) Still Ponnequin Rough Draft Complete · 10:43pm Nov 4th, 2017
After not updating a single work or posting a single story since the release of Barren back in May, I have finally completed the rough draft of my next story Still Ponnequin.
Thank you for being patient with me this entire time. It has taken my several life experiences and several attempts at sitting down and writing this out for me to discover one important detail that had been missing from my life this entire time.
I had been lacking a designated schedule to follow. Up until this point in my life, I had gone without one, and I think I had been doing fine without one, I think.
But over the years, as more and more points of interest became available to me, other things I was already doing were falling away from me in very quick order to collect dust on my shelves, so to speak.
I think to make up for this fact, I would obsess about something until I got as near completion to it as I could muster, and then move onto something else.
Well, when it comes to writing, I always want to go back to it. The issue then became: how to I balance everything out? And that was something that I had been struggling with this entire time. How do I do that? I tried just sitting down, but I believe the reason that didn't work was there was always something else just beyond the horizon that pulled my attentions away.
It turns out, because there were so many things that I wanted to do and take care of in my life, I never felt that I had the time to do any of them. The result was as followed: I ended up doing the bare minimum of those things to survive, and that was it. It then became harder for me to keep up with my funds, it became harder for me to keep up with my reviews, and it became harder to drudge up the ability to sit down and write.
Then I sat down and questioned what was happening. Was I getting tired? Yes. Was it because I was staying up too late? That wasn't necessarily the case, as I had originally thought. The solution was much simpler than that. Because I didn't know whether or not I had the time for all the things that I wanted to take care of in the week, the time for any of those things never came.
I believe that I was subconsciously trying to keep my schedule open to account for the feeling of 'just in case I need it for something else'. I don't know how best to describe the experience.
So, in the end, the actual solution was to create a full schedule for myself and write out everything I wanted to do and when I wanted to do it. And it worked.
I wrote out one review, and I went from just under 2k words in Still Ponnequin all the way to the rough draft's final count at 4.7k words in under four days. I originally estimated that the story was going to be around 8k words, but as I progressed through it, I felt that I would be dragging some of the scenes on too long if I did so.
The count of the final draft may still drastically change. What I have written isn't exactly spectacular work in its present condition, but I will let my proofreaders worry about that for the time being as I move onto some of my other works that desperately need my attentions.
Rest assured, though, that the final draft of Still Ponnequin will still be as top quality as we can possibly manage given the subject matter. Our team has risen from two (writer and proofreader) to four (writer, two proofreaders, and a prereader). It may still be another week before the story is released. I don't count on it being a masterful work of art, but it certainly will be an interesting experience nonetheless.
Moving forward, I have one other line of inquiry that I'd like to discuss. There is a certain limitation to the amount of words I can produce in a week. I have only been on my schedule for four days now, and I'm starting to notice a trend of about 500 words an hour.
Given that my schedule currently clocks me in at 16 hours of writing a week, This is only about 8k words a week. I will work hard at increasing this number to 1k words an hour, which would up my count to 16k words a week, but this will take time.
In the mean time, I am estimating that the last special I have in store for you guys before I return to the normal updates will be about 100k words long. At 8k words a week, I am estimating that it will take three months to obtain the rough draft to this piece.
I have made the decision that I will fully write this out and get it to a final draft before I start releasing it on a regular schedule.
There is one problem that comes with this, and for the sake of updates for you guys, it looks like I go back into hibernation for a while.
I posit this line up: three weeks (or 24k words) of writing Effigy of a Dragon, followed up by one week of something else every month. That way, you guys still get something from me (and I don't have to appear as if I'm going into hibernation again), and I still make considerable progress on the special.
All in all, it may be up to five more months before you start seeing the final special. That is, if I don't considerably increasing my word output an hour. I will, additionally, be adjusting my schedule in the weeks to come so that I can account for anything I may have missed putting in there because--let's face it--since I am so new to scheduling what I do, I'm bound to have forgotten something.
With those adjustments may come more hours of writing every week as I find out new ways to keep my mind as sharp and alert as possible in my sessions. And just because I am estimating it rounding off at 100k doesn't necessarily mean that it will go that high. It may end up being 50k words. Or it may end up going for much longer. It all depends.
I do look forward to releasing a chapter of it every week when I finish though, and finishing it completely first before release does give us the chance to catch some discrepancies that may spring up in the plot before it gets to you guys. And then there is the pleasant thought of being able to focus on other works while you all are receiving it. 
That's all I have for now. Now that that's out of the way, I have a dinner to make, another review to write up, and my next special to start writing!
Well, in that case, enjoy it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRCzEqkCoiM
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Oddly enough, I somehow feel that news following my statement spells out something like what that normally comes out of his mouth after the statement.
Nevertheless, I don't think the actual finished product will be all the bad, in all honesty. My team will rip it to shreds before we're done with it.
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i have every intention to. i mean, i look forward to tearing it- i mean, looking over it.
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Oh my two proofreaders will absolutely tear it apart. It should be in mostly good condition by the time it reaches your hands, my wonderful prereader.