Still not dead. · 6:18pm Dec 10th, 2016
I received a PM from Rozen Knight letting me know that some of you were worried about me. That's flattering, but I'm okay. If you followed me two years ago, you know that I'm coming up on a terrible time of year for me emotionally, but that's not why there's been radio silence. It's just that there's been nothing to say. No progress, and I assure you that I'm as tired of making empty promises about getting somewhere as you all are of reading them. I wanted to have something up for the one year anniversary of the last posted chapter, and didn't. I'd like to have something up for Christmas, but almost certainly won't. It's not fair to keep dangling "I'm trying again!" in front of you guys when I then turn around, stare at Scrivener for an hour, and go do something else.
It is possible that Smoke will continue one day. I kinda miss Bruises, and it was nice having an audience. But an audience deserves content, and with none to offer, I've simply kept away, poking my head in occasionally and wishing MLP hadn't gone down a path I hate. For those who were worried about me personally, Fable and I are in touch on a more or less daily basis via e-mail, and Arthek has me on a messaging app. There are people in the community who know my state of affairs.
You would be the first to actually respond to my worries, you're making me blush here!
Am just glad this game called life seems to be going well for you, story or no, your life comes first no? Just glad to hear you're fine.
Gentle breeze guide your path, a warm smile welcome you home.
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I don't know why you're blushing; you were one of my earliest and most supportive readers. If you're concerned about my wellbeing, naturally I'll respond. I'm just flattered people are concerned a year and more after my last chapter.
As for the game of life going well, eh. Mixed bag. I've had surgery in both eyes now, have to medicate just to make my throat swallow food properly, had to go to the ER over severe pain in my Achilles tendon, and have made no real progress in terms of career, love, or finance. At the same time, I'm not dead, I have a job and apartment, friends, and food to eat, so life's not horrible, just not impressive, either.
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Sorry to hear that life's had you down, Distant.
It's good to hear from you, though. Was just thinking about Smoke the other day, sure has been a while. Didn't realize it'd been a whole year-and-a-half though, wow. My life's been pretty busy the last couple years, so I guess time went by pretty quick on my end.
I have nothing to add but to wish you the very best.
I just logged on with the intension of telling you that I am still interested and pretty much always will be and that if you are done writing Smoke that's ok and if you aren't I am just as hyped for the next chapter as I ever was
I was going to suggest that if you don't want to do more writing for smoke that it should be transferred to a group so anyone could add to it and it could continue doing it's job.
I also wanted to tell you some of my likes and dislikes around the story and such but I just found this since I don't follow the tumblr so I will do it there.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfKXnnRMfFOIyXduogjLRdY5toPj_xkzHJ4YMWXInsXZx2k5g/viewform
I might take awhile on this since on the first page I have to pick a favorite when there are so many good ones; I guess I’ll have to do some rereading.
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This is something I'm afraid I would never do. As flattering as it is that you want it to continue, group control of stories is something I have an unpleasant history with. If you've ever looked at The Hypnotic Adventures of Blank Sheet, I was the author of the fic version; LightMask ran the greentext from which it originated. Shared control resulted in a number of flaws with the story, and ultimately is why I stopped working on it. If I handed control of Smoke over to a group, it wouldn't be Smoke anymore. Each character is part of me, and even the ones readers have generously loaned are my takes on their characters. If I'm not involved, I can't ensure quality, consistency, or even character personality fits the intentions. I'd rather Smoke end than continue as something else. I put too many dozens of hours of work into it for that. Hundreds of hours, really.
Good to hear from you.
It’s a shame to you lost your drive to continue but that happens to a lot of fan fic writers. Smoke will probably never continue, but it was still a fun ride and I’m glad you decided to write this little gem of a story.
Best of wish and hopefully the next year will turn out better for you.
4337792 I meant a group as in a fimfic group that would have a cannon and a non cannon section that people would be able to write for.
I am still rereading Smoke before filling out the google survey and it has really helped me to enjoy it more, and I think it would be better to say here then to try to comment on chapters indevidualy. The last chapter that I reread was Tender Loving Care, the chapter where Deep Tissue is introduced whom I am sad to say I never really understood and so never really liked. Every new character after Bruises, with a bit of an exception for Exposé, was burred and un personalized so that I did not really get to know them before the next character was introduced; hence the blurring.
After some thought and contemplation coupled with the new perspective from rereading I have found that I don’t have the same experience now that I had my first round, and am experiencing and enjoying the new characters a lot more then I did; I don’t think it is because I am starting these characters introductions with more information then the first time since all I can really recall about them is a few facts like how Done met them, and a name only half the time, but because when I was first reading this most of it was already written and I was plowing through the archives whenever I had time, sometimes wanting a story and sometimes wanting sex, and when there was a miss match I would get stuck reading a bunch of dialogue and plot progression when I just wanted some fun, mind-controly sex or stuck skimming a sex scene without really being in to it but wanting to catch anything important that was said or done. As the story got more complex in plot, characters, character interaction and event and scene expression, and longer in general, these symptoms got worse and I think I missed out on a lot of what is there in the story because of it so I am very happy I am re-experiencing it.
I don’t think there is much you could have done to prevent this other than label which chapters had sex in them and which didn’t in addition to the PC label but I would still have done some skimming of plots when I just wanted sex and some saving of sex scenes for later, which meant I read them out of order relative to the progression of the plot, when I wanted to hear a story featuring some of my favorite characters.
Thanks for reading this and thanks for putting something so nice in my life, because of this, Friendship is Mind Control and Universal acceptance I really feel like I got the premium, cream-of-the-crop, top tier experience of internet cartoon horse word porn and it has been a lovely ride and has given me a lot to think about outside too :)