More Stories! · 8:11pm Aug 16th, 2014
Howdy, y'all!
First, I need a moment to catch my breath...somehow, I managed to crank out 11,000+ words in one week to finish my submission for the Outside Insight Summer Fanfic Contest. I haven't thrown down words that fast since I cranked out "Dressed To Kill" in two days during the early days of MKE.
I have to admit, my first reaction to the contest prompt was "Darnit, I wrote my submission for this a year ago." Still, I decided to go back to that well a second time, and with a little motivation from Tom T. Hall, I tried to answer the question "How does the Equestrian legal system look to a non-pony?"
The result: Three Days In The Cooler, the story of a traveling zebra's memorable stay in the Trottingham jail. (By my calculations, the result is also the 5th longest story submitted to the contest. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed.) Our striped hero falls victim to the trap of an overzealous bureaucrat, and finds himself among a cast of criminals who aren't exactly fond of zebras. Can he win over his cellmates? Will they win him over? Check it out and see!
So what's my goal for this story? With heavy hitters like ROBCakeran53 and Blueshift in the running, I don't have a chance in Tartarus of winning anything, but I'd like to at least make it out of the group stage (although my chances of even doing that are remote). Still, I enjoyed the challenge of a non-pony POV, and I figure I can only improve by writing more. (Besides, my prize comes out on the 26th whether I win or not.)
So what's next? I was about 2,500 words into Chapter 20 of MKE before the contest excursion, so I'll get back to that once my keyboard cools off. The plan is to focus exclusively on MKE for a while - the story's reaching the homestretch, and ideally I'd like to wrap it up before its three-year anniversary in December.
