On Time and Ideas

I know no one reads these ramblings, but that's fine with me. If hell freezes over and I write a story that results in more people following me, they can search my archives and find these. Buried treasure? Buried garbage? I don't know. That's not my call.

I feel bad about not posting stories more often. As of now I have only two published (technically three, but I haven't made the third one public and may never do so). I'm almost finished with a new one – just a few hundred more words in the last chapter and it'll be ready. Hopefully I can publish the first chapter – which has been uploaded for four months but is as of now still private – within 24 hours.

I've been working on the story off and on since May. It's now the beginning of October. The story is only around 5000 words total, in three chapters. That is utterly pathetic, since there's plenty who can do that many words in two or three days. I don't deny that I'm a slow writer. Even at my fastest pace, I can't do more than 1200 or so in a day. Kinda goes without saying that I won't be taking part in National Novel Writing Month anytime soon.

Part of it is that I'm likely one of the older writers on this site — just like I'm one of the older people in this fandom. Without giving anything away, let's just say I've been past my teenage years for a long time. Hell, I've been out of college for awhile. Basically, I can't devote as much time as I want to writing stories. Most of the rest is that I am a perfectionist.

One of my biggest pet peeves is incomplete stories. I don't want to leave even my tiny handful of readers hanging, so I don't publish anything unless it's completed – or at least completely outlined and mapped out – on my end.

Let's put it this way — I started writing a Pinkamena Diane Pie fanfic in the summer of 2013. It's over 50,000 words. I have five of six Parts (which will be subdivided into chapters; who wants to read a 16,000 word chapter?) completed. I can't even think about publishing it because I'm not sure how to write that final part – climaxes have always been my weak suit. Also, I have to completely redo the first two sections because the introduction of Maud Pie after I finished Part 3 required me to significantly revise everything, and because I wasn't happy with the flow in Part 2.

Also, I've already registered a follow-up to the Burrito story, from Sonata's perspective. I haven't written a word of it yet, but I know where I want to go with it. Really there's only one way I can go since it's an alternate-POV retelling of its twin. Difference is that Sonata's story won't be comedic at all. It may or may not have internal rambling. I really have to be in the right mood to do that. I want to do it, let's be clear about that.

Also-also, my laptop I'm working on is old, and I'm hoping it doesn't die on me before I can get important stuff moved to an external HDD in preparation for a new computer.

So… that's my shouting into the wind for today.