New Year, New Patreon, New Horizons · 5:05pm Jan 7th, 2019
Okay, I'm just gonna start out by saying that this is gonna be a real long-ass blog. Definitely the longest one yet. I've got a lot to cover, so let's get into it, shall we?
As per usual, business first for the impatient and time-sensitive. After my brief foray into the realm of farm-to-bedroom, locally sourced, vegan, eco-friendly marital aids, I've tossed myself back into the realm of airships and ocean dives with zest and energy. My co-author and I have already outlined half of Rarity's part in Sunken Horizons, and we'll be using her as a clock to properly pace Twilight's half of things while we plan it out. I've also finally gotten to writing the actual text of Chapter One. And now that I have something to give you, I'm announcing my official launch of my Patreon page!
I'm very excited to be taking this next step, and it's my earnest hope that I'll be able to spend even more time writing for you guys. So for those of you with the combination of interest and income, hit me up! I won't be publishing any chapters here on FimFic until I have at least three chapters drafted—a backlog is great for keeping a consistent update schedule—but you can already start reading the first 1500 words and give me some feedback as I go further!
In the process of outlining Sunken Horizons, I ended up creating a simple map of the locales visited and mentioned in Empty Horizons, and I thought you guys might like to see it. So here you go!
This is nothing fancy, and I have no real intent of making an actual map map, but it will give you an idea of where we've been so far. The big circles are islands, and the smaller ones are underwater. The orange path, which originates at Tradewithers, shows Gava's path to Heighton, her brief layover for repairs after the ambush over the Serpent's Eye, and then to Altalusia. The purple path is Twilight's trips to the three dives, plus her stop at Leviathan Wakes and rush to Altalusia. The blue path is Rarity's much less frantic journey to Fellis, evacuation to Straterra, and eventual end in Altalusia.
"MR" is "Marewick Ruins," with Marewick being an island that Rarity reads about collapsing shortly before Fellis drops out beneath her. The "H" in the corner is Harvest, a city that rivals Heighton in size, which is mentioned once in the first chapter of Empty Horizons. As far as scale goes, the Argo takes one day to cross from one side of each grid-box to the opposite one. And yes, I'm intentionally not mentioning a specific speed. Counting the boxes crossed by the purple arrow and doing some rough rounding, we can count that it's been about 17 days since the start of the story. Kinda crazy to think that all that happened in such a short time, huh?
Next up, the audiobook! The casting process is going very well, bolstered by my forays onto various sites and the references of the VAs already casted. I've made a project page on Casting Call Club where VAs are able to audition, and we've already got 11 roles filled, covering most of the major ones. Here's a quick visual summary of what's still open.
Don't ask me why it's sorted that way. We have a pretty solid Rainbow Dash lined up as well, but we're waiting on her to get over a cold so she can send in a formal audition and make it all official like. That means we can start recording once we score an Applejack! We've had a couple great Pinkie Pie auditions too, but I'm still holding out on her to see if anyone else gives it a shot before casting someone. Sunfeather also has a few lines in Chapter Two, but if nobody pops up then one of the VAs we already have can probably cover her.
Oh, and Apple Bloom has a single three-word line in one of Twilight's dreams. Can anybody do a good impression?
Noc will be handling the music—possibly including an original track—and I'm also looking for a sound engineer that can handle effects, because I certainly lack the experience to handle it and the time to learn. If no such sound engineer appears, we'll be doing it with just voice and sound.
Also of note are the six dedicated extra roles. Setting aside the various minor characters, there are over 30 different extras in the story, and someone is gonna have to handle them. If you have a solid mic and can emote decently well, you might want to hang around in the Discord. Even if you don't have a wide range, you could probably voice an extra at some point! And if you do have some actual VA chops, there's still plenty of named roles to fill! I know some of you mentioned wanting to try out and never actually showed up. Hint hint.
Alright, what am I missing? Writing updates, Patreon, audiobook... oh! We have a side-story in the making. One of my most active readers has been quite smitten with the relationship between Twilight and her Other half, and is writing her own spin-off dedicated to how it develops. It's all just drafts in the Discord for now, but they already have over 7k words and are going strong. It's solidly written, and I'm quite interested to see how it all turns out! Those of you with a good memory might remember that I spoke previously about another side-story, and that's finally seeing some progress after the author finished with hectic real life obligations. So here's to hoping that gets published!
I'll be writing a synopsis of Empty Horizons somewhere along the line, which I will most likely release shortly before publishing Sunken Horizons here. Our local musical talent is also still plugging away at the Empty Horizons sea shanty. It's a lot of fun seeing new lyrics pop up and listening to the melodies created. We also have a poet in the server, who has written a piece inspired by the story so far. For the sake of avoiding clutter, I'll be publishing it in a blog of it's own. If you're not a follower but are interested, make sure to check around for it!
Some of you may have been a bit perturbed when they saw that I wrote my very own entry in to the Beanis Cinematic Universe. What can I say? I started reading on a whim, and it was so easy to read, and then it started surprising me with how deep and emotional it all got. The muse struck me, and the timing was right. I was already taking a break from Horizons, so why not squeeze out a short little adventure? And so Pirates of the Caribbeanis was written in two days of literary detox, and I feel refreshed and ready to return to the somewhat more serious affair of my usual writing. So fear not! I'm not dumping you all to become some kind of bean lunatic.
Lastly, personal life updates! I'm down in Florida now, staying with my parents while I save up to get a place of my own again. I'll be visiting my girlfriend on the 22nd, and staying there at least two weeks, so there's a decent chance that my writing will stall somewhat while I'm there. I did miss the Florida weather. I'd also like to say that the addition of 2B to Soul Calibur VI is awesome. It really feels like just playing Nier: Automata. They nailed it!
And that's that! I'm looking forwards to the new year, boyos, and for so many different reasons. I'm excited to tell the next chapter of my story, especially with your support! Don't forget to check out my Patreon, or the CCC page if you're a VA. And pop in to the Discord if you want to hang out or chat!
See ya around, sky cowboy.
P.S. - I almost forgot! We have a Minecraft server now! Connection info is available in the Discord!
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Jeeze what is it with Minecraft. Largly hear nothing about it for a year, the old server I used to play on gets shut down after being up for years and now this year I've seen 8 separate mentions of Minecraft from different places all across the internet in the past week.
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No pressure... none whatsoever.
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We just need some of our writers to ship SweetieMash playing Minecraft, and musicians to cover JanAnimations' "Don't Mine at Night."
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So much love for that song. Can’t get it outta my head, and part of me doesn’t wanna.