Epic Yarn’s Good Day and a Philosophical Musing · 4:43am May 29th, 2018
Today has been a really good day.
First, Titanium Dragon gave “A Slice of (Cake) Life” at good review. I’m really honored!
Since I’m newish to the community, BlazzingInferno would occasionally point people out at EFNW and give me brief bios. His bio for Titanium Dragon was something like, “Titanium reviews a lot of stories and he’s very selective about which ones he likes.” So yes, I’m really honored that my story got a Worth Reading. Thank you Titanium Dragon! You made my day.
Second, I’m actually pretty amazed at myself right now. I finished the first draft of my next pony story tonight. I clocked just under 9,000 words. I don’t remember the last time I wrote 9,000 words in a week, much less finished a story. I usually average around 2,000 to 3,000 words in a week. So yes, I’m celebrating a little bit. Apparently MLP:FiM is magical in more ways than one.
Of course, next comes the whole editing process which can take forever as I obsess over correct words, character voice, plot, and my own self doubts. I can rewrite a scene ten times and still feel it isn’t good enough. I still feel that way about stories I’ve manage to publish.
I once listened to an author on a podcast who said (and I’m paraphrasing), “Writing takes a certain amount of arrogance. You have to be arrogant enough to believe you’re good enough to put your work out there.” I’ve found, for myself at least, that’s only half the story (pun intended).
Half the time, my brain is completely arrogant. It tells me “Yes! This is the best! You’re the greatest writer ever and this is the greatest story ever!!!!”
The rest of the time, my brain is full of self doubt and yells, “No, no, you stop it right now. How dare you think you’re good enough to write? How dare you think what you have to say is worthy? It’s awful. It stinks. You should stop while you’re ahead. You’re never going to be a real writer.”
Thing is, Arrogance and Self Doubt actually work really well together. Arrogance tells Self Doubt to shove it and go suck on lemons, while Self Doubt tells Arrogance to get real and listen to your editor/critics.
So this is me, keeping it real.
I’m really excited about what I just wrote. I think it’s cute. I think it’s interesting. I think it’s a tad funny. I’m also not sure about the last three scenes—you know, the really important ones. The majority of my rewrites and edits will be focused there and that’s okay. Endings are hard for me. I’m really good at starting projects, starting ideas, starting scenes, but I’m terrible at finishing. I’m bad at tying up loose ends. It’s an area I know I need more practice and experience in.
Right now, I’m putting that aside. I’m going to enjoy the rest of my evening by delving into a book.
Tomorrow I will edit. Tomorrow I will stress over word choices and character voices. Tomorrow I will let Arrogance and Self Doubt fight one another again.
Epic Yarn, out.
You may be new to Pony words but you’re obviously not new to writing!
I liked your story! It did a pretty good job of being what it was. I'm sure it won't be to everyone's taste, but the intro hooked me and it carried me through to the end.
Hey, inspiration is inspiration! Take it where you can and run with it. Hearing that you're having fun producing more ponywords (and have produced a lot more than you normally produce in a week) is really great. Good luck with the editing!
That's... a very Fluttershy way of putting it. Usually the phrase "hates everything" is included somewhere. So feel even more honored!