The future of Stargazing Together. · 11:47pm Feb 25th, 2020
I just placed Stargazing on hiatus. This is an indefinite hiatus; I just can't bring myself to mark it canceled.
More explanation below, but TL;DR: breakups are hard and I don't have the energy or drive to write romance right now. I am writing other things though.
I wrote the first version of Stargazing Together years ago, back in 2012, if I remember correctly. I still have the entire story saved in my google drive. During 2013 I looked over the story again, and found myself disappointed with it. I felt that I had improved greatly as a writer and so I wanted to take a stab at the story again. I wanted to make it better. What I think was originally meant to be a simple rewrite, where I just cleaned it up, slowed down the pace a tad, and made it better, quickly spiraled out of control. I changed the entire story, the nature of Nightmare Moon's existence and her relationship to Luna, how the relationship with Twilight would form. Pretty much every part of the story was changed, except for the base fact that Luna falls in love with Twilight. Through the course of the original, and my vague ideas for the rewrite, Twilight was never meant to fall for Luna. The story was