Official Hiatus News · 1:39pm Feb 20th, 2015
Welp, here we are.
A year and a half since my first chapter was published, the majority of which was spent update-less. I feel really bad because I know from personal experience both on this site and others that no-one wants to come across a really good project only for that project to never get finished, no matter how hard we try.
But... I think it's high time I finally slapped that ugly old "Hiatus" tag to my stories.
Table of Contents:
Yes, this post was long enough to merit a table of contents. This is just so you know what I'm gonna be discussing in this post.
- Becoming a Brony
- Free Story Ideas
- Closing
tl;dr - Try as I might, I can't find motivation right now. Will I ever continue? Hard to say, but maybe one day. And there are some of my story ideas down below.
Becoming a Brony
When I first found MLP: FIM, I was, like many people, very skeptical about the show and it's appeal to older audiences. So much so that, even though I'm not a very mean or rude guy, I found myself laughing at and believing most of the stereotypes associated with Bronies and the fandom in general. It was when my sister, who is not all that much younger than me, actually, was watching an episode or two on Netflix in the same room as my computer every once in a while that, just out of curiosity, I would occasionally peak over and watch along. It started as just a few minutes of a single episode, to the majority of a couple, until I would finally stop whatever it was I was doing to watch along with her.
I don't know what it was about the show that initially captivated me, I'm not gonna lie. I was clueless as to why I suddenly had a fascination with these pastel ponies. It wasn't until some light research into "bronies" that I came across legitimate reasons why I may have fallen in love with the show. Beautifully done animations simply made in Flash (I had been thinking about and doing basic research in animating at the time), brilliant and memorable writing from Lauren Faust, the woman responsible for 2 of my absolute favorite childhood shows, "The Powerpuff Girls" and "Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends", or even the brilliant voice work of Tara Strong, who was also a major role in my childhood as Timmy Turner and Raven. So all in all, the show was pretty compelling as it was.
But as I looked into these things, I also found some works from the fandom as well. Be it beautiful art, funny comic, or amazing animation, fantastic and inspired creativity almost seemed to drip from all corners of this fandom. I think, and I may be wrong since it's been nearly 2 years (geez, I feel old), my first big taste of the fandom aside from random internet memes ("Don't hate! Love and Tolerate!") was MysteryBen27 and his Rhythm is Magic series on Youtube. (He also introduced me to Phoenix Wright, Rhythm Heaven, and Mystery Skulls, but that's a different story all together)
Months passed and after running across things about fanfics throughout the web (mostly on EquestriaDaily.com) I decided to check out this obscure site known as FimFiction.net and the very first fanfiction I read, out of all the possible stories, was The 7th Element by thunderhawk7865. Looking back at it, it wasn't the most incredibly constructed piece of literature out there, but it was enough to warrant me to make an account just so I could like and fave it. I may have also left a comment, but I'm too lazy to go digging around to find out right now.
After reading novels upon novels worth of well-writen fan-made stories, I was suddenly inspired to write a story myself! "I can write a fiction of my own! It doesn't seem too difficult!" And off I went to install Microsoft Word and begin work on my brilliant masterpiece. After days of careful work and consideration, coupled with a fair amount of editing, this was what I had written so far:
MY AWESOME STORYWIP title
The
Brilliant, isn't it? After I realized a story wouldn't just magically pop into my head, I decided to take the more practical approach and do some basic pre-planning. Thus I came up with what you guys now know from Bonus Chapter 1: Behind the Story.
After months of constantly running into incredible stories, only for them not to have any sort of ending frustrated me like any other avid reader. I vowed I would finish my first story even if it killed me! (And we all know how that went, don't we?) I also vowed to make my first story small and simple, maybe no more than a couple chapters. (We also know how that went as well) The breaking of the second vow, caused by both my realization of the potential this story had and it's reception (seriously, I was overwhelmed by the positivity I received after only two chapters), eventually put a strain on the first leading to empty promises of "No Hiatus's" and "Weekly Updates" until eventually depression set in (caused by life related things, not this) and my updates became less and less frequent until finally... *poof* ...radio silence.
