Bradel-Related Happenings · 9:28am Oct 21st, 2015
Hey everyone! It's been a couple weeks since I've given you guys a blog update, and enough things have happened since then that I figured I ought to toss one out. A word of warning, though—there's quite a bit to get through here.
Thing One – New Story
No, this is not a story anyone was waiting on me to publish. Basically, I got the writing bug last night and cranked out a few hundred words regarding a really dumb idea. But it turns out that the way I developed that idea tied nicely into a previous writeoff minific ("The Mouse", my weird Robert Burns crossover from July's "Best Laid Plans"). I hadn't gotten around to publishing that one yet, so I decided I'd just drop them as an odd twofer.
I feel like I ought to warn y'all, though, that this is going to be a weird one. Anybody who's read the original of "The Mouse" (which is very little changed here; just enough to address the only common writeoff criticism it drew) will know what I'm talking about. So imagine I took that and added an overly dramatic Fimfiction meta brick joke on the end.
In any case, here y'all go. New (or new-ish) Bradel story for your enjoyment.
Thing Two – Future Stories
I figure what y'all are more interested in, though, are my more serious pieces of work. Well, there's a bit of news there as well.
First off, I won third place in the most recent minific writeoff with a new piece of fiction, "The Faithful Student". It was very well received, and up against one of the strongest writeoff fields I've seen in a long time. (The Winner, Cold in Gardez's "Babel", is one of the finest pieces of writing I've seen in this fandom. The runner up, Pascoite's "Perfect Ten" is a fantastic demonstration of character voicing and multi-use prose.) I'll probably be looking to kick that into a new story in the next few weeks, as soon as I can find a good way to expand it past 800 words.
In the same writeoff, I also pulled down one of two "Most Controversial" prizes for a story that's so meta that I don't think anybody even understands its name. The size on that piece is actually very flexible, so I may work on blowing that out to a couple thousand words. It's not an especially pressing project, though—I think I've done enough weird, experimental stuff lately.
I'm also still working on my expansion of "War" from the May writeoff. I haven't had a chance to get at it for the last few weeks, but it was coming along well before Real Life sidetracked me, and I'm hoping I can get that out in the next couple weeks as well.
Also, there may be some further upcoming story news around the start of November that I think a lot of you will find interesting.
Thing Three – Readings and Reviews
I was very pleasantly surprised, about two weeks back, to learn that Neighrator Pony had decided to do a Month-of-Macrabe-themed reading of "The Rose". It's a pretty dark story, but it's also one of my favorite pieces that I've written, and I have to say that getting a skilled reader doing this story was pretty darn exciting to me. So here you go, have a vid-link to Neighrator Pony's "The Rose".
Also, I forced PresentPerfect to (re)read "A Filly's Guide to Not Making Headlines" and do a reaction video, which is a but reminiscent of bookplayer's "Let's Read" blog for the same story. I know I'm kind of the ultimate target audience for this next video, but hearing PP react to the story as he reads it really cracks me up, and I suspect some of you might also enjoy this little tidbit. (Also, I think I may go take his advice about the Scoots/Sweetie scene, because this isn't the first time I've heard that critique, and at this point I'm thinking PP is probably right.)
Thing Four – Real Life Stuff
So the reason you haven't heard from me in three weeks is all about real life. Friday before last (October 9th), I had to give a professional talk and take an oral exam to move on in my degree program—and prepping for that talk/exam took most of my time in the month leading up to that point as well (absent the little bit of time I could sneak to finish my econ idea blogs and participate in the last writeoff). Anyway, the exam went well and (after filing some paperwork this afternoon) I'm officially ABD.
Following that, my dad had a major statistics talk he was invited to give last week, so my whole family headed on out to join him and check it out. That also went well, and we had a lot of fun, but it's been a hectic last week with frequent travel, academic events, and trying to help my dad with some last-minute research to add into his talk. We're hoping we can turn out a paper on the topic around Thanksgiving, which would be cool.
I know, RL isn't why y'all follow me, but I've been pretty ecstatic about hitting the ABD stage, and the trip was a lot of fun, and I just figured I'd share with y'all for a bit.
Academic Bradel Datum?
3486142
All But Dissertation (i.e. the "I don't have to take any more classes!" dance of joy stage of school).
Congrats on the academic achievement!
I am not sure what ABD stands for, but it sound like a good thing, so congratulations!
But Bradel, bruh, do you know what the real question is?
:3
3486296 Shush, he didn't realize what a bad idea it is to encourage you. Don't make me get the hose.
Yay Brae.
You scared me there when I read "real life stuff;" most of the time that's a harbinger of bad news. Congratulations!