May the muffins be forever in your favour.Recharging my batteries..... + Addressing some issues with "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity'' (IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ!) · 3:13pm Jun 17th, 2017
Hello, dear readers of "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity"!
I have a few announcements and explanations to make regarding the fic. First off, to the few of you who read the fic, I want to apologize that I haven't delivered a chapter yesterday. The six weeks that preceded the airing of "A Royal Problem" were particularly stressful for me because of some eventful things that happened and I barely made it to pump out chapters on Fridays in these six weeks.
So, I afforded myself two lazy days on Thursday and Friday and just let my mind rest and drift through the vacuum of thoughts in my head.
I know that not many read the fic in the first place, but to those who do, I'm sorry if you expected a chapter this week and were disappointed to not get one. I needed these two days off to clear my mind and be able to continue writing at all, because putting words on paper had become a literal pain over the last weeks.
And this brings me to the second thing I want to talk about. Or rather, that I want to address here.
Unfortunately, "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity" does not do very well in popularity. In fact, the problem is so bad that a new chapter does not even come up to 50 views in one week after release.
I can't tell why this is the case so far, because I don't get any feedback or problems pointed out to me either, so all I can do is guessing.
I already changed the description and explained that the fic will definitely fit in with what we saw regarding Tender Taps in "On Your Marks" at the start of Season 6, because I figured many readers here see the fic as outdated and overrun by the show by now.
I have decided to write shorter chapters with 2,500 words max, because I thought that, maybe, many readers who see the fic have a hard time to get invested into a fic that finally updates again after such a long time, in hope that splitting the story up in shorter chapters makes it easier to get back into it again.
None of those things helped, sadly. I also submitted the fic to a lot more groups, something I'm not normally doing and only do in emergencies, but this had little to no effect on its reception.
This leaves me at a point where I'm slowly running out of ideas on how to increase interest in "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity".
As one last try to increase said interest, I soon want to increase advertisement for it as well. Beginning with the next chapter of it, which will release on Friday again as usual, I will make weekly advertisements of the fic in the Shameless Self-Promotion Bureau.
I will also release some more exciting previews with mysterious hints for what's going on in new chapters via blog entries in hope to make followers of mine who haven't read the fic intrigued about it.
If this is not helping to increase views of it either..... Then I'm officially out of ideas and can only conclude that too many see the fic as outdated because of recent events we've seen in the show this and last season.
Which would suck, because this fic contains one of my more exciting and epic ideas I got and, as the description already details for a few weeks now, will absolutely make sense as something that could be seen as semi-prelude to what happened with Tender Taps.
Nonetheless, even if the status quo of the fic doesn't get better, I will continue writing it to the end. It's harsh on me to see this great idea I have getting so little attention, but I will not break my codex of finishing everything I have started writing.
However, this means I'm going about it slightly differently from now on.
Tomorrow, I will sit down and try to finish writing the whole fic in one go. And will do the same again a week later if I can't get everything done. The remaining chapters will then still get released once a week every Friday.
I still love this fic and the idea in it and it keeps its important meaning to me, but, it is starting to wear a little on me that barely anyone reads it. Since it is an older fic that I'm just continuing after I couldn't write it for a long time, it feels like I'm stagnating as a writer with the little success it has and the wish to finally write something truly new grows bigger and bigger.
But I also don't want to give this fic up, not only because of my aforementioned codex, but also because it is very dear to me, since it is my (first) major fic contribution to Applebloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle having gotten their cutie marks.
Another reason is that this will allow me to advertise the fic better, since I will already know what each new chapter contains exactly when I hint at it via the kind of previews I have in mind.
Following this new strategy of writing it will allow me more efficient advertising and also give me some guaranteed time each week to write something completely new.
Especially the latter is important to me, because with at least ten new chapters that are still coming, I can't be completely sure if "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity" isn't taking up most of the rest of my writing time in the week after my planned days of revising the first two chapters of "Journeys and Destinations: A Friendship for Eternity".
This would mean I couldn't write anything new for Season 7 until mid-August or maybe even the start of September! That's a thought that doesn't make me feel comfortable, so this new strategy is the better approach.
So, this is where we stand in regards to "The Strange Case of Dinky Hooves' Cutie Mark Curiosity". Releases will resume next week and still happen on Fridays, but I will finish up the fic in a few long writing sessions to be able to write new fics as soon as possible.
If you want to support me a little in this endeavor and want to make it easier for me to write new fics based on Season 7, you can donate me some money here:
The donations I receive here will be used to buy coffees and other stuff that makes such a long writing session easier for me, so every bit you give me will directly support my writing!
I would like to donate but sadly don't have a own Account. Anyway, get a Good rest, you earned it. No matter how you make it, it's interesting for me what dinky has. When i First came here, my First Stories got down voted and barely any upvotes, but with the Time the upvotes overcame the down votes.
I got barely any Comments, so i didn't knew either what i did wrong. I dicided to Keep Posting and See what happens.
For the Story, i can't See any Problems, your're doing a Great job at it!
4573745
Thank you for the encouraging words.
It's nothing that will make me stop writing and I will finish this particular fic definitely, low times happen for an author, after all. It's just a bit soul-crushing that I only get so little attention with this fic that is so important to me. 
You mean no account on ko-fi.com? Or no Paypal account to transfer donations from?
4573823
Paypal but i Plan to get One. Your Welcome and Good luck for the future
4573834
I see what I can do about that. I read something on ko-fi.com about setting up a Paypal account in a way that allows non Paypal users to send donations as well.
So far, I figured this wouldn't be a problem for anyone, but maybe it is, so I will fix that.
4573838
As i said Good luck. Sounds Stupid but maybe Reading other Stories get you ideas and Motivation
4573839
I have now upgraded my Paypal account to a business account. If you want to donate me something via my Ko-fi page, you should be able to do it without a Paypal account now.
4573867
Okay. That with Reading other Stories gets me some ideas and Motivation, Works Good for me
4573875
Getting new ideas isn't really the problem. Not at all, actually. I have tons of fic concepts and ideas stored on my HD.
It's just the reception of this particular fic that gives me head- (and heart) aches.
I will still try to fix this problem, though.
4573916
Okay, good luck on it. But no matter what you do with the story, you're have my interest (I have the feeling I'm the only one who cares for this story)
For that idea thing, well, In the first Chapter of Scotch Tape's story, I had the idea that she plays a video game, got that Idea/insperation from your Aunt Mille story where Dinky plays a video game
4573920
ferret said he's very interested in it, too, but he hasn't read the latest chapter yet, so I'm not sure if he has jumped off of it.
I'm happy, though, that one of my fics could inspire you.^^
4573935
Glad to hear it. I won't jump off, I love the way you discribe Dinky in your stories. And it it nice after a hard day to work, when you come home, that you can read a story with your favorite character. Seeing that this story gets updared when when I come home at friday, helps me relax from the stressful work
4573937
Really? Now I feel a little bad for not updating it yesterday.
But with tomorrow, this will be no issue anymore. I should be able to write most of the chapters tomorrow, so there will be a nice pile of chapters for Fridays.^^
4573964
I was on vacation this week, so don't feel bad, they're actually remind me it's friday.
I look forward to it