Recommendations
I don't read that many fanfics, but there have been a few lately that I want to spotlight.
In The Beginning by Obsolescence. It's a neat and cute little story about Luna and Celestia meeting the first ponies and themselves in Equestria. I preread it and enjoyed it, so I recommend it.
Infatuation by Malus Scriptor. Yep, it is a fic by one of my editors, but I never even knew that he was writing such a thing. So when I discovered this work of his, I was genuinely impressed and wondering why he wasn't writing more. I enjoyed it, and it's a little over 1k words. It's in a letter format, and for that format, it was very entertaining. It's about Discord being a creeper and writing a letter about it. Read it and shit. It's awesome.
But yeah... thanks if you stayed for this long... I really needed to get this off my chest. Well I'm off. To where, I have no idea.
You need to change the "Incomplete" on The Coltbert report into an "On Hiatus"
Just a hint
That's sad to hear about your financial situation. I hope it gets better soon!
One thing, though, which I didn't see covered here (although I may have just missed it): What's happening to Therapist Visit: Queen Chrysalis? Is that on hiatus?
1740696
Yeah...
Honestly, since you asked, I have to weigh in. I know I wouldn't pay any attention to a podcast. Too much time investment just to listen to people ramble about the fandom for me, unfortunately.