• Member Since 9th Jun, 2012
  • offline last seen Mar 6th, 2017

keaton-furman-prower


Does anyone play the MLP mobile game? My friend code is a49657.

More Blog Posts36

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    This is weird

    So, I was reading the TVTropes page for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and when I went to the trivia section, I found out that, in the Mexican dub, Captain Phasma is voiced by the same person as Princess Celestia. Then, to top that off, I found out that the German dub has Rey being voiced by the same person as

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Jul
12th
2015

I just don't know what to do anymore · 7:41am Jul 12th, 2015

Hey guys. I think it's time for us to have a really serious conversation.

So, as you're undoubtedly aware, It's been over a year and a half since I last updated The Prince of the Night. Some of you really want to see updates, some of you aren't desperate but would enjoy seeing it come back, but I'm willing to bet that most of you have pretty much forgotten that this story even exists. And this story hasn't exactly been a priority for me.

Why? Well, there are many reasons. It began shortly before I submitted this story to Equestria Daily. As you may imagine, it got rejected. After this, I decided that I might as well try again. And so I began to do what I am currently trying to do: revisit, rewrite, and redo large parts of the story in order to improve it.

This is where the trouble started.

When I started writing this story, I didn't have any ambitions for it. For the most part, I was just trying to have some fun with shipping ponies. Yeah, the entire premise was kind of silly, but I didn't care; I was having fun doing something I enjoyed. But then something terrible happened.

It became popular.

Suddenly this story had fifty likes. Then eighty. Then a hundred. People wanted more. And so I had to work hard to please them. But the plans I had were... not all viable. Subplots had to be changed, added, dropped, or, on occasion, left dangling. I'm hoping that the re-write will remedy that a bit, but I still have more to say before I can say anything about that.

After I began the re-write, I began to notice another problem: Whenever my editor pointed out something he felt was a flaw, I felt a compulsive need to rectify it. Even if it wasn't really a problem, I felt that I needed to make sure everything was perfect. And more often than not, I didn't know what I needed to do, so I just wrote stuff and hoped for the best. Maybe it's perfectionism, or maybe it's just fear of letting my followers down. More often than not, I've found that I have absolutely no idea what to do, and so I simply ignore it for a while hoping to figure something out... only to forget that I was supposed to be doing something.

Another thing that I've had trouble with: The show, and thus the fandom, moved on. When I began the hiatus, I had a certain set of headcanons, known canons, and ideas. Ever since then, a lot has changed. We've learned a lot about the MLP universe, both from the show and from alternate sources (Whether or not those count as canon is up to you, but they certainly have an effect on our way of thinking). And, as I've gone through this, my headcanons and ideas have changed. Stuff that I never would have thought of before has now become interesting, while old ideas I had have been discarded.

Of course, there's one big problem that has always plagued me: I have an irrational fear of going over my old work (If anyone can tell me the name of that phobia, I'd appreciate it). I know, it sounds rather silly, but whenever I look over stories that I wrote a while ago, I just... feel really uncomfortable. I don't know why, but it just gives me goosebumps. For some of my stories it's not so bad, but for this one, it's far worse than average.

Finally, there's one huge problem: I'm not as interested in this story as I was before. Like I said before, I've gone through a lot with this fandom, and so I've gained new ideas, headcanons, and even OTPs. And as a result, I've had many new ideas I wanted to try out. And this story basically just represents a part of the fandom that I've left behind. As you'll notice, I started writing it soon after the season 2 finale. Then the season 3 premiere happened, and so I hastily re-wrote a few scenes talking about the Crystal Empire. I've tried to keep it at a minimum, but it's happened a few more times (Heck, Flash Sentry of all ponies gets a cameo). Unfortunately, it's not going to work forever, because this story is fundamentally incompatible with most of post-season 2 canon.

For an example, look no further than the most recent episode (That's the Princess Luna And Mane Six Re-enact Inception episode, for those of you reading this in the future). In it, we find out that Luna has been plagued by her own guilt over Nightmare Moon, which made her create an evil shadowy being called Tantabus to punish her for her sins. This, of course, would wreak havoc on the entire story. After all, would Twilight find out about Tantabus while Lucian was teaching her to dreamwalk? Would she try to save him from its influence? Would it somehow manage to escape and turn into the shadowy being we've seen earlier?

