Non-fic stuff for the New Year: My Resolutions for 2016 · 10:12am Dec 31st, 2015
So, the past few days have seen a marked increase in lazing about, pondering, and generally not getting anything done. Some might blame that on a weak personality and avoiding responsibilities. I blame it on my parents, because why not?
In all seriousness, though, I do plan to not let this become a habit. I have plans. Plans that need fleshing out and completing. So let's start with my non-pony resolutions for 2016.
Get and follow a detailed schedule
The main advice given to problematic procrastinators. Plan out for the month what needs to be done, plan out per week, and get a schedule that lists what to do per hour. Done that for a little while, it's been very enlightening to see what I delay and why/when. Hopefully the new approach will result in greater productivity. I'm going to be trying a new approach to writing both pony and original stuff, one that focuses on scenes the same way animation is made: keys first, tweens next. Basically skip the filler that requires too much thought and do as much of the initial writing as automatic writing, then edit to have it make sense.
Make a short animation
I have had the book on how to do Blender animated shorts for a while, I highly, highly, highly recommend it to anyone because it contains interesting points on story, art direction vs technical direction, linking, lighting, all good stuff that any artist can benefit from if they're just made aware of it. So that's 'Blender Production: Creating Short Animations from Start to Finish', by Roland Hess. Anyway, I've had it for a while now, I would like to see if I can make something. I've been wanting to do a pony animation for the three years I've been here now (look up some older blogs and shudder in horror), I have mostly finished my Filly model, Edward (just some final colours and controls), but never any animation.
The most recent plan was to try and make a holiday-themed short in the same vein as the 'Snowmen Will Melt Your Heart' one that the aforementioned book uses as an example.
Mine would be about two young animals: one little reindeer buck, and one young wolf. The reindeer is running for deer life (*snrk* get it?), the wolf almost catches up to him, he jumps through a brush, the wolf jumps after him... down a cliff. Turns out the reindeer could fly. So the little buck hovers down to the wolf who is now clinging to a branch and smirks triumphantly... and then gets second thoughts about leaving the poor thing there. The whole short would be sort of a thought-provoker of who's really in the wrong there, and how bullying a bully is not okay. The two major issues I have with it at concept stage is that it's a holiday-themed short and that kinda cuts into potential audience and release timing, and the fact that I'd have to show very clearly the reindeer's ability of flight is obvious. I need to be able to show that the kid is related to one of Santa's flying reindeer, besides showing the flying.
So... kind of keeping that in reserve. The character design so far is iffy, as well, but at least I haven't sunk too much time and effort into it yet.
And speaking of reindeer...
Finish and publish one of my NaNoWriMo novels.
Well, last year's entry is still being overhauled. That's the one with the pegasi and griphons and racism along with a few other -isms played for laughs. The story is that a pegasus colt, teenager, grows up in griphon lands because his parents fled their home country. Now, normally that's not a big issue, but it's set in a world where everyone not only has magic, but it's divine magic given to them by patron gods. The gods are all mostly recognisable names, by the way. And the main character is faced with the decision to pick a griphon patron god or learn about the pegasus gods, as well as dealing with prejudices against his kind that may or may not be perfectly justified. It's a different take on clashes between cultures. But its current state is too clunky, and too anvilicious.
This year's entry is actually a lot better in terms of readability, but it's also a lot closer to FiM, which will need to be edited out.
You may have noticed in some recent fics (Berry's Crystal Empire Adventure, Night of the Krampus) that I have a bit of lore built up regarding reindeer in the pony world. I'm not so sure I want to keep them in the pony world, honestly. That, along with the primordial Wise Cracker colt OC, Dreamy, was salvaged and repurposed for the 50k word novel of this year. The story is about a bat-winged Fair mare (collective name for equine races, after 'Pferd') who is sent on a mission by her goddess-empress (see what I mean by 'too close to FiM'?) to find and retrieve a book written by a rogue wizard in the Dark Ages. Only two problems: the reindeer can't know what she's doing, because the book is a weapon of mass destruction, and she's stuck with a little boy whose medical bills have done a number on her finances. When she then gets pressured by one of the empress' agents, she starts reconsidering her priorities and allegiances.
That's the long and short of it. The agent as the antagonist needs some work, still, but it's a lot more accessible than the other story right now. The boy has a backstory I shan't spoil, but suffice to say if that novel ever hits Amazon, you'll know it's mine, if only because of the clunky expository dialogue at the end.
I also turned Doldrum Whimper and Passiflora into reindeer because, hey, they're mine and I can use them. They make a lot more sense in that canon than they do in the MLP one anyhow.
Which ties seamlessly into...
Get all my colt OC's down into art form, for cover art/promotion purposes
Certainly Whimper, but Bastion as well. Whimper needs to be redrawn from mostly scratch to get the proportions right, and some sort of better indication of his musculature. Bastion has yet to get any art of his own. Then there's the armour.
This should all be a little bit easier now that I have some predefined bases to colour and give new hair to (I managed to do Diamond Tiara based on Scootaloo pretty easily), but since Whimper is mostly a different design, like Bulk Biceps, he might give me some trouble, still. But hey, I need the practice for when I'm making cover art for the novels. On that note, I should start looking into doing promo art, period. There's certainly no shortage of scenes I can put into picture form.
And yes, that physical copy of the Flight Camp story I promised way back when would be tied to this resolution, since I'd want to illustrate the silly thing beforehand.
