Ow. · 6:29am Feb 7th, 2017
Ever have one of those weeks? Yeah, I'm having one of those weeks.
One of those weeks where it feels like life's just sorta... plowed over you? You're blinking in the aftermath going what the hay just happened? Why am I starting this blog with so many questions? I don't know, can you tell me?
So. I'm working my tail off on GoE (Secret: I'm always working my tail off on GoE). But you probably already knew that. That's been rough lately. But, instead, we're here to talk about stories. So, let's talk about stories.
Bards of the Badlands, for example.
Now, I know you'll all probably scream bloody murder about this, but I've decided to wait to release the next chapter of Bards of the Badlands next Sunday at 10 AM and the last chapter on Monday at 10 AM. Ayep! That means the story will officially be complete next week on Monday (Yes, I know I'm still evil).
Why you ask? Why would I do this? Well, a couple reasons. First of all, this week's chapter had an awesome cliffhanger. But more importantly, the next chapter and the last chapter really go hand-in-hand and I didn't want to make you wait (long) between the two of them.
Granted, my judgment as of late hasn't exactly been stellar, so who knows if this is actually a good idea or not... but we'll do it anyway.
But I do have something new to show you!
Announcing my next short story, Habits of the Equestrian Phoenix, starring everypony's favorite feathered firebird, Philomena, and her assistant, Sunset Shimmer! You'll actually get the story behind two Noodle Incidents between Sunset and Philomena in this little tale. It's short too, so you'll get it all in one go. I promise!
No, really! The first draft's already been written! It's just over 4,000 words! You'll get it all a--
You still don't believe me, do you? Fine. Be that way.
Meh.
I've decided I'm going to be entering into Scribblefest 2017 since I'll be attending Everfree Northwest. I've got a really cool idea to do for it... but the real question is can I pull it off? It's a challenge and normally I like challenges, but lately? Writing's actually been really hard.
See? This is what I get for talking about 2,000+ word days in October and November. It's a struggle to even get 750 words in a day. Stupid inconsistent writing brain-thingy that doesn't work on command. Why won't you work on command! I command you to--
Okay, fine, I'll stop.
Let's see... done a few new covers recently. Those will be up in a little while.
Oh, I also did a cover for the simply delightful The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon by MrNumbers. Haven't finished it quite yet, but I plan on doing a classic "Let's Talk" follow-up on it! This book is exactly what I needed right now. And once again, I found myself up to almost 1 AM because I was so engrossed in the story. I was good this time and closed it though (I still had a thousand e-pages to go on my iPad).
Go read that story!
...I have no idea what I'm talking about anymore. So I'm going to go do the thing at the place...
...anypony notice a theme in my blog posts lately?
No? Me either.
(I wish I was that cute when I slept. I'm fairly sure my wife would have told me if my ears flicked like that...)
I'm trying to imagine a human being's ears flicking like that, and it is far more worrying than cute.
It's also making me laugh.
Oh, only two more chapters left in Bards? Huh, for some reason I guess I was expecting it to last a little longer. But then again, seven chapters does seem like a reasonable amount as well... So I look forward to seeing how it ends next week.
I'm also looking forward to the Philomena short as well. I don't think I've ever read a story that centered on her before.
Regarding 'The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon', I've seen it on the front page a couple times but I haven't checked it out yet. But since you seem to like it so much, perhaps I'll do so tomorrow...
Anyway, I hope the rest of the week is more restful for you!
You may want to consider not killing yourself on that. It's an awesome project to devote a lot of time to, but... do you really want to live the next few years of your life being perpetually exhausted because of it? I mean, I thought you just finished the big crunch time for Pacific PonyCon, but apparently it's still on...?
And 750 words each day, every day is really respectable, especially when you're juggling other projects on top of it. Working on something nonstop at all is impressive. Just... try to find a balance that makes clear, consistent progress you can be proud of, but still gives you time to rest, stay sane, and do your ideas justice?
I've had a great many of those weeks
It's great to hear that you have stuff planned, though. That always helps me get out of a lurch.
Good luck in the EFNW contest!
4412538 Mission accomplished. If I amuse, then I succeed.
4412543 I'll be eager to have Bards behind me. This story got edited, rewritten, hack-and-slashed, murdered, ressed, murdered again, ressed again with a few random bits left over and a few more things a dozen times over. There's a few things I'd probably change... but not anymore. This story is so very done.
Nope. No rest for the... whatever I am. But yeah, check out that story! I has a few hiccups here and there, but it's simply brilliant overall!
4412575 I have many amazing, astounding, wonderful, epic skills.
Balance is not among them. However, events have... eventuated that will likely force the issue. That being said... there's a reason I'm still in crunch time and it's very much associated with PPC.
