State of the Author: Sept. 26th

Hey all,

I wanted to put out a more comprehensive update than I usually do, since some stuff has happened, and I want to inform all of you of things that I'm actively working on/going to be working on for at least part of the foreseeable future. It's also where I'm going to go over a few things that happened recently that have made things a bit easier in the writing department. I'm going to break this post down into two sections, and this will more or less be the format I'm going to attempt to stick with when I do these updates from this point forward. The two sections are "Life Updates" and "Writing Updates."

Life Updates:
As my followers may be aware, the past two years of my life has been spent, for the most part, supporting my family through some rocky developments. Namely, 3 people being diagnosed with terminal forms of cancer, and the ongoing treatments to either attempt to remedy them (before they were declared terminal obviously), along with the corresponding grieving processes that come when people unfortunately pass away. As I've stated a good few times before, my grandfather was one of those people, and 2 weeks ago, he passed away. I'm not really going to say much, as I admittedly don't have much to say about the man in a kind and/or respectful sense, but his last week with the family was rough. Stuff, such as scattering his ashes, has yet to be done, but I'm not involved in that for various reasons I won't get into.

However, I'm a bit relieved that the worst of it is finally over, and after taking a week to recover from the incredibly rough previous week, I'm in a good enough state to write this and not feel like I'm about to collapse from fatigue. If you're at all curious: I'm fine, if not just a bit tired. I'm dealing with things in a creative outlet that you all might learn about at a later time (assuming the community on here doesn't just up and die when G4 is done), so I ask you don't worry about me.

Outside of that, I've been catching up with some of the fanfics I haven't caught up with, and playing some new games. I recently finished "Kamen Rider Unicorn;" or at least the main fic. I've yet to get to the offshoot stories, but I will. It may contain a ship I actively dislike (SciSet), but I still very much enjoyed it. It captured my love of Kamen Rider in a way that had yet to happen, and that alone is worthy of my praise, so good job Michael_Ravencroft!

Writing Updates:
In regards to writing updates, you may be pleased to know that now that I'm not constantly tired, I'm actively trying to work on writing projects for here, as well as other platforms. The part I know all of you are waiting for is likely Retrograde related stuff, and thankfully, RQK and I are going to be able to get back to working on that at a slightly more steady pace. However, like I'm pretty sure I said in a previous update: we will be withholding posting finished chapters until after we have made a decent amount of progress beyond Chapter 7. We're likely going to work until we're at least 3 chapters ahead, but time will tell. Needless to say, both of us will keep you all posted on Retrograde related material.

I've got a small writing project in the pipeline that is going by the working title "Minerva's Den," which is going to be more of a short (1 to 3 chapters) fic exploring a headcanon I have for Sunset. It's not anything special, and will only feature a few characters, though it will be a bit awkward to release. I say this due to FiMFiction's (quite frankly, extremely paranoid) rule about not being allowed to utter a single song lyric that isn't wholly owned by the writer or isn't part of MLP as a series, regardless of it being a simple quote with proper credit. As such, I'll likely be crossposting the thing on AO3 with lyric quotes, as they allow quotes. I'm not happy about this, but since this is knighty's site, I have to bend to knighty's rules or post elsewhere... which I'm doing anyway. I don't have an expected date for it, but it's not long, so it shouldn't take that long.

In regards to the "Expect the Unexpected" rewrite: I believe I mentioned that I started it, though like most things this past year, I haven't had time to continue working on it. That said, once I've gotten the "Minerva's Den" project done, I'll get back to that rewrite. I haven't forgotten about it, so don't worry about that! Y'know, assuming you all actually want it still.

I'm probably going to work on a few other smaller stories to try and produce stuff worth reading to build up my creative muscles again, so despite some of the stuff I've written below, I'm not in any rush to jump back into big projects at the moment. One of these smaller stories might be something you may not expect, but I won't say anything more.

With Sunset's Backstage Pass officially being released, I've been workshopping some ideas for a fic based around it. I mentioned having an idea for a fic based around it a while back, but obviously I didn't get far due to real life circumstances. I'll be attempting to refine said ideas into a story worth a darn, so hopefully I'll have more to say on that sooner rather than later. Only time will tell.

I've been working on a few crossover outlines. The issue with some of those outlines is that some people on this site have done those crossover ideas better than I probably would have. Still, I want to take a crack at writing some crossovers, as while I don't really read that many (usually because I, quite frankly, find most of them to be kinda crap), I think it'll be fun to write them. I can't say how long they'd be, or what I'm going to be crossing over with MLP related stuff, as I'm weeding out the weaker ideas before going all in on anything.

Lastly, at least in regards to MLP related writing, I've been looking through some of my notes for Cracks In Our Reflections related stuff. I've even briefly talked about maybe trying to get back to work on that in various covernations with RisingBluePhoenix, but it's been in the outlining phase for a good while, so I don't know if I'll get to it anytime soon. Still, I want to get around to it eventually, and am mentioning it since I know at least part of my follower-base wants to see something from it someday. Probably.

Outside of MLP, the only fanfiction related thing I'm currently, at the very least, thinking of working on in any capacity is a Yu-Gi-Oh GX project. It's actually a project I started working on around the time work on Retrograde started, but didn't go back to due to the fact that it involves a lot of deck building and custom card creation/balancing. Really, it's something that I've only got back to thinking about due to talking to Night-Quill in Wubcake's server. That, and reading his "Equestria Girls: Duel Monsters" fic. Obviously, this won't be posted here, but eh, figured it was worth mentioning.

Outside of fanfiction, writing work has been slow. This is kind of what happens when you are building a universe full of original characters... or several, as the case may be. I may or may not have a problem... okay, no, I most certainly have a problem. And people wonder why stuff takes so long! (If this is at all a surprise coming from my lazy ass, please, you should have expected this given how many times I say "I'mma write" but then I don't, circumstances be damned.)

In Closing:
I realize this is a beefy update, but I'm trying to at least let people know where my head is at, and what I'm potentially working on for the future. I know some of this might not actually come to pass, but that's the nature of my very ADHD laden brain getting creatively sidetracked. Apologies in advance if stuff doesn't happen fast enough... or at all. At the very least, some of this will definitely happen. Retrograde is going to happen, but outside of that, it all depends on the circumstances life thrusts upon me.

Oh, if you want to engage with me on Discord, feel free to join the server RQK and myself run here: The Multiverse

Until next time!
Onyx~