Season 9 starts soon - Should I publish my pending pile then? · 4:36am Feb 25th, 2019
Ok, I’ve got a question: Since readership peaks during the episode airing period, should I go ahead and publish my incomplete stories when Season 9 starts to air? I did this a couple of years back and called it March Madness, putting out a chapter a day for a whole month. Normally, I hold off until the whole story is complete and edited to a fine gloss, but some of this stuff will take another year to get wrapped up, if then. Here’s what I have:
Chapters - Name
2 - Thoughtlets
1 - The Importance of Phrasing Wishes (short, complete)
5 - Harry Potter and the Little Pony Problem (nearly done)
1 - Naughty Bits (M-rated)
16 - Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies (could go on for some time)
8 - Sweetie Belle - Hogwarts Exchange Student (could easily hit 30+ chapters)
4 - The Substitute Librarian (Estee) - Work in progress
8 - Twinkle Twinkle, Speaker to Dragons - Estimate of 25 or so chapters when complete, maybe.
1 - Monster Under The Bed (really, just a start, could go 10 chapters or so)
The Substitute Librarian is my attempt at writing — if not like Estee, more similar to the way she writes, using Green Grass as a foil. Naughty Bits is my only M-rated short story that I’ve never had the nerve to publish. Monster Under The Bed is an inversion of the “Small foal frightened of monster in closet” trope, written in short, direct sentences like a three-year-old would write.
I’m still framing stories to see what I can bring to the Bronycon Bookstore, so actual writing has taken a back seat to cleanup work. In that regard, I’m fairly sure I’ll have The One Who Got Away/Drifting Down The Lazy River printed, determined to get The Lazy Dragon of Dragonvale setup, and I might get The Traveling Tutor done. They’re all three clean, so all I need is a cover for Tutor and some nerve.
Seems like a fun idea I wouldn't object.
wait... what?! I am a big fan of Sweetie Belle and the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry so I am totally excited for a story to potentially fill the void left by it.
I would say go with another March Madness. Send the last season off with a bang!
or you spread it out over the whole season. gives you also more time to give us extra chapters.
I’m a firm believer in getting stuff done before publishing. But let’s be honest, you’re you, and the fact that you can maintain this many in-flight stories without going completely off your gourd means you’ve got a better shot at juggling all of this than I would.
I’m kinda trying to make the most of this final season to get some more stuff out, too. So I can hardly fault someone else for doing the same!
Ofuk. At this point it's too late for me to participate in March Madness.
There's always nex-...
One detail from your Interview sticks out with me: Your previous March Madness just about destroyed you.
My vote would be not to get into any project that would require herculean efforts to complete by the end of the month.
I don't know how your creative process works, but my suggestion is to pick one from the pile of stories and try to finish and publish it during March. If you manage to complete it before the month is over, pick a new one and finish that one, if you feel up to it.
I think you’d probably just burn yourself out trying to fix and post so many different stories through a month, especially when you’re not sure how long some of them will go on for.
I would suggest posting these stories throughout the year, especially if you think they still need some polish.
The Sweetie Belle HP has a lot of potential and is well started, but looks to be a long one and you're not that far into it. Farmer Bruener is within commuting distance of a finishing point. Or, at least, a climax.
I say go for Bruener, but this isn't a Betan vote, it's your process. Do what makes you happier.
March Madness woot
I'm with a number of other people. First and foremost, don't try to do something that's going to stress and/or tire you out.
If you know where your threshold is, then my suggestion would be to start with what you know you can finish in time so you have something ready, then if you think you can handle it, go with the next (what you think will be) shortest one, because then you may have something else ready, and while that's waiting in the wings, you can start on the next project since you have some overlay time. If you don't finish everything in time, it's not the end of the world. I'm pretty sure people are still going to be around here even after season 9 is over. But basically, I'd say go in order of length from shortest to longest.
5019741 5019721 No, guys. I listed my *completed* chapters out of *uncompleted* stories. The stress of running this March Madness (or April Fooliar) is minimal, because all I have to do is get up in the morning at my normal time, get my phone, touch 'Publish' on the next chapter of whatever, and go about my day. *Writing* a chapter a day would murder me dead. *Publishing* one that's already ready is trivial.
5019751 Yeah, Bruener will go in 'arcs' like Letters From a Little Princess Monster. I have three generally roughed out in my mind. (technically four) as follows.
1) Don't worry, Twilight will get us all home in an hour or two. (reads Spike letter) Well, three days.
2) Don't worry, the three days is up, and Twilight will have us all home shortly (reads Spike letter) Ok, everypony. Do you think you can wait a week? (we're about here)
3) Don't worry, this plan of Twilight's will work perfectly. (later, as they clean up the extradimensional slime and tentacle bits) I'm sure she will get us back at the end of the month.
4) Luna: I an quite pleased at the actions of Twilight Sparkle. The portal which she devised is a great leap forward in magical theory, and if you will all form a single line, we will have you back at home in a matter of minutes. Thank you, good people of Dirt for keeping our subjects safe and secure.
5019678 I've got this many stories in the hopper to *keep* me from going off my gourd. That way I can switch when one gets hard to write.
5019676 Hm... There is that.
5019643 So start with the M-rated one, then? :)
5019639 Me too. That's why I started writing it. Trying to write in JK Rowling's style is murderous for me, though. I wound up with a semi-mutant cross.