Get in shape physically and mentally.
With detailed schedules and a little discipline in sticking to them, I aim to lose enough weight for my abs to be visible and to regain the powers of imagination I used to have before I joined the fandom. Okay, that last one sounds a bit weird, but let's start with the first.
I have quite a few books on muscle training and losing weight and such. I've only been really fat at one point in my life, and it didn't last long. But I've never been buff or thin, either, partly because of a breathing problem. Yes, I'm aware that makes Doldrum Whimper look like a wish-fulfilment self-insert OC of sorts, but I'll get to that in a bit. The thing to keep in mind is: obesity runs in my family, so do diabetes and heart problems. I also had a mild case of scoliosis when I was a child, a case that was really easy to spot when I had some weight on me, because *ahem* the way the flab folds on one side wasn't the same on the other. I went swimming, daily, to help fix my back. I never had to wear any special soles or anything, I was just below the limit for that. Basically, what I'm trying to say is: getting a flat stomach would help keep track of my overall health, as well as improve it. My current plan is to try and adjust my diet again, which is a little tricky to do when you're still living with your folks, but not impossible. The program I'm looking at is the Men's Health Washboard one (might be translating it wrong), and I'll probably toss in some daily stretches for good measure.
Then, the mental thing. Before I joined the pony fandom, I was active in the furry fandom, more specifically the section that deals with hypnosis to try and visualise oneself as the fursona. Don't get any ideas, though; for me it was strictly for religious and practical reasons. In chaotism, you're supposed to shuffle around ideas about preference and identity. I didn't care enough about politics to juggle those convictions, the gender thing has been done to death, there's no real like or dislike that I feel would benefit me if I changed it, but species identity? That's something interesting to play with.
Anyway, for those who have read Rainbow Dash Discovers: yes, parts of that are based on personal experience. I do indeed know my way around trancework. But I haven't done any for too long. I'm currently looking into a combination of chi kung and the imagery series by William Fezler, and to my chaotically inclined delight I'm seeing a lot of parallels between the two. Seeing as I want Doldrum Whimper's character to get a more defined look and feel as a kid who does Iron Shirt training, it's only fair I look into the matter myself. As for the self-insert wish fulfillment thingie: it's called a hypersigil. It's very silly, but also therapeutic in nature. There are a lot of different ways to interpret it, so I'll leave the full explanation for another time. Suffice to say that no, I don't overly identify with any character, be they my own or someone else's. My belief system (and I'm pretty sure most others, if they have a system of magic) encourages banishing such attachments when they no longer become useful, and warn against obsession.
So basically, the plan is to go over the series of trances and images I've got from that Fezler guy, because they did work for me before, to a certain extent, and once I get my head back to where it used to be, make my own images and see what happens.
Get a working character in Synfig
Not as much to say about this one. I have all the bigger bits and pieces, I sort of know how to construct a rig based purely on layers, but the issue remains that without an animation to work towards, it's hard to tell whether the setup is any good. Looking at Zachary Hill's tutorials has helped in some regards, though. Still haven't gotten around to watching Double Rainboom to see how it panned out, come to think of it.
There's also the issue of disk space. Apparently I derped when I made this thing a dual boot, and now the home folder fills up pretty quickly. Nothing that can't be fixed with a removable drive, just annoying, I guess.
Finish the review of the Niko movie
I can't quite recall when I said I would, but I did promise I'd write a full review of Niko and the Way to the Stars, the film that has influenced my writing to the point that every time there's a foreign nation to namedrop in a fic, it ends up being the reindeer from this movie. The review is over halfway done, the spoiler-free section is finished, but the discussion has a few more points to flesh out. It also needs more pictures.
Get a job. With pay.
Oh, this one. I'm approaching my first year of unemployment, and not a lot of applications under my belt to show for it. I think I'm best qualified for something that relies on mastery of the English language, but that doesn't seem to be as popular as I'd hoped. The lack of social skills doesn't help much, either. As for commissions or Patreon... that's a whole 'nother hornet's nest I ain't kickin' here.
Heh. Maybe I should start writing about ponies who find their dream job. Or go the whole nine yards and start my own religion Worked for Elron, right? 
Anyway, those are my resolutions. Hopefully this time next year they will seem silly and inconsequential, breezed through with ease. If not, well, at least they'll be a good laugh to someone somewhere.
Happy New Year, everyone.
P.S.: This has been a terrible year for stories, and will need to be compensated for with lots of featurebait. The game's afoot.
Cracker out.
This is the longest, and most detailed, New Years resolution list I've ever seen. It's also the longest blog post I've seen.
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You must not read many blog posts, then. I think the longest I've ever seen was JawJoe's infamous post on Magical Mystery Cure. But anyways, part of the reason people post these sorts of things in public is to get the proverbial foot in the door. If you have procrastination problems - which will probably get its own blog sometime - it's even more beneficial. The level of detail is a means of planning out, so the tasks do not seem impossible.
So I'll take that observation as a compliment
Happy New Year.
Yes, but Elrond had one of the elvish rings of power if memory serves. That's a big help when starting religions.
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Heheh. Different Elron (was thinking of Hubbard), but he works, too. Maybe if I declare myself elvenkin, I can get more social benefits as a racial minority...
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Yeah, figured as much but couldn't help it. Because who you are thinking of is actually L. Ron Hubbard.