I tried new story ideas and even other hobbies entirely in hopes of regaining some sort of inspiration, sorry, wrong word, motivation to keep writing. Oh no, I was inspired enough. I still have all the pre-planning, arc conclusions, and finale all ready to be transmorphed into words on a *.docx file, but the motivation is gone. My motivation for a lot of things has been disappearing. I had been meaning to make some sort of announcement like this for a long while, but it wasn't until one random night at around 3 AM after getting bored of almost everything I have to do that I accidentally clicked my FimFiction bookmark and through tired thought decided "Hey, why not post something now? It's not like you've got anything better to do right now." So here I am blindly typing things as they come to my mind.
I don't mean to sound insensitive. If I do, I apologize. I still love this fandom, this site, and still read a story or two every once in a blue moon. I also still appreciate all you guys (and girls) who read my stories, and by extension my blog posts, though I'm sure that number is fairly limited. I'm mainly typing all this out for therapeutic purposes before going to sleep.
Free Story Ideas
Anyways, as I said earlier I tried a couple new story ideas and as anyone who's checked out my user page would know, I had quite a few stories planned/in the works. Since it's highly doubtful I will get to these any time soon, if ever, I decided to post a brief synopsis of each and my ideas for them. If anyone wants to use anything here for their own stories, feel free. Think of this as a Story Idea Giveaway. For those too lazy to check it out for themselves, here's a copy of said list:
Past, Present, and Future - (Romance)(Comedy)(Adventure)(Human)
• Chapter 24 - Progress 80%
• Chapter 25 - Progress 35%??? - (Slice of Life)(Comedy)(Human)
• Preplanning - Progress 50%
• Cover Art - Unknown I may just use a generic picture from the internet.??? - (Romance)(Comedy)(Slice Of Life)
• Preplanning - Progress 60%
• Cover Art - Progress 97% Just needs some cleaning up and last minute touches.??? - (Romance)(Comedy)(Slice Of Life)
• Preplanning - Progress 30%??? - (Comedy)(Slice Of Life)(Human)
• Preplanning - Progress 40%In a Past Life - (Romance)(Comedy)(Slice Of Life)(Human)
• Chapter 2 -Progress25% On Hiatus until I can get PP&F straightened out.??? - (Crossover)(Comedy)(Adventure)(Human)
• Preplanning - Progress 10%
Now the stories in Blue are stories that take place in the same universe as Past, Present, and Future in some way or another. Green ones are their own standalone universes that don't require any knowledge of my other stories. The whole list is in order of priority. Obviously PP&F is top priority and then my new ideas came next. I wanted IaPL to wait until I had at least finished PP&F before moving it higher on the list.
"Past, Present, and Future" and "In a Past Life" are already known as to what they are about. No you cannot steal or copy my work. You can use any of my characters if you want, just be sure to credit me properly (Like I did for Minalkra).
As for the first two green stories, I had already done a great deal of planning and found the ideas interesting enough to want to write. I had even made story slots on the site for them! With Cover arts, descriptions and everything! Of course, everything including the titles were very work-in-progress as you'll see.
The first one was called "Sister's Collie". Get it? A word play on Sister's Folly? Made even funnier by the fact it's a story about both a collie and pointless tensions between the royal sisters? Anyone? Aw, forget you guys. I though it was clever.
EDIT: I've decided to keep this one in hopes of using it to help my block someday. Since I haven't seen anything similar so far and I haven't been messaged about it, I'll assume no one's used it yet. Feel free to read this section to find out about it (of course with some spoilers, though I may change the course of the final story to avoid that).
Anywho, here's the cover art and description of the story I had in mind:
(Credit to Rariedash for the image)No matter what Celestia tries, she cannot convince her sister to get out more and make some friends. For almost a year now since her return, Luna has remained locked in her room, hardly doing more than raising the moon and exploring dreamscapes. She only wished to remain isolated from everypony, for that was the only thing she knew after a thousand years.
Celestia was just about to give up hope of ever reaching her sister, when a strange Rough Collie suddenly appears out of nowhere in the royal gardens, wounded. Celestia sees this as the perfect opportunity to get her sister to make a new friend. Luna, however, doesn't especially care for dogs. She only sees them as day-running mindless mutts.