5019808
Ok. I interpreted your plan as possibly meaning “I will publish one chapter per day of one story and might just be tempted to keep going on that one story at the same pace until the story is completed.” My bad.
5019808
Your comment makes me think about how I’ve been trying to move in the direction of having multiple “active” stories at once again—and interestingly enough, it’s because of a truly great blog post by B_25 about how to be prolific. I think what I’m finding is that I respect it as a practice but I’m not sure that I can adopt it. It’s actually been a wonderful relief to cross most of my active projects off my list over these last couple months, and adding more unfinished stuff again is proving to be more of a stress-source than I’d realized.
Anyway, it’s just one of those interesting differences between people/writers. More and more, I find myself thinking that it probably matters less how each of us makes the sausage, so long as we do, and it’s tasty and kosher.
Here’s to your sausage, whenever you bring it out!
This will sound trite, but whatever makes you happiest. For sure don't force the situation if you're uncertain if the story is ready for prime time
be chill Georg in all my years of reading fanfics ( and gods does that sound pretentious) iv noticed that nothing kills an author faster than having too many projects going at the same time go with what your comfortable with so you dont burn out
5020120 Close. Nothing kills an author faster than *pushing* too many projects at once, where 'Too many' can be as low as one. That's why you see so many strange pokes into the unknown in my stuff. I've written a Star Trek short, a Bolo story, stories where the sun is a light bulb, alicorns have fuses, and weirdest of all, one where Twilight Sparkle falls in love, gets married, and has a foal. That's probably one reason I'll never make it as a commercial writer, but that's ok.
5020007 As long as I have my lovable crew of editors, I leave behind a fine, polished road as I write :) Like a snail. Wait, let me rephrase...
Personally I am most looking forward to Farmer Bruener.
5020153 I gotta see if Estee will let me borrow Sizzler again. He's so fun.
-start Chapter 18
Farmer Bruener Has Some Ponies
Removing Day
"You don't know how to lie. If you can't lie, you'll never go anywhere."
— Richard Nixon
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
Time: 6:00 A.M. Monday June 22, 2015
Location: Bruener farm, Randolph Kansas
- - - - ⧖ - - - -
The night had been far too short, and the morning swift in its arrival. But at least there were no bugles. Dakota Henderson nosed his way out from under the sheets and blearily regarded the two additional ponies in Claire’s repurposed bedroom, who had made enough noise entering that his Marine instincts had dragged him up out of a perfectly good sleep.
One of the ponies was obviously Grace, looking rumpled but at least clean in her dark armor without the paint splotches of last night. She was prodding the immobile green lump that was Lucky, who was still curled up in the doggie bed on the floor. His little daughter was nowhere to be seen, but she could be felt, because there was a warm lump who had settled down in the blanket covering the crook of his knees, and the tiny sound of snoring.
He would have moved around to see about picking up the tiny foal from her comfortable nest, except for the second unicorn in the room. This one had to be Sizzler, from his blood-red coat and bone-white mane. Kota had only seen him from a distance, because the rest of the military guys had practically mobbed his grill when he was cooking, and the military ponies preferred not to talk about him at all. The steak cutie mark on his flank probably explained a lot of both, and was amplified by the way his magical aura was a nearly colorless field with wobbling bits of red that made the plate he was carrying look slightly as if it were bleeding.
Well, not so slightly.
“He’s up,” hissed Sizzler, nudging Grace with one hoof and rattling on in a rapid avalanche of short words. “Can I give him breakfast now? The sausages are starting to cool and I’m not too sure about the eggs. I’ve never really done eggs before and I know Mister Bruener said that the yolks should be soft and runny but not too much so I tried but the bacon was all done and getting—”
“B’kon?” asked Clover, coming abruptly awake with perked-up ears and an eager expression. Dakota managed to get an arm around her before she galloped off the bed in search of her favorite snack, then picked up the plate with his other hand so it would look less like it was bleeding all over the sheets.
“Good morning, Mister Sizzler,” managed Dakota. He put the plate on the bedside table and broke off a tiny bit of bacon for the eager foal he had trapped under his arm. “Are you excited about going home today?”
“I… um…” The suddenly nervous unicorn gave Grace a quick look, and at her nod, turned back to Dakota. “Yes, I am.” There were obviously other words bottled up behind his lips, because Kota had never seen that kind of energy in a unicorn before. His watery eyes were streaming slightly into the dark patches of fur beneath his eyes, he shifted his weight from one hoof to another almost constantly, and his head practically vibrated up and down.
While Clover gummed and drooled over her tiny bacon bit, Dakota regarded the rest of the breakfast plate, which was far more meat-heavy than his expectation. There were two sausage patties, fried to a golden brown and dripping just the tiniest bit of fat at the crispy edges, with two full strips of bacon done just to that delicate stage before crispy and above floppy where the flavor really shone.
And then there were two eggs, oozing yellow yolk and just a little crinkly around the edges. By comparison, they were so plain that he had to go look at the perfect bacon again.
“It’s… art,” murmured Dakota.
Sizzler nearly wriggled his butt with happiness like some stub-tailed terrier who had just been praised.
“Yes, it’s an art form,” said Grace with the odd posturing that made Dakota think she was holding her breath as much as she could in order not to breathe in the delicious scent of sausage and bacon, done to a perfect…
Oh. Herbivores.