To Harvest Some Readers · 9:28pm Feb 6th, 2014
Hello all you lovely people. Or, however many of you lovely people are still bothering to watch me after my long spell of radio silence. I haven't exactly been a paragon of activity since I finished my last Thirty Minutes compilation.
I could spout off a couple excuses for this, but you folks aren't interested in that, are you? No, you want to see the monkey dance, not listen to it explain why it hasn't really been feeling in the groove lately, and there's another guy with a music box down the street who gives his monkey peanuts, and how its toe kinda aches a little bit in the mornings.
Very well. I shall dance.
I've not been idle during this down-time, at least. My new-year's resolution was to sit down and write something every day, and so far I've yet to break it. Season Four seems to be intent on knocking down my headcanon for the fics I was working on before the end of the year piece by painful piece. Not surprising; canon, after all, marches on. But it does sting to have twenty four thousand words sunk into a fic that I can't bring myself to continue because Season Four has made it wrong, irrelevant, or both.
However, I've got at least one survivor. Fillies and gentlecolts, I present for your amusement:
Bitter Harvest
Readers of An Apple A Day will recognize this as one of the stories from my Thirty Minute series. I have taken the concept established in that story and run with it, expanding it into an eight-chapter, 16k-word romp through Golden Harvest's head.
The major writing is done. I only need to get it in front of some pre-readers, and this is the part where I ask for your help. I need to get some extra eyes on this thing so that what I present to all of you is the best of what it can be. If any of you would like to take a look and tell me what I'm doing wrong before I go and publish that wrongness to Fimfic, I encourage you to head on over to the shared document and give it a read.
Thank you, and the story should be in the queue in a few days, if all goes to plan. Have a great day!
I am so stoked for this story. That was my favorite TMP entry of yours.
Wow, that's great! I really wish I had the time to spare. But I will play a passive role, and I will enjoy it in the reading. I'm pretty sure it's gonna be great regardless.
Dance harder, Esle!
I haven't read An Apple a Day *dodges brick*, but... am I correct in interpreting that picture as GoldenJack shipping? Because I'm all for that, if it is. I can't immediately recall ever seeing that ship before, even though I suppose it's a fairly obvious one.
1804103 I'll not get too spoilery, but I think I like the ship name 'Golden Apple' a little better. It's got a rather mythical ring to it. Not sayin' for sure it's in there, of course...
And hey, no worries if you missed AaD. Those Thirty Minute compilations are a lot harder to follow if you're behind on them, 'cause then it's not just one bite-sized, 800-word update at a time anymore, but a whole 20-30k words of non-connected short stories to catch up on.
I think I've found just one Golden Apple story before, and it was kinda bizarre, because the character Golden Harvest was actually two twin sisters, Golden Harvest and Carrot Top, and they both wanted Applejack. But on a general level, the idea of shipping two rival farmers makes enough sense. I heard somewhere (likely from a very unreliable source, so it may be just a bunch of wind) that Golden Harvest was supposed to be Applejack's Trixie-style rival, but it just never really happened.
Count me in, friend. This is gonna be so freaking awesome. And funny.
1803742
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/Twilight%20Sparkle%20Party%20hard2.gif
static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131005163957/spongefan/images/f/f0/Dis_gon_b_gud.gif
Mind if I dance too?
iambrony.dget.cc/mlp/gif/168928__UNOPT__safe_pinkie-pie.gif
Fun. Bitter Harvest was one of the really good ones from your thirty-minute collections. I definitely want to read it, but I don't know if it'll be soon enough for me to offer any proofreading assistance. Also, that picture is silly.
So, how about a synopsis on the fic you were 24k words into when season four screwed it up? Although, you can always just post it with a disclaimer that it's canon-accurate up through season three, and I don't think anyone would mind. After all, there's plenty of long-running stories that don't even try to incorporate new canon anymore. But yeah, I know on the creative end it's rather frustrating, and I've had some ideas messed up that way myself. I never get around to writing anything anyway, though, so it doesn't matter much for me, but when you're that far into it, it seems like a real waste to abandon it. Maybe just post what you have so far, then decide what to do with it based on the reception?
