800 Followers! And Some Random Blather! · 12:16am Mar 22nd, 2016
First thing's first. Thank you all for the follows. I was happy with 100, but I won't hesitate having more. Or going on to disappoint every single one of you immensely. 
Since I really don't have anything important to blog about, I'll just write about some random things I've been thinking about recently. Also, ask me a question if you want! I might even answer it! 
1. I'll stop these milestone blogs should I ever hit 1000 followers. (So that means you still have two more to look forward to!)
2. Thoughts on retirement
I've been thinking about when I'll eventually retire lately and have come to the conclusion that when I hit 100 stories, I'll thrown in the towel. So... since it's taken me over a year and a half to get to 30 stories, that means you'll only have me for another 5 years roughly. I'll give you a moment to collect yourself.
Or maybe 200. Or maybe I'll see how I feel when I hit 100. Or maybe I'm just full of shit like usual. 
3. My bread and butter
It's come to my attention that my "Celestia does a thing" series has literally been featured every time I make one. That includes:
Princess Celestia plots out the season finale
Tyrant Celestia's trip to the moon
Princess Celestia's newest arch enemy
Princess Celestia has stolen all your bed sheets (this one shouldn't have been featured, honestly)
Any Last Requests? (featuring Celestia doing things)
When I told my sister about this, she suggested I write "Celestia Takes a Poop". To which I said, "I'd probably get more fans, but probably not the fans I'd want all that much." 
Then she suggested I write two stories at once and release them together -- "Celestia Goes To The Beach" and "Celestia Doesn't Go To The Beach". Obviously, this is the greatest idea ever created, so I'll shop it to Pen Stroke before doing it myself.
4. My experience with Equestria Daily
A long time ago, I had a list of things I'd love to accomplish here... and now I've finished about all of them. Getting featured, getting interviewed, getting a story above 1000 upvotes, and lastly getting a story on Equestria Daily.
I think it took about 5 stories before they accepted something of mine. I tried:
"An End to All Villains" -- no response.
"Sombra the Highly Unmotivated" -- no response.
"Princess Celestia Plots out the Season Finale" -- got a response. Said it was too silly and lacked an overall point. I guess having a laugh wasn't a good enough reason for a story to exist.
"The Only Day" -- got a response. Said it was good, but couldn't believe the diary entries. So... basically, rewrite the entire thing and take out what made it interesting to begin with and then we'll take another look at it. Who knows! It might be even worse the second time around!
What makes me mad about this is that less than a month later, "The Only Day" was reviewed and recommended by a user on this site that also moderates for Equestria Daily. Meaning, the story was good enough for one of them, but not the other, meaning no post for you. Should I message ahead to see who'll be reading my stories? Try and get the more open minded of the bunch?
"Tyrant Celestia's Trip to the Moon" -- got in. Mild corrections.
Here's what also annoys me. This one gets in with no problems, but the equally silly "Celestia Plots" doesn't make it. I guess I got the easy reviewer this time. Or maybe they were sick of hearing from me.
So what did I finally get after all this work. you ask? About 8 comments reading "That was funny," and maybe 3 more favs here. Yep. Totally worth it.
Having said all that, I won't be trying that site again. Being rejected so many times for various reasons or no reasons at all really made me question myself as a writer -- especially having sent them some of my most well received work. Also, not worth it! 
5. Could anyone ever write a naturalbornderpy-type story?
After I posted "Princess Celestia has stolen all your bed sheets", Seether00 said I went full Bendy, another author on this site. Bendy writes silly stories involving the Princesses mostly, so it seemed I stepped on his toes a bit.
Now my question is whether someone could ever write a story and have it be called a naturalbornderpy story. Do I have a style or something that I do enough that it's become expected? The only things I can think of are:
Celestia does a thing stories.
Comedies that spiral towards darkness.
Although I really can't see those being that original in terms of storytelling, so maybe it's best I'm not emulated. I hope that I write a lot of varying fics. Genres, themes, styles, ect.
6. Going to start a new secret account
After looking over some of the more well-known authors on this site, I've come to the realization that sex and cute sells. Micro cute/adorable stories next to the dirtiest clop. So that means I must capitalize on this at once!
Introducing new author, "The Chasm"! Nothing but fluff fics with no plot and clop stories with somehow too much plot and yet no plot at all! I can't wait to roll in the internet dollars soon enough.
I'm only kidding. I tried clop once. Too easy. 
7. I've run out of things to talk about
Plan to continue "Bad Dude" soon and pop out random one-shots here and there. The last three were a lot of fun, so I'd like to do more.
Blather done! Thanks for the follows and for reading this random blog post!
Hey, you deserve it. Nothing better than the respect and admiration of your peers. You really do have this Celestia thing in a bag. Hey, how's that for a story? "Princess Celestia buys a bag."
I still can't understand why anyone even pays attention to that. I've seen some absolute garbage have that "coveted" 'featured on EQ Daily' tagline, but some of the better ones I've seen just complain about never even getting as much as a form letter. I don't waste my time even looking at the place.
Well, at least tell me about it. I don't want to have to lurk the place until you slip up and out yourself again before I can see the new stuff.
Once you get all this "Featured Box" or whatever stuff out of your system, I say it's time to grow the fangs out again and get your Sombra on. That Baby Flurry Heart needs a strong father figure, and let's face it, Shining Armor is not cut out for the job.
3819536 If I get to 900 followers, that should be the blog post. "Pitch a Celestia story!" Then the story that sounds the best, I'll write. Could be... interesting.
