New Year: 2016 is here! · 12:46am Jan 1st, 2016
Happy New Year everyone! It is now 2016 in London. This year I am just enjoying a quiet time at home.
[Do ponies mark the New Year as we do? The show and associated canon material is remarkable devoid of any details of the Equestrian calendar so we can only speculate about this. Would the celebration be a week after Hearth’s Warming? The Summer Sun Celebration—or any other point in the year—would be no more or less valid a point to start.]
Looking back at 2015, I managed to chuck out six stories this year. My big project was Time on Their Hooves. Great to get that finished. Thanks to Equestria Daily who featured it earlier this month (I think I forgot to report that at the time). Of my other stories, I think Discourse on the Haycartes Method is my personal favourite. I like the quirky stuff.
Other news to report. ireadalittle has just done a reading of Fact and Fiction and Santa Hooves.
What targets shall I aim for in this year? I want to write a sequel to The Brightest and the Best—I’ve had a dozen requests for that and it really shouldn’t take that long if I can just get down to it. Another task I’ve had on my to-do list for over a year is to rewrite some of the science-themed shorts that I put on my blog into some sort of collection.
But I also want to start another more substantial story. What should this be? I have no shortage of ideas. The possibilities currently competing for attention in my head are:
1. Something involving Pinkie Pie, Twilight and a series of particle accelerators;
2. Rainbow Dash conducts a further exploration of upper atmospheric physics and meteorology;
3. Another Breaking News collection covering what was making the headlines through season 5;
4. A totally new physics and math themed story staring Derpy;
Do you, my dear readers, have any preference? If so, please let me know. It’s always nice to know what sort of stuff you most like. Although I am sufficiently awkward that I may just ignore what you say and do my own thing anyway.
I'd rank 1 and 4 equally as my first preferences.
Happy New Year to you, too!
Physics/math and Derpy sound good together. Perhaps something involving electromagnetism, and differences in potential between clouds and tall structures?
Happy New Year!
Do I even need to say it? This is me we're talking about here.
Oh, best to be sure. Anything with physics and Derpy automatically has my seal of approval. Though all of the ideas sound enjoyable.
Yes please!
And 4. Cuz best pony.
Hello there amazing future-person!
Please send lottery numbers.
Physics and Derpy pls
It became the new year for me at the same time. All of my clocks use GMT/UTC. I say that we should abolish timezones and only GMT/UTC. Arthur C. Clark agreed.
I tried to decide for which story to vote, but then realized that is is a problem in the voting system:
You should try scorevoting. It is very simple:
One votes on a scale from -9 to +9. These are the instructions for the voter and the counter:
Voter:
Give the most hated story -9 points and the most loved story +9 points. Rate all other stories relative to these 2 stories.
Counter:
Sum the votes.
¡It is that simple!
You can rank the stories by the sum of their scores and know in which order to write the stories.
Breaking News is still one of my favourites, so I'd love it if you did another similar story!
I like to think that the new year is Princess Celestia's birthday. So the year/date is how old she is. They did it because they wanted to show their appreciation, but Princess Celestia sees it as a reminder of how old she is. Though she's made peace with it over the centuries.
Of course it leads to Princess Luna coming back and finding out what the date is and falling over laughing when she finds out all about it and realizes that Princess Celestia wasn't exactly honest with the ponies that started the calendar.
"So, where did you 'lose' those centuries, sister?"
3656178
So what scores do you give the options under this system?
3657057
The trouble is that they are so good that I am tempted to give all +9. I have to think about this:
1.
+4
2.
+2
3.
-9
4.
+9
On an absolute scale, all of your ideas are about +9, but 1 had to be -9, and another had to be +9, and the others had to be rated in reference to those 2 stories.
One and four. Or four and one. I can't narrow it down further