So, yeah, that's pretty much it. At this point, I just don't know what to do with this story anymore. I don't want to cancel it, partly because I know there are still people who want more, and partly because there's still some small part of me that wants to see this story through. On the other hand, I don't feel like continuing it, because there are a bunch of other things that I want to be able to work on without having to worry about this story. *cough*

Anyway, I'm sorry for this. I'm sorry for everything. And I'm grateful for those of you who still appreciate this story and all my other works.

Comments ( 7 )

So what I'm about to say might be crazy, like really crazy.
Make a new story, since the show is now on a hiatus, you would have time to plan and work things out.
I'm not saying delete the story, just make a new one... if we are aloud to do that.

Well... you could omit the part about the Tantabus (since your story is already an AU)

Spacecowboy
Moderator

Or, here's the most novel concept... write the story how you'd planned it, shoring up the weak spot that were weak plot-wise only, and write what you'd planned to in the first place. The show should not change how you write something, and an opinion from your editor does not always mean that you need to change something. Ignore EqD, focus on writing because YOU ENJOY WRITING AND NOTHING ELSE.

If you get so wrapped up in everythin BUT your story, of course you're going to stall out hard. That, and writing is going to be something you end up hating. You should be writing for you own sake, fuck the world. I mean it, seriously. Who cares what others think, how many people are following a story, et cetera? It's your time, it's your writing, it's YOUR STORY. I can understand the pressure, but I've let my stories with 1,000+ stories sit, it's something you've just to find your own way to deal with.

So, either find the delight in what you had planned for yourself originally, or chunk it man. Just don't let others mess up what writing means to you, okay?

Good luck, no matter your decision.

3230629 preach it brother, preach it.

I was gonna say pretty much exactly that.

Another way to say it is this:

Think about professional writers. For the most part they write because they have an idea (or more) they want to write about. When writing their focus is getting their ideas down in a manner they're happy with. The editor's job is to help eliminate grammatical errors. The editor can give advice about the story HOWEVER you don't have to follow that advice if you're not comfortable with it and your editor should understand that.

Now a big difference between writers that write books and writers here is that those who write books spend months or years hashing out their book before the world sees it and judges if they like it or not.
Writers here post a chapter weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, bi-monthly, etc. according to their personal schedules. So it's seen by the world that often with people voting and commenting on the story as it's being written.

Which brings me to my advice in my words:

Write because you want to write and write what you want to write. Don't worry about how popular or unlinked it is until you've finished the story. If you can't help worrying to a degree about the votes and comments then remember this phrase, 'you can please some of people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.' Either way don't let it sway your desire to write. Don't feel pressured to write because people up vote. Don't feel you write differently because people down vote. Above all don't feel pressured to follow the show/comic canon or anyone else's canon. You tagged the story Alternate Universe so you have no responsibility to follow any canon but your own.

Now I've enjoyed the story you've posted so far enough to read it 3 times. My advice if you're not satisfied with what you've put up so far then rewrite it from the beginning that makes you satisfied. If you decide to rewrite from the beginning I advise to not post anything until you've got 18 chapters ready for posting (same number you currently have up) as well as have at least another two or three planned out. The whole point of that is to write in your own time.

I think that's enough to be said.

Good fortune & luck
-K.

It's up to you what you want to do. Ultimately I believe in finishing what one started as it shows dedication and a small satisfaction of finishing a story rather than a regret of having an idea burn out in your head. It doesn't matter really what happened in the show. The idea of creating a story that is timeless and compatible to the source material is rarely attained in any other fandoms - take Star Wars for example. The only way the new movie was going to come out and make sense was if they eliminated and un-canonized anything contrary to it.

In short, do what you want with it. Make the last stretch and toss away any notion of being good 'fanon' or just walk away and pick up a new story. Regardless you have someone who will read it.

This is just a suggestion, but what if you just found someone who wanted to continue it and pass it on to that author? That way you can focus on your story and those of us who wanna see some updates can.

I've enjoyed Prince of the Night while it lasted. If you'd like to revisit it, you could do so on your own terms. But you don't owe anything to me or anyone else. You're writing for free on the internet, and I feel like sometimes people forget that in fandom.

Do what you'd like to do. It'll work out.

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