4 YEARS..?! -- An Anniversary Post · 3:57am Jan 21st, 2016
Apparently, I have let this milestone creep past me in the wake of recent events.
Yes, it's true -- I joined fimfiction.net on New Year's Eve of 2011, making the very beginning of 2012 my official start date here on Fimfiction and thus making 2016 my official 4-year anniversary.
Wow... it's hard to believe that it's been that long. I started at the height of my pony obsession, in full-on Brony mode... now I've absolutely discarded that title in favor of MLP Supporter. I've been in 3 relationships, gotten married to one of those, finished 8 stories that I'm incredibly proud of (with 4 on the way to being finished), and have LOTS of ideas that still haven't even made it to the proverbial paper yet. I've made a lot of strides as a person, as a fan of MLP:FiM and truthfully as a fan of things in general. I've battled with myself on a lot of things, including several quandaries about things that I should or should not be willing to do as an author, and made decisions that have molded the way I present myself as a writer and a fan of MLP. I'm older, wiser, and ultimately better than I was when I first started this account in the dying days of 2011.
It makes me look back at what I had ultimately wanted out of this account, and truly makes me wonder about my future here. When I started, I very much wanted to reach that coveted Featured Box and all of the things that I perceived would come with it: have a ton of people read my stuff, get featured on EqD, have someone do dramatic readings of my stuff, be able to find random fan art of my work... all those things that I kinda still wish I could have. However, these 4 years have done nothing if not teach me one, indelible fact: I do not write things that make it to the Featured Box. I do not write the kinds of stories that get featured on EqD, or get dramatic readings done of them randomly, or get random fan art done of them.
Thankfully, these realizations have come with a ray of clarity: that just because I don't have these things happening to my stories doesn't mean that they're bad. In fact, as I know we've all seen, the actual quality of a story often has very little to do with whether it is a popular story, and sometimes the stories that make it into the Featured Box (either here or at EqD) are pointless, meaningless drivel intended for nothing more than click-bait: shocking stories of sex and violence that garner just as much hate and controversy as they do love and affection.
The people who comment on my stories, in the vast majority, love them. I may not have features stacked up, or as many people enjoying my stories as I would like... but I'm lucky enough to have people read and love my stories, and that alone says that I'm accomplishing what I set out to do.
Does that mean that I don't still hope for a spot in the Featured Box? Of course not -- that'd be super awesome if that happened. Does that mean that I don't want to see my story posted on EqD? Far from it, I'd love to see the reception that some of my stories get.
But I've realized that the only way to guarantee that'll happen is to change how I do things, and that's something I'm just not willing to do. If I get Featured anywhere, I want it to be because I write great stories and that people read them, no matter how long they are. If I get recognized at a con somewhere, I want it to be because someone read "Where My Heart Lives" or "The Stars of Darkness" and loved it enough that they wanted to meet me. If I ever get asked to be on a panel at a convention, I want it to be because I wrote my heart out and my stories touched people's lives in positive, exciting, and memorable ways. I don't want to write click-bait stories. I don't want to write dark stories, or crossover stories, or sex stories, or any myriad of combinations therein that you can use to get your story Featured. I want to write MY stories, and if people forego reading "Stars" or "WMHL" because they're 100k+ words in favor of "KARL THE SUPER-MUTANT FUCKS CELESTIA IN THE BUTT -- PART 7: ANAL-THING GOES" at 1500 words, then that's their prerogative. And if I never achieve great things in the pony fandom, then so be it.
In conclusion, I'm going to keep on doing things the way I'm doing them in the hopes that you, my loyal readers, will continue to enjoy the adventures of Dark Star and the Generals, of Rarity and Octavia, of Sabersong, of Knight Vision and Sweet Dreams, and of Princess Luna as she drives her taco cart into the annals of history.
As always, undeniably yours,
~D4ftP0ny