The only problem is... I'm not quite as mindless as they think I am.
A/N:
This is a test to see if I could not only do a non-romance story, but also write a character as appearing to lack intelligence but not at the same time. Um... if you understand what I'm trying to say.Some inspiration was taken from A Feline's Point of View by Zman537, a wonderful little story that, if you've never heard of it, you should feel ashamed for not having read yet.
Not mentioned in the Author's Note at the end there was that this was also a test in present tense writing, which I am not very good at as you can tell by that description alone. I probably would have reverted back to past tense had I actually started writing anything notable for the story. Also the whole story was going to be in third person limited.
Anyways, my plan was to start the story following Celestia. Her and her sister would have some sort of argument over Luna's seclusive habits and end with a yell from Luna and a door slam in Celestia's face. Celestia would then wander out to the garden to think about what she can do to help her sister, only to find an injured Collie (Rough Collie to be exact, so larger than Winona, probably just under normal pony size) passed out beneath a statue. Whether or not the exact statue or it's occupant would have any baring later in the story had yet to be decided. Scene closes with Celestia carrying the poor animal to the nearest vet, but not before an invisible plan and a smirk appears.
The Collie (an unnamed female character. I mean literally unnamed. I couldn't decide on a decent name for her) wakes up at a vet's office. In standard HiE fashion, she's dazed and confused. So much so that she wasn't even sure if she had always been four-legged. Of course she gradually comes to her senses over time and before any sort of panic or disbelief sets in, the Sisters enter the room to check on her. (Sidenote: Not a Brony in Equestria story. This was meant to be a human from a world where MLP doesn't exist, or at the very least, she had never heard of it) Blah blah blah, insert details and fluff, and Celestia somehow tricks Luna into caring for the Human-turned-Collie, neither aware of her true sentience as she is unable to speak more than rough dog noise (no pun intended... but well appreciated).
Blah blah blah, Luna and the Collie don't get along, blah blah blah, the Collie uses her "disguise", so to speak, to pull pranks around the Castle, though mostly on Luna, blah blah, they somehow grow closer, blah blah, Luna somehow discovers the Collie's true sentience, blah blah blah, basically the rest of the details were not yet ironed out. Open to interpretation if you will.
This next one I had a little more fleshed out. I just didn't have it above Sister's Collie in priority due to the topic is covers, which even in a 'Love and Tolerate' fandom can still get some unwanted attention. This story was called "Gay Ol' Time", you know, like that one line in the Flintstones theme? It makes more sense once you understand the premise of the story. Anyways, here's the Cover art and description I had:
What happened to my life? I was just dandy a couple days ago. My business was doing great, my coat and mane were both as marvelous as ever, and I was friends with nearly everypony in Ponyville, which is a serious accomplishment for a stallion in a town full of mares. So why did everything have to turn sour so quickly?
I had been living here for nearly a year and everything was fine because everypony assumed one simple detail about me that simply wasn't true. But did anypony think to ask me about it directly? Here's a hint: No, they didn't. After a simple miscommunication with one of my friends, she found out the truth, and knowing that mare, it didn't take long for word to spread. Now that my "secret" is out, my business is failing, friends are avoiding or shunning me, the stress is ruining my mane, and worst of all... the mare I've admired since I moved here won't even look at me in the eye.
What could have been so simple yet so complicated that could tear my life to shreds like this? Well, this is the story of how everypony falsely assumed...
I was gay.
A/N:
This is just a test to see if I can handle some slightly more "Slice of Life" style writing. I openly welcome criticism from anypony! ...except from my editor. He can shove it right up- Er... a tree. Yeah, right up a tree.
I knew from the moment I theorized this story it'd receive some sort of flack in some shape or form, if only for the entire premise. Pushing that aside, my main character (the obvious blue one in the cover) was designed after... what as that pony's name? "Pincushion"? "Needle-something"? Pinprick! That's the one! Look 'em up. He's a background pony at a party poking things with his pointy horn. His name was Lacey Nandermane, but goes by the name Lace, also has no relation the Parish Nandermane the musician (a sort of running gag idea for the story). Bowtie cutie mark (not yet drawn, but simple enough), and owns and runs a haberdashery in Ponyville. Personality-wise he's very friendly, easy to get along with, pretty flamboyant, and into fashion nearly as much as Rarity, who is one of his close friends along with Fluttershy, Derpy, and Rose (who was the only pony I didn't get in the cover photo yet).
