Random Ramblings CLXXXIV · 11:30am May 20th, 2017
IN WHICH I BEAT A DEADLINE (AGAIN)
Yes, you read that right. I have just finished up another story, two days ahead of "schedule". Such as I even have one. As is my policy, I'm going to sit on it and let it mellow, then go back through it and make final edits before I post it.
I was really motivated to create Sasha, and it has turned out to be the longest one-shot I've ever written – 800 words longer than Rarity Reveals..., the previous record holder. No one was more shocked about that than me. Anyway, I hope you all will enjoy it when it goes live on Monday afternoon CDT.
Why then? Well, as I noticed the other day (and mentioned in a previous blog), two days from now is the third anniversary of my creating an account on this site. Figure I may as well mark the occasion by posting the story I should have written first (leaving aside my 2013-era Pinkamena story, which will come eventually™). This is what I get for writing a multi-story arc out of order. I don't plan to make a May 22nd fic a thing like I do with my always posting a Mayor Mare story on January 20th; one running tradition is enough.
Anyway, please look forward to my newest story. Peace out!
EDIT: (2017/5/21 6pm) Went through the story again, did a bit of word tweaking. I think it's just about worthy of posting now. Oh, and Blogpost 185 (author's notes) is already written.
EDIT 2: (2017/5/22 12:30am) So, looking things over, I managed to shat out a 4,800 word story in about four days and eight hours. That is absurdly fast for me. The only stories here I know I managed to write more quickly than that were Highs & Lows (1,273 words in ~2hrs) and Where There's Smoke (~3,000 words in about 6 hours, IIRC), both of which I sat on for months before making them public. Orangeglow from this past January didn't take long either, but it's also half the length of Sasha and isn't very good because I got on my "I literally have a degree in this sh!t" soapbox.
I do indeed look forward to it.
4540901 -
If there's one thing I've learned from my 2+ years of writing stories for this site, it's this -- Don't write a saga out of order. Yet that's exactly what I've done. Three times now! Good thing you and others told me to stop waffling and just write THE GUIDE (it has been updated).
But sometimes that's just how it works out. Chances are I'll have a LOT to say in the Author's Notes for this one.
4540928 Funny you should mention things not to do. I've learned a similar hard lesson by trying to write and release a novel serially. It's been an acutely educational experience, and is still in progress.
4541389 - It's honestly easier to write stuff out of order (especially if you're making it up as you go like I was with Recovery until recently), but it's harder to maintain continuity because you're not progressing logically, and it risks confusing your readers because the real-time updates don't always make sense until you look at the big picture.
Serializing a novel Dickens-style is difficult. That's why I'm trying to obsessively outline my upcoming longer stories so I hopefully don't run into too many snags. I've stopped at least two long fanworks because I couldn't figure out how to write something near the end.