State of the author · 10:49pm Sep 24th, 2016
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm not actually a cuboid with Rarity's details on it. As proof, I offer up the following selfie.
Say what you will about the Pliocene epoch, but having elephant-sized versions of these trundling around must have been rad as balls.
So apropos of nothing, let's talk about that rollicking progress Wedding March has been making lately.
Keen-eyed folk might have picked up on the yawning expanse of months since the last update there. To everyone who waded in with faves and comments when the first chapter was published, and had every right to expect progress on timescales measurable sans references to geological timescales, I'm exceedingly sorry. I know I've already got a few pieces in my library with the deadly 'Cancelled' or 'Hiatus' tags attached, and I don't want people to think Wedding March is going to suffer the same sad fate. It's not.
What has happened is that it's fallen victim to one of my habitual and interminable periods of writer's block. They happen from time to time, grey flat periods where the words just don't come out, no matter how keenly I look at a open google doc or reshuffle synonyms in lieu of actual editing. Paragraphs hang sadly uncompleted for weeks. The story hangs on the mind like a lead weight all the time, reminding me that I'm terrible for not just cranking it out. Call it a discipline problem. Call it something else I'm not keen to delve into. It's happened to other stories of mine in the past, for longer times.
Good news is, that spell's ended, and I'm properly making progress again. The second chapter's now standing just over three thousand words, two thousand of which were added in the last couple of days, and more than a few of which might have to be edited out for streamlining's sake once I get it all done. The next chapter should follow on smoothly from that, and the next from that, and so on until it's done.
To make matters even easier there, I've got a secret weapon to aid the writing process. Say hello to Smirisary.
That's Smirisary, and I'll be heading off to the croft in the foreground tomorrow. There's no electricity save what a couple of solar panels and a battery provide, no water save for a nearby well, and no internet for love nor money. It's my favourite place in the whole world, and there's nowhere better for secluding yourself away and working without distraction, pottering around in the West Highlands when the sun (or more likely, rain) is out, and huddling inside around a fire when the dusk falls. It's where I wrote Moonlight Palaver back in the day, and the place should work its magic on its grandchild when I'm there.
That does mean I'll be away for a week or so, so if I signify as offline for days on end or stop responding to things in my usual prompt and cackhanded manner, don't worry, I'm (probably) not dead. Just poking out horsewords next to a sparking fire in a land that eats internet signals for breakfast. And when I'm back, there'll be new chapters ready.
It's cool to hear that progress is occurring, but don't feel too pressured; like the gaping mawed, needle toothed predators of the black abyss, we are nothing if not patient...
That cottage. West Highlands. *sigh* So much want.
That's a bonny looking place to write and think and be buffeted in the face by the wild winds of a Scottish autumn. I am envious. Hope it brings you inspiration and good cheer.
Two things; I envy you your getaway (that view along is worth the lack of some modern amenities), and up the radical scale of megatherium by pointing out that, due to their unusual bone structure, they effectively had built in chain mail. I think the megatherium is my totem animal; ponderous, eats everything in it's path, and crushes anything that keeps it from eating everything in it's path...
I envy you dat retreat. I'm willing to wait as long as it takes for another chapter. I'd be a something of a hypocrite if I didn't, given what I make my readers endure.
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I couldn't ask for a better bunch of deep-sea horrors.
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My family got it and did it up in the 70s, decades before I was so much as a glint in a milkman's eye. Been going there all my life. It's a lovely place to have ingrained in the soul.
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The word 'bonny' must have been coined for the place. Even when it chooses to cudgel visitors in the face with wind-driven rainstorms, it retains a certain loveliness. I'm sure it'll be inspirational, and cheerfulness goes without saying.
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I took the Patronus quiz on Pottermore recently, and got a magpie as my own Dementor-repelling totem animal. A corvid association's grand to have, but if there's not a possible megatherium Patronus for you there, then there's no justice in the world.
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Solidarity between sloth-esque writers and a' that. Hopefully I shouldn't have to leave people enduring too much longer.
Ah, sorry about the writer's block, and I'm glad that it's ending. Thanks for the update. :)
Enjoy the Highlands. :)
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Nae bother at all, and I'll be sure to!
Hm. Good luck kicking writers block. Nothing sucks quite like it
That area is something right out of the islands absolutely nowhere near Equestria because it looks too darn bleakly overcast in a soul-dreary and yet appealingly isolated way.
Ponies would have none of it. That's gryphon territory, it is.
You write at whatever pace you prefer, your stories are quality enough to be more than worth the wait. That said, if there are more agreeable ways to overcome writer's block than the one you have come up with, I'm sure I can't think of any. It looks like a lovely place. Kind of reminds me of the Alps, and that means only good things.
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Hey now, let's be terminologically exact here. It blows.
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There are photos out there of it under full sunshine. 'Bonny' isn't even the half of it then.
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It's as good a means as any of overcoming the block, no denying that. Much obliged for the patience, and I hope whatever emerges at the other end satisfies.
I'm glad to see that you are working on it again and to have an explanation for the long time in which it hasn't updated.
Oh, you solved it on your own. I suppose then that it wouldn't help you any further for me to stand over your shoulder while shouting abuse at you? Because that's how I usually help my friends with their writer's block. I'm told it's quite effective. And I really like doing it. A lot.
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Oi still argues its gryphon territory, wot wot!
I feel utterly betrayed.
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Glad to be working on it myself. Still a bit more writing and spit-and-polishing to be done now I'm back, but hopefully that shouldn't take another glacial aeon.
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...still not entirely convinced the random beatings with a cat-o-nine-tails were necessary or conducive to inspired flow, but I'll make allowances.
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Your mixed Brian Jacques is showing.
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Och, I betray everyone, nothing to be upset about. And if it's any consolation, you have the truth now. I'm outed as a sloth .
4240023 Oi'm be tasty pasty eating oi will have you know.