Yeah, you can probably see why he might have been mistaken for being gay, but that was my plan for this story. To attack those stereotypical characteristics of "gay people", and eventually show that stereotyping can lead downhill very fast for everyone involved (No, I wasn't going to have Lace or any other character write a letter to Celestia even though the story has a moral).
The Description pretty much covered all the bases of the story aside from the love interest, who is... entirely up to whoever thinks they could write this story. In some of my pre-planning for how I wanted events to unfold, it started as Rose, but that was quickly swept away, then it became Derpy, but she was pushed to the side as a 'maybe' along with Fluttershy. THEN I thought of adding another character to the mix of main characters like one of the Spa Twins or one of the other flower shop mares. I don't know, really. I think by the end I leaned more toward Flutters, but hadn't officially decided.
Alright, so the rest of these stories weren't nearly as put together as the last two, so they are going to be a tad shorter.
First on the list in "???" blue is simply the possible sequel to Past, Present, and Future, following Zack as the series of events from Season 3 unfold before him, and possibly seasons 4 and 5 depending on how things progressed (For the most part, the events that took place in season 4 onward after I had planned everything worked surprisingly well with what I had, so no major plot holes or differences between the 2 universes so far)
One particular chapter idea was the Mirror Pool episode. Zack would roll into town shortly after the Pinkie Pie invasion begins, and of course, not wanting to interfere too much with the storyline of season 3, he is about to leave when he comes across a Pinkie clone that seems to have more awareness, more of a grasp of the current situation and how bad it's gotten. Knowing the fate of the more mindless clones, he offers to help her out, blah blah blah. Long story chapter short, after the rest of the clones are gone and the real Pinkie Pie passes out in the doorway of Sugarcube Corner, Zack comes up and introduces the final clone, only she now has white fur, wings, yeah I'm sure you can see where this is going, her name is Surprise...
Surprise!
Next on the list was one of those random what-if ideas that sorta appeared and developed in my mind into a bigger story. Imagine a human guy with all the major traits of Pinkie Pie, appearing in Ponyville, bearing a striking resemblance to Bubble Berry. Oh yeah, and his real name is Barry, with an 'a'. This one is Brony in Equestria. Basically Barry and his five friends all like MLP FIM and share characteristics of the mane 6, but after getting transported to Equestria, Barry doesn't really want to return home, which as you may guess could cause some... er, annoyance to most of the ponies in ponyville.
I even started writing a smidge of the first chapter shortly after coming up with the idea, though instead of posting it here in an already super long blog post, I'll just link to a Google Drive copy of it. Heh, rereading it now, I think I did a lot better with writing it than I remember. It still made me laugh: Click Me!
The final story on the list is a crossover that I cannot believe no one has done so far (at least at the time of coming up with the idea, it's been nearly a year so maybe someone has done it and I don't know about it). It's a crossover between MLP: FIM and BBC's Merlin. I mean, if written correctly, these two worlds could mesh together so well, it's almost scary! If you haven't seen it but like most of the BBC's other main shows like Doctor Who or Sherlock, I highly recommend it. It ended a bit before it's time, but it was still enjoyable, and after seeing the whole show a couple times, a crossover with MLP is entirely within the realm of possibilities.
CLOSING
And that's pretty much it. I may have quickly tossed around some other ideas, whether interesting or mediocre is up for debate, but that's the jist of it.
While I had some decent motivation, most of these ideas seemed like a lot of fun to try to do, but right now I don't think I will be able to tackle any of these plans any time soon. Maybe one day, but today is not that day, nor is tomorrow, nor the day after. In fact none of next week is any good. I don't know, I'd have to check my schedule...
Well it's about time! Sheesh, I was wondering where you'd been.
2815971
Haha, yeah. I'm one of the worlds biggest procrastinators. I actually think typing this whole thing out helped me some, as I feel a lot better today for some reason!