Bronycon 2019 and an update to Windup's story · 1:54am Aug 7th, 2019
It was a great experience. That said most of my time was spent going to different panels and events that were taking place. As a result, I didn't get to talk to as many people as I would have liked. For example, I never got to see Somber, Scampy, Bookplayer or Heartshine to name just a few. Trust me the list was a lot longer than that. Whom I did get to talk to I really enjoyed the conversations and getting to meet new people was great. Also what I did get to do I really enjoyed. There was just too much to do in only 4 days, at least for me.
Of the panels and events that I went to I prioritized book club panels. I only missed two. The ones I went to were amazing and were actually very helpful for me in terms of my writing so a massive thank you to all of you that took part in any of them. One because I didn't get there until after it had started and it was full and the other the line was really long by the time I got there so I went for lunch instead. Thanks to Bookplayer's warning about the cost of food I brought my own so I went back to my room for each meal. Thank you for the heads up Bookplayer. It also gave me a chance to relax and recharge mentally which I was very grateful for.
Two of the writing panels even gave me ideas for stories. In one of them, it was mentioned to never head hop. Well, that sounded like a challenge to me so I quickly started coming up with a story where head-hopping was the major point of writing it. A quick synopsis of what I came up with is that the Mane 7 play a paintball match. Beyond that, you are just going to have to wait. The other story came from one of many typewriters that were brought to the convention. It broke in a manner in which it could not be repaired thus it was declared out of commission. It wasn't until I returned to the Quills room from, funnily enough, a writing panel that a thought went through my mind. It isn't out of commission. You could still write a story without using the letter that was no longer functioning. That letter happened to be the letter N. Thus I gave myself the challenge of writing a short story without using the letter N in a tribute to that typewriter. The short story I came up with was that Twilight was supposed to get a letter from each of the young 6 however one letter is missing.
In regards to that last story, however, because it happened at Bronycon I figured that I would be willing to have more fun with it than that. I am willing to have anyone either suggest a concept for a story and, if this is possible, have anyone who wants to help me write the story help by piecing the story together. This would make it, effectively, a community-written story. I think that would be absolutely awesome, especially if it turned into a proper community tribute to something in some way. However, I have no idea how that last part could even happen. That said if you have an idea for the story without using the letter N than my current one leave it as a reply to this blog post below and get people to upvote it. Come Monday morning if there are any suggestions for a story arc for the "no letter N" story challenge I will take the one with the most upvotes.
I got more than just two story ideas from Bronycon though. I also got a lot of books. 23 to be exact. I didn't get all of the books that I wanted as many were sold out before I ever got to the store. That is rather ridiculous and amazing considering that I got to the book store about halfway through the day on Friday. So congratulations on a massive success with the bookstore to everyone involved with that. Beyond raiding the bookstore I managed to squeak into the marketplace only one more brief time to raid the Ponies at Dawn store and take a quick glance at what was left late Saturday. If I had the time to stop at the vendors and the place at home for even half of everything that I saw there that caught my eye I would have spent over $2,000. The fact that I was even able to get into the marketplace twice is a bit of a miracle considering that usually there was a line just to get into the marketplace with a wait that was around half an hour long if not longer. I couldn't do that and go to all of the panels that I wanted to. That said one of my two visits was in place of me missing one of the panels I wanted to go to.
For me, Bronycon was an amazing experience that left me wishing I could have done more and gotten to actually meet more people than I did but there was just too much going on. I want to go to another convention. The only question is which one or which ones? That remains to be seen. That said I will admit that there were a few times that I could have tried to say hi to some people however I just think it is rude to approach someone and try to talk to them when they are in a group already talking. Here are a few other stories of things that happened if you either missed them or were not able to go.
Someone brought some Tim Tams and Vegemite into the Quills room once and the second I heard about the Vegemite I disappeared simply because I didn't want to appear rude laughing at someone that tried too much at once. Let us be honest, it would have likely been an American because we tend to apply our condiments and spreads judiciously. For the record, the best way to have Vegemite is as a very thin layer on some buttered toast.
Horizon wrote an amazing EQG script that I wish we could see turned into an episode. It was amazing to see most of the cast do a live reading of it. Finally Gabriel Brown in a hoedown during hooves line made the joke that Apple Bloom is the daughter of Applejack and Big Mac. There is a clip of it on Bronycon's Twitch channel titled Apple Bloom's True Identity if you want to go watch it yourself.
Now as for Windup's story. It's not being canceled nor is it going on hiatus. I am actually about 7,000 words into the next chapter with details that I have to get in after I finish writing out what happens. Which means that I may very well get split into two chapters that will be posted relatively close to each other if it gets to be longer than I would like for a chapter. I have also been detailing out, and even writing out some critical parts, several of the next chapters to make sure that everything lines up and makes sense. This doesn't even touch on the fact that I have to rewrite that first chapter that is there. I literally wrote that chapter in a few hours time during the holidays between me working over 12 hours a day at work and just looking at it there is quite a bit that needs, at the least, improving. Nothing that is there currently is going to change. What is there is just going to eventually get some much-needed improvement in terms of quality.
The story itself is, however, going to take a back seat to at least those two shorter stories I mentioned above. Those two stories are going to be short in comparison so I will focus on them. I will continue to work on the next chapter while I work on those two stories however it will be on an as I can basis until they are done. Once I get the chapter that I am working on out though I am thinking that the story will start coming more smoothly in terms of being written and will be updated much more regularly. My genuine goal for that story is having it finished by the end of this year. Hold me to it and thank you for reading this post.
Dude, the bookstore was madness! The best kind of madness, mind you, but madness!
I didn’t sell out, but only ‘cause I brought a lot of books. Came close with The Haunting; I think I only took three copies back home.
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I heard it was absolute madness, and that is awesome for me to hear. I have a lot of reading to do though to get through all of the books that I got and I can't wait to read it all.
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It was indeed. Since I had books there, I was in the discord, and literally an hour in, they were calling for people to bring more stock, ‘cause they were running out of titles. I think it was something like 18 books that went out of stock on Thursday, and twenty more on Friday.