1805573 Hehe, thanks. I'm pleased with how the cover image turned out.
I actually just re-checked that story, and it looks like I was exagerating. I'm only fifteen thousand into it, not twenty four. Still a fair chunk of words.
The story of which I speak is Everypony Loves Pie, which I have mentioned in a few other blogs. In it, Pinkie Pie is romantically entangled with each of her friends. Individually, not as a group, which is sure to lead to long-term happiness for all and absolutely no drama whatsoever.
The S4 rub comes with Twilight's side in all this. Her being trapped in Canterlot by the bureaucracy of becoming a princess was a major catalyst for putting the plot of the story into motion. The season premiere established that that wasn't really a factor.
Not a huge obstacle to write around; they never really said there wasn't pencil pushers and red tape involved at some point between S3 and S4. And even if it was insurmountable, you're right that I don't have to follow new canon. The problem, I guess, is that I was writing Twilight's portion of the story to resolve my own personal ambivalence over the S3 finale. I don't have that motivating me anymore, so unless I find a different angle to take for Twilight's arc, that part of the story, and by extension the whole story, will be painfully uninspired and dull to write.
I could release the first few chapters, but it would most likely end in a story that gets put on eternal hiatus once I ran out of steam on it. That's never fun for anybody.
Idk. It seems the easiest course of action is just to whine about it. That takes less effort than actual solutions.
1805832
Mm, yeah, personal motivation is definitely the most important factor, so I suppose it's a different situation when new canon resolves part of your reason for writing it, as opposed to simply creating factual conflicts. Still unfortunate, but at least it helped you keep up your daily writing, so I guess maybe it's best to just think of it as practice.
This is great! I remember that one, and I think back then I commented that I'd love to see it fleshed out, so yeah, definitely looking forward to this one.
I'm gonna see if I can find the time to read over it before you post it.
1805832
I was about to suggest you make it an AU fic, but that's a whole another thing you're facing. In a way, the hiatus periods between the seasons are the best, or at least the most free, time for fanfic writers, as you have a fresh season's worth of episodes to draw ideas and inspiration from, and the show's not running away from you while you write.
Hey, I'm not sure if you still want more feedback on this, since you've uploaded the first chapter now, but I finished reading it last night. Then I went and accidentally fell asleep instead of doing anything about that fact, oops. Actually, once I saw that you were looking for feedback on the content more than simply catching typos and such, I realized I probably should have just waited to read it normally, because I wasn't likely to be super helpful. And I was right, because only two tiny little things even came to mind to mention. Still, I added comments about them, if you still want them. Either way, you don't need to mention me as a pre-reader or anything, since I barely did anything, and it's kinda late anyway.
By the way, back to the topic of the show wrecking ideas for fan works, I have a new one I can mention, coincidental as the timing is. Way back in December, 2011, I started making a picture I never finished for various reasons (most of them lousy), but always thought I'd finally get to some day. It was going to be an animated picture of Pinkie putting her hoof in her mouth, then blowing, to inflate her tail like a balloon until she floats away. Then Too Many Pinkie Pies had one of the clones do the blowing-into-her-hoof trick, and I said grr. Still, that was only half the joke, so I thought I might still do it, even if it didn't seem as new anymore. And now Simple Ways had her do the inflating-part-of-her-body-like-a-balloon-to-float-away portion, so now the joke is pretty much done and old news now. I don't know if I ever actually would have gotten around to finally finishing it, but it's still a little annoying knowing that I never did and now it's too late to bother. I still think her tail would have worked better than her head, though. Her tail even kinda looks like a deflated balloon, which was part of my thinking for the original idea.
Anyway! So yeah, your story was pretty fun, and I wish I could've been more helpful, but I just really didn't see much that needed changing. Not sure if I'll still comment on it here like normal or not, too, but if I don't, know that I enjoyed reading it, at least.