Seasons Greetings! (and incoming chapter?) · 12:07am Dec 16th, 2018
Hello everyone! I have returned, I hope all is going well for you and that you have a wonderful holiday season this year. It's such a fun time of year for me around this time. When I was going up, between Thanksgiving and about President's weekend was always very special for me because that is when my family was around the most. The farm work would be done for the year, harvest in, and we had several breaks from school during the time. It's a wonderful time to be around family, friends, and those that you love. So, whether it's Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Boxing Day, Ōmisoka, etc, I hope you guys have a great celebration. (And safe travels too, we've been having a lot of accidents around here due to snow and ice.)
I do want to apologize for my long absence, well, more like silence on my part. A lot has been going on in my life. Work has been terrible enough that I've been looking to change to a different unit, maybe the ER or ICU (I'm a nurse). There is a new hospital opening up in town next Fall, which has a lot of people excited and worried, and I may try to apply to go there instead. University has been rough, I'm entering the phase of my Associates to Master's program where I am doing more papers than tests, and I had this crazy-ass assignment last semester that I had to do some 70-90 hours of community work and assessment of the nutritional status and programs available. Unfortunately, I couldn't just sit in Wal-mart and people watch what they are buying, or ask members of the community about their ideas on health and nutrition. I had to find health care and government officials, do some hours of volunteer work, pay for a 4 hour long class on diabetes (that I think wasn't counted in the end for some reason). It was a mess and the grading process, the assignment was rejected three times due to the time log not being organized the way they like it. After the third, I had to take it to a third party council the school uses to deal with grade disputes and present my case on why I was correct in the format and submission of the assignment. It was a nightmare. The other thing going on is that I got married. Yup, I got married back at the beginning of November to the most wonderful girl I've ever meet. We're like best friends, she gets along fantastically with my parents, and I did get her to watch MLP. So it's wonderful, but I've been swamped.
However, some good news on ER251 and other writing projects.
First off, I really do apologize for things. The last time ER251 updated was nearly last year. I had writing goals and failed them spectacularly. I do apologize, I know what it is like to wait for a story you like to update and the update takes nearly forever to come out. Anyways, on to some news...
Autumnschild has Chapter 5 for editing. Yup, about bloody damn time, right? He's got chapter five, work and life has kinda cooled down for him. I'm not sure when it can be expected, I am aiming for before Christmas, but it may be after too. This chapter though is quite a beast, nearly twice as large as the previous chapters, and since It has been so long since it has been updated, I feel justified in letting it be larger than normal (about 4,000 words more). I don't want to split it has it has lots of good stuff in it, and really no way to split it well. I have been sporadically writing scenes for Chapters 6, 7, and 8.
I have more story ideas in the tubes (I say that all the time), of which I hope to get the working draft completed, recruit some pre-readers and editors, and release the chapters at the beginning of the year. There are three new story projects I want to release.
The first one that I want to talk about is a wild west/steampunk (mild steampunk) story on Applejack. The story has been floating in my head for maybe two years and gets some occasional attention, but most of the time is developing and refining the storyline. A juncture that I have reached at this point is determining if the story will be a regular pony or anthro. Let me explain, during the summer months I had the privilege on being a pre-reader for
PaulAsaran
's, Bulletproof Heart. It was a fantastic story that threw Rarity into the unexpected world of being a gunslinger. The story is beautiful, the chapters long and very gripping. I feel like Anthro typically carries a negative stereotype with it, i.e sex and porn, but this story avoids that and utilizes a beautiful display of gunplay, magic, and some of the best world building I've seen in a long time. I highly, highly recommend this story.
But in reference to my Applejack-project, it had influenced my thoughts on it enough that I was thinking about making it anthro to capitalize on one of the key parts of any of the wild west themed stories; Gunplay. I worked in a method to still use a type of gun or crossbows for ponies, but nothing really revolver-ish. Which I think any good western needs. What do you guys think? Anthro with guns, or ponies with alternatives in it?
The second story is a spiritual descendant of
Municipal Engines
's Night's Favoured Child. I LOVED this story, read it about three times! I think Rainbow Factory got my looking at MLP, but this story caused me to stay on the site, make a profile, and try to get involved in writing. It is such a wonderful and deep story and it has inspired a similar story after my last read through, though it will be kept very different from it because I don't want to make a carbon copy of it, or anything too close to it.
The third story is a massive project I've been working on because the story world is ginormous, and the plot just as large. It's going to be an alternative universe story prior to season 8, about mid-season 7. I don't know how to describe it without getting stuff away, but it will be referencing a lot to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings movies. I think it will be a fun one.
Anyways, sorry this was longer than I thought. I thank you guys for your support and patience with me.
- L-Comm.
Good to see you're doing well and still have that Fimfic spirit!
Nice to see the story is still alive, and that so are you.
Going through a "nightmare" scenario to help save lives, you sound like real hero! I'm glad you're still writing too.