So I Entered Another Writing Contest · 3:19am Aug 16th, 2014
Since everyone else seems to have done it and I totally don't want to be a weirdo for not jumping on the bandwagon, I figured I'd make a blog post about my most recent story. This is the only warning I'm going to give, so lookout: potential spoilers ahead.
A strange, lonely creature that's always on the move drifts into a village one day. It wants nothing more than to find somewhere warm to settle, but such places are hard to come by. However, it is hopeful, despite all the dangers inherent to this village.
So anyways, Equestria Daily has been hosting a writing contest for the late summer, called Outside Insight. The prompt is simply thus: Write a story about ponies from a non-pony's perspective. My mind immediately jumped to seeing people writing stories involving the likes of changelings, gryphons, cows, rocks, and any of the other species the show has presented us with.
My initial thought was to write a story about a windigo wandering into Ponyville (the idea I developed for that will end up spawning into something else entirely), as I became suddenly enraptured by two sentences I'd thought of that I just had to get put into a story. They're there in Sylphidine of course, but because of the particular wording of these sentences, the story ended up being written in the present tense. It wasn't what I wanted, because third-person in the present tense don't usually sit right with me for some reason. But I like playing around and experimenting with writing, so I went with it. That little analysis of the self however led me to end up, somehow, deciding to write an original species. So out went the windigo, and with the challenge of creating an original species in my palms, I took the only real bit of my first idea—those two sentences—and ran with it.
Well, I guess it'd be wrong for me to say that the species I ended up creating is wholly original. After some research for ideas, also known as me randomly hopping around Dictionary.com, I stumbled upon sylphs. Sylphs are, in the most widely accepted description, mythological spirits of the air. Air elementals, if you will. In fact, that's really the only comprehensive description. Actual information about these creatures is nearly nonexistent, so with that in mind, I immediately wanted to go invent some. The end product is what I ended up with in Sylphidine.
As always, feedback is more than welcome for anyone who cares to give it a read. The contest has pulled together well over 70 stories so far, and there's looking to be some serious competition. The judges are more than competent and with ten potential winners, I'm biting my nails here, though with anxiety or excitement I can't say for certain. Let me at least say it's better not be rushing to finish at the last minute for a change.
I've also got the next installment of my Read It Later series coming up, which should hopefully be out in a day or two.
Toodles for now, I guess.
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