3819556 I would start a new account, just to see how it would do. But I just don't want to invest the time required.
EQD wise, I find it funny how some users claim "60 stories on EQD" also "official EQD moderator/reviewer". Hmm. I wonder who reviewed those stories of yours?
3819601
Celestia Writes A Fanfic. About Celestia. Do it.
Equestria Daily has some serious problems with their fic recommendations. From what I understand, it really was a big deal early on in the fandom, featuring greats like Fallout: Equestria. I suspect in no small part because fimfiction didn't even exist yet. Then its reputation continued itself once fimfiction existed and got fairly large, making small time writers want it since they really had no way of knowing it wasn't that important. Then they have a tough time approving stories since tons of stories are submitted, and it is very hard to decide exactly how good a story needs to be to pass when a story's goodness isn't even objective and is subjective.
Source: I talked briefly with one of the better authors on the site, I think it was Mr. Numbers, and he said that it wasn't what it used to be. Apparently it doesn't hurt to submit though if you acknowledge the rejection is totally arbitrary and are fine with just a small jump in views.
That is you derpy. Don't you deny it :3
Congrats! You deserve every follower!
Aw geez. I was planning to retire when I hit 10.
I've been writing in the fandom for about 5 years, got most my stories on EqD, and I've seen how submitting to them has changed. I think they badly need to streamline re-submissions, since as I understand it, people editing and resubmitting is rare. Right now it takes something like 1-2 months for your story to get looked at for the first time, so if you resubmit that puts it at 2-4 months. It's worth it for multichapter fics, but not as much for one-shots.
Reviewers can't approve their own stories and from what I understand a fair number of them have even been rejected at some time or another. I think they do have the advantage, however, of being able to go "hey, (another story approver), would you mind looking at my story?" I don't think it's that surprising that people who evaluate whether a story passes or not can in turn write well enough to consistently have their stories pass review.
3819636
Write, or actually finish? Darkened Land hasn't updated in quite a while~
3819842
Lyra's character story is pending editing. I took a brief break from writing and now I'm back to writing a maybe two thousand words each week. I'm pretty busy with school, currently.
There are other chapters of the main story done. I plan on uploading the first chapter of arc 2 once the the whole thing is finished.
800 followers, eh? Congrats, man! You totally deserve it!
3819871
Don't feel rushed on my account, if you've got more important things to do, then you've got more important things to do. I just thought it was a bit of a funny thing to say. Lots of people here who start one story after another but never really get done with any of them. Makes there be not much to "retire" from, if you see what I mean.
Just vacuum up all those followers man you are a cool dude and deserve each one. It shouldn't be too long a road till you finally hit the 1k and the party poppers and stuff will be all ready.
Oh man I always get a chuckle when I hear that.
I've got an idea. How about you write a story about Celestia trying to eat hay burgers after realizing that Twilight's been eating them and mentioning stuff about those burgers during a random conversation? It should have Celestia entering a fast food restaurant, ponies freaking out upon Celestia's presence, and Celestia attempting to order and eat a hay burger does not go well due to ponies freaking out, staring at her, or being all confused and stuff. And Celestia would be like, "Why didn't the ponies freak out when Twilight was in the restaurant? She's a princess, too, you know."
3820024 That would be great if they got J. K. Simmons back as him. Doubtful, since it's another reboot.
3819886 Thank you!
3819630 Thank you very much for saying so!
3819615
3819589 Sadly, this idea of yours gives me one of my own. Dark comedy.
Where Sombra steals Flurry Heart right after birth and is about to roast her over some coals before she does something cute and he decides to keep her. Cut to years later and she's been taught to hate the Royal family and her real parents. Also, she's learned how to harness her alicorn powers as well as dark magic. Okay, maybe not so much a comedy.
3819608 Celestia-ception. I dig.
3820449
After thinking that over a bit, I actually came up with an idea for it that would work great with your style. Passes right from cheesy comedy into tragic tearjerker, grade-A feature bait. Wouldn't want to push any preconceived notions on you if you are actually considering doing that, so I'mma keep it to myself for the moment unless you specifically want to hear it.
3820465 I do want to hear it. Doesn't mean I'll do it for sure, but I'm always interested in story ideas. Send me a PM if you want.
First, congrats on 800! You deserve every one of them.
Second, as to an NBD 'style' -- I'm not convinced you are typecast in a single style, but yeah, you do the comidark thing pretty well. However, you should feel free to branch out when you are inspired to. I'd be interested to see where your muse leads you.
Third, retiring at some arbitrary story count is silly. You are done when you feel you are done, no matter how few or how many. Either way, however, you will make Paleobrony a sad old turtle if/when that time comes.
Fourth, don't sweat EQD -- So many good stories don't make the cut with them, and so many marginal ones do, that the only possible attraction is the idea that an EQD feature is some sort of milestone of coolness. Maybe it once was, but I like GOOD and don't give a crap about cool. I love EQD for the show and con news, fan comics, and community art/crafts, but I pay no attention to their fan fic features.
3820585 Thanks for commenting.
Firstly, that whole retirement thing was just a joke. If I focus on more one-shots and less long stories, then I might reach 100 faster than I'd think.
Secondly, I'd definitely like to try more styles and genres... I just need to learn that not everything will be a hit and to write for myself first. Meaning... strange ideas and different ways on looking at things.
Thirdly, EQD... meh. It was an experience. Just not a great one. People seem to like my stuff well enough here, so that's fine.
Again, thanks for the reply!
3820448
Love it! I'll be waiting ...
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