It's Been A Week, Where's That Chapter You Promised?

Dear Princess Celestia,

This week I learned that taking a two-month break from a project and attempting to return to it right after a gruelling stamina challenge is (to the surprise of everyone involved) not a sensible plan. There's an obvious reason for this, but behind it lies one of the more subtle nuances of writing:

I'm pretty confident that everything I've written so far in Plans Change is terribad.

Don't get me wrong, it has its plus points. There aren't too many spelling and grammar errors, for instance. And it... uh...

Ah. Okay, so it has its plus point. As you might imagine, a realisation like this does not immediately fill me with the desire to pick up a keyboard and continue writing the story—instead, it fills me with the desire to throw my keyboard out of a tenth-floor window and never look upon it again. Thankfully, I know that I can do better than that: so, starting next week, Plans Change is being re-written from the ground up.

Obvious Questions:

1) Why next week? Because I'm lazy? No, in reality it's because I have a one-shot I really want to get done by the end of the month and I want to ease myself back into writing after a two month break. (This is a lie. But it's only a little one. I may or may not be doing an awful lot of writing over the next three weeks. But even if I were, I wouldn't tell you about it. That's why all this is in a spoiler.)

2) What do you mean, "is terribad"? I mean, "is terribad". Quite frankly Plans Change represents some of my worst edited writing and, in my humble opinion, needs to be scrapped and reworked into a consistent, strong narrative, because I think it deserves that. Fifteen Dinners is only marginally better, but I'm leaving that be for now.

3) So when's the new chapter? The short answer is "I don't know". The long answer is that I want to reach a significant milestone in a first draft before I even begin to repost Plans Change, which will probably be thirty chapters (around 100k words? Maybe 150k. Either way, it's a lot.) The idea behind this is that I can really make sure the narrative is strong and consistent if I know where it's headed when I edit, so getting to the end of Act I seems pretty sensible to me. Really, this means Plans Change is probably not going to see an update until after BABSCon, which is sad. It really depends on how much free time I can find next term.

4) I followed you because Fifteen Dinners, what is this Plans Change of which you speak? Oh boy. Okay, so for the new followers among you Plans Change was the first fic I started writing on this site, before getting sidetracked by NaNoWriMo. It's a Chrysalis fic that toys with the idea of her trying to stop the invasion she's leading because reasons that would be spoilers. It also has best pony (Twinkleshine) being best pony and worst pony (no, seriously, I just said Twinkleshine is best pony, why do you care about who worst pony is?) being worst pony. I really don't recommend you go and check it out, because the eight chapters that are posted are going to be completely altered once I've done this re-write, but I can't exactly stop you. I suggest you just hold out for my first one-shot, Not Just Noise, which will be on a fanfiction site near you in a fortnight.

So, I guess this week I've learned that allowing yourself the time to realise that your writing is not as good as it could be in the middle of writing a project is probably not a good plan. Actually, I think this is a lesson I've learned before, many times, which is why my very first letter to you was all about my disappointment in unfinished projects, but I think the lesson stands out all the clearer after a successful NaNoWriMo.

Your faithful student,
Quill Scratch