State of the Unicorn · 8:27pm Aug 10th, 2018
It won't have escaped the notice of anyone who takes an interest in what I write that... well, that I haven't written anything for a while. Apart from a 300-word Trixie flashfic in April, I haven't published any fiction here since February. This was definitely not where I was expecting to be at this point in the year, especially as The Danger Within was intended specifically as a block-breaker where I could just have fun releasing frequent updates and not worry too much about Serious Writing™. (Please spare me any "But Writer's Block doesn't exist!" comments. Now is really, really not the time.)
It probably won't come as a surprise that the reasons for my current lack of activity are a variety of Real Life Things™. I don't want to go into specifics as some of them are very personal, but the last few months have not been easy, and the last few weeks have been harder still. I just don't have the time I used to have to write ponyfic, and this may remain the case for the next few months at least. What time I do have for MLP writing is generally spent on my non-fiction fandom blog (Louder Yay), where I regularly review stories but don't actually publish them.
However, I have certainly not retired from writing ponyfic, and I still have stories I want to write here. I don't want to leave The Danger Within as it is for the rest of time, while there's one short story in particular that I'd tentatively pencilled in to be written during the mid-season break, though a combination of the aforementioned Real Life Things™ and the shorter than expected hiatus put the kibosh on that. I don't know how long I will have to wait before I feel able to publish stuff on Fimfiction again, but I definitely do not intend the answer to that to be "forever".
Because of the uncertainty, I have decided to mark The Danger Within as being on hiatus. It just doesn't seem fair to leave it marked simply "Incomplete" when it's been so long and there's no immediate prospect of its being resumed. It is definitely not cancelled, but I really don't know when chapter five is likely to appear. It could be next week, it could be next year. If I publish anything in the nearish future, it's likely to be something small and silly; there is actually one story, based on a scene I wrote for some friends at a convention last year, that fits that bill.
Something that gives me heart is that this is not the first time I've gone through a long dry spell because of Real Life Things™. I published Clouded Minds in April 2013, but in truth 90% of it had been written by the end of 2012. I endured a family tragedy in early 2013 and beyond finishing CM did nothing that year. I only really resumed writing with For an Angel to Pass in March 2014, and in fact that kicked off my most productive period on Fimfiction: in the year that followed I published ten fics, including the likes of It Doesn't Matter Now and We Who with Songs Beguile.
I'm not leaving the fandom and I'm not leaving Fimfiction. I still enjoy the show and I still have ideas for stories. I suppose what I'm saying is: when the world will let me attend to it, I have unfinished business here. Watch this space.
Take time to take care of yourself!
You can't force things, and you need to attend to those RLTs. I still greatly enjoy those blogs of yours!
good do a you! :D
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Thank you very much, all of you. It's immensely appreciated. :)