Right... Now what? · 6:00pm Jan 9th, 2017
Some among those of you who, for reasons unfathomable to me, have chosen to pay attention to my profile and my stories will have noticed that Binky Pie has, after five years, finally been set to 'Complete'.
Yes. Five years. For what has totalled 53,100 words, or approximately 29 words per day. I am a slow writer. To be honest, I'm not certain when I first began the story other than 'sometime in 2011'. The initial story was just a one-shot (which now forms the 'Prologue' or first chapter) in which I tried to explain Pinkie Pie's offscreen teleportation abilities as an influence of her grandfather, who I postulated to be the horse 'Binky', from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. The first chapter ends with Pinkie choosing not to go back to the Disc with Death, which obviously precluded a longer story!
However, the idea seemed to be popular as Binky Pie racked up more readers and page views than anything else I'd ever written before (or since). So, like the sell-out I am, I decided to expand the story into a full novella. At the time, the longest thing I'd completed was approximately 20,000 words and I thought a similar length would suffice to tell the blossoming tale in my head of what was, essentially, a pony-themed retelling of Pratchett's Reaper Man (my favourite book of the series and one I reference incessantly throughout the story).
The story had other ideas. Ideas left to fester grow like weeds, it seems, and soon what I had originally planned to be a fairly simple story with no real sub-plots had sprung up a few as I had to find things for Death- I mean, Bill Door, to actually do with his time in Equestria. Similarly, Pinkie found that being 'Death' was harder than she imagined.
Sometimes when we write, the ending we originally had in mind doesn't survive the changes in narrative along the way. In this instance, I had the ending of Binky Pie planned from about half way through the story, and it survived mostly unaltered into the final chapter(s) that I've just published. Getting there proved harder than I thought, and my 20,000 word story grew to 30,000, then 40,000, and has finally reached the NaNoWriMo standard for a 'novel' at over 50,000.
A lot has changed in my life over the course of those five years. I started this story while attending university, and since graduating I've found employment, found love, and learned the crippling costs of renting a house in Oxfordshire, UK. (In fact, it's largely my wife you should thank for the story being finished - she guilt-tripped me into writing the last couple of chapters). In that time I've become a better writer, and I must admit I do cringe a little at the earlier chapters of this story. I may yet go back and bring them up to date.
I also learned a lot about writing from this story. It was the first time I had to create a full plot, rather than a short story or a series of largely unrelated events. It taught me a lot about pacing (although I'm not saying I'm any good at it, I'm definitely better than I was), descriptive writing, characterization, dialogue, and perhaps most importantly: formatting. Have you any idea how irritating it is finding the right place to put a footnote on a digital medium? There's no 'bottom of the page'!
I've also mentioned in other blog posts that the response I had from this story surprised me. I don't know if the Russian translator who was working on the story is still operating (the link to the story itself appears to have gone dead), but I greatly admire and thank him for his perseverance in translating a very 'British' style of humour and writing into another language. I'd also like to extend thanks to those dedicated folk who built this story's TV Tropes page, which won me a bet! Then there was Parchment Scroll, who wrote the entertaining (and technically canon - to Binky Pie) story The Wizzard and the Pony. Not a direct response, but we did spend some time chatting ensuring neither of our stories would entangle with the other too much.
Of course, I wouldn't have got here without the aid of three particular individuals who have helped me over the hurdles. Firstly Zanzibar, my longsuffering proof-reader ever since I met him on EqD's IRC. He combed his way through every chapter before general release and has been a stalwart friend and editor throughout. Secondly, Georg, who wrote a small piece referencing the story and worked as proofreader for the final chapters. Thirdly, a good friend of mine who has been with me from the outset but doesn't have an account on here to link to (you know who you are).
Finally, I must extend my thanks to all the readers who have stuck with me for all this time! Your patience has finally been rewarded, and I hope you enjoyed the finale.
Heck, 29 words a day can be pretty productive for me. I'm just honored to help out with the final editing.
Slow writing, timeless classic, to-may-to, to-mah-to, am I right?
In any case, it's honestly kind of shocking to think of this story as over and done with. Still, thank you for what is still one of the best crossovers on the site, Discworld or otherwise.
Delightful to see it's finally finished and it looks to be a true opus. Also, yay to your lovely lady and the offer of sweets from Canada is a standing offer to express gratitude.
4375811
DO THEY HAVE CANDYCORN IN CANADA.
Congratulations on completing your 5 year wonder. It was well worth the wait.
Congratulations on this stunning story.
Yay! Now I know what I'll be reading tonight and tomorrow. I'll have to restart from the beginning, but that's fine, because I remember that I liked it, but held off on re-reading until now, just in case it got continued. I haz a happy nao.
4375841 In multiple colours!
4376052
Squee. I may have to take you up on that offer. I absolutely adore candycorn and I can't get it from Amazon anymore (at least not at a decent price), and it's just not made in the UK. I will happily send back something from here in return! Any UK candy you can think of.
4376059 Absolutely! I'll gladly accept British sweets and such n_n Send me a pm and we'll work something out. It's really popular here with valentines day/easter/halloween/christmas variants. All with different names but still the same candy XD
Glad to see you finished it. It's been sitting in the back of my unfinished list for years.
I'm here! Still working and operating. I'm very glad to see this story finally completed, and I'll be sure to see the translation through.
The link to translation page is not exactly dead, by the way. It only changed domain name (darkpony.space now instead of .ru), and it's almost on par with the story, the only chapters missing is today's two.
4376098
Excellent! The offer to TheMaskedFerret is extended to you, too, any UK candy/sweets/non-perishable food you desire, I will send it to you in extreme thanks.
4375777
Indeed.
I remember stumbling across this in EqD. It feels almost surreal to consider that is is now all wrapped up and complete.
It's the end of an era. For me, Binky Pie became a milestone that I could mark the longevity and progress of every other fanfic by, like rings on the tree trunk that is Fimfiction. It was consistent in its increasing sporadicity as the years passed, and yet reliable in its refusal to succumb to strange aeons and finally die. I will be sad to lose it for that, but it also makes me happy to see it come full circle and be made complete. A part of me never thought the site would outlive it.
Glad to see this story finally completed. Looking forward to sitting down and reading it from start to finish.
4376101
Heh. That is unexpected and nice offer. I never imagined receiving sweets for my hobby :)
Unforunately, I don't know any UK sweets in particular. After some googling, the only reasonably familiar thing I found was Wispa. I remember trying one of this bars once back in 90's when they were available here. It was pretty cool bar, as far as I recall, but it was so long ago, that I barely remember what it was like.