Black Lotus is coming, and someone liked my writing guide! · 1:24am Oct 3rd, 2015
So, what's new on this fine overcast (here near Seattle) Friday afternoon?
A couple things. The big one is that I heard back from Equestria Daily about Black Lotus. The pre-readers were very helpful and gave me some good feedback that I've just finished using to do the last few edits and final clean-up, but going beyond that they wanted something very significantly changed, and it's something that at the moment I'm really not ready to do. I think that the sort of philosophical didactic that part of this story was intended to be just isn't the kind of thing they're looking for, so at the current time I'm going to let go of any ambitions of getting this one onto EqD. Maybe in a future edition, if I want to come back to it.
For now, though, it's time this thing saw the light of day, so long story short, I'm just going to go ahead and finally publish it on FimFiction. Look for it on probably Monday or Tuesday!
Something else I found interesting came out of that process. On the bottom of the feedback e-mail from EqD was a link to their Editor's Omnibus:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dqgYO7OqGDcE3CZ8V6WDOBKTITjzvbrHdyXOFtm_dfI/edit?usp=sharing
Out of curiosity, I opened it up to give it a read-through. Lo and behold, my name was there on the third link down!
I never knew that someone at Equestria Daily had seen this guide, let alone liked it enough to make it a recommended resource for helping people write horse stories. I'm not sure what to say, other than... wow! I'm flattered. Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'm just pleased to know it's helping the community. 
So... Black Lotus incoming, and something I wrote is apparently a sliver more useful than I realized. I think that's about it for now. See you later! 
Huh. Any specifics on what they wanted changed? I know I got bumped when I submitted Concept Art - Captured In Stone because they didn't like about thirty small things in it, but mostly because it was too formulaic for them. Black Lotus is anything but that. (Note: I helped a little with the pre-reading)
3438282 Oh, they didn't like that some of the most important didactic parts between Twilight and Luna (mostly in chapter 4) didn't feel enough like "natural" dialogue to them, and that it covers common philosophical questions without enough "new" material on the issues. I can think of some things to possibly fix this, but not without a lot of reworking and figuring out entirely new ways to introduce some of the concepts that I really want to be in there, since this is meant to be more on the accessible-to-everyone side and more introductory than advanced.
I don't blame them, because these are valid faults to find in the story from the perspective of a reader who's very familiar with the premise already. I may go back and do another revised version in the future, but I think I want to just get on with publishing this more basic form for now.
Darn it - I'll be away when it goes live. No matter, it'll will be waiting safely in my notifications when I get back
Aww, boo!
3438807 I know, boo indeed. I was kinda disappointed, but I have to admit I sort of went in with the feeling that a story this philosophical probably stood a good chance of not being something they'd be very eager for, so... I'll just have to chalk it up to, "you can't win 'em all" and hope for better luck next time.