4412967 Oh, there's never any shortage of plans. There's only a shortage of time. I don't exactly have Twi's gift for scheduling...
And thank you!
4413334 Lol, never would have guessed how many, ah, revisions, Bards has gone through. But at least the end product is a good one, at least from my perspective.
And yeah, I'm about halfway through 'The Mare Who Once Lived on the Moon' now, and it's as brilliant as you say. If only my own stories were that good...
4413380 Someone once said you have to write a million words before you get to the good stuff. But the nice part is, not a single one of those words is wasted.
Just keep writing. That's how you get better!
4415030 Haha, thanks, that's good advice.
Though to be honest, I'm probably being a little too hard on myself out of... well, impatience mostly, since I haven't gotten recognition as fast as I'm kinda used to? I've only been on fimfiction for less than a month (jeez, it feels longer) but I came from a fandom on fanfiction.net that was rather a bit smaller than the FiM fandom (though still decently sized in its own right) and was one of the bigger names in it...going from massive weekly series with about 30 reviews per chapter at its peak, all of them good, to...basically a nobody has been rather humbling. But, ah, that is in large part due to my own impatience I think. Also probably because I lack a baseline to judge how fast I should be getting noticed.
Ah, anyway, don't wanna spend too much time talking about myself here. Just wanted to let you know that you and many other authors here have just been amazing inspirations to me.
4415077 There's a reason I won't edit for other people. Because I am utterly vicious as an editor to my own stories. I will rip them to shreds, but I can't hurt my own feelings over it. I don't know how to turn that off. So yeah, I get that.
As for recognition, the thing I'll recommend is do the research about FimFiction. Check your audiences. Check the groups to post them in. Make sure to try and send them in to Equestria Daily (but be ready to do some edits. I did the first time. And that was humbling because I've won honorable mentions in global writing contests). As for the rest, check to see why you write. For me, this is practice in character development, conflict resolution, genre expansion and much, much more. I plan on taking the lessons from Wavelengths and bringing them back to my professional writing and I know I'll be far stronger because of these interactions.
In the end, the fame on here is going to be fleeting. Many of the legendary authors on here have moved on to bigger and better things. And that's good! But I'd suggest you write for the joy of telling good stories rather than fame. Recognition is a drug. I keep having to yank myself back for this and not let myself get addicted.
I write because it's who I am. Find your reason and stay with that. As long as you have passion, creativity, a willingness to learn and the courage to take feedback from random online ponies, you'll do just fine in time. Though having good editors, doing extra proofreads and for the love of Celestia making sure that you don't misspell anything in your synopsis, short synopsis or heaven forbid, title, go a long way.
...nope. Not talking about you. Talking about other stories that make me wonder if they even read the damn thing they wrote.
4420106 Aha, some more great advice.
I honestly didn't think about posting my stories to groups myself, much less getting Equestria Daily involved with anything. But then again I am most used to fanfiction.net... To be honest again, I'm not so much the 'viciously edits her own work to shreds because it's never quite good enough' type of writer but more, like, what i imagine is more Fluttershy-esque? In that I'm generally pretty happy with and proud of what I write as I write it, but then once I post it the anxiety hits cause it never seems like it's good enough for other people. 
As for why I write...I don't think it's fame, exactly. But rather...just the knowledge that I've written something that brings other people some amount of happiness from reading. The feeling of sharing something I enjoyed writing, with other people who enjoy it too...if that makes sense. (It probably does, but I've always been super uncertain when describing things like this cause I don't have any, like, formal background or whatever in writing stuff like this.) The recognition is just a means to an end I guess, since I can hardly share my joy if nobody is reading my work and even then I wouldn't know I'd done it if they don't leave feedback...
And...another reason why I write is because I just wanna see how good at it I really am. See, I'm basically in like a crossroads of my life right now, trying to figure out which path I wanna devote myself towards (while keeping the other as basically a hobby). On one hand I've got the field I got my Master's in but which I haven't been able to do anything with, and on the other I have writing fiction which is something I enjoy and something I've gotten some praise for. So in that respect I write because I wanna see just how viable that path is for me, while also developing my skills in it - currently, just getting practice writing my own characters and my own plots, and eventually weaving a bunch of smaller plots into something bigger. And more recognition means more feedback, which will help me figure all that out...and thus help me decide what I want to be doing with my life.
(Oh, how I'd love to be a pony...then I could just look at the ol' butt tatt to see what I should be doing...)
(And yeah, some of the stories on this site...need much more help than I ever will. So at least there's that, I guess.)
But yeah. Thank you, as always, for the advice and I'll try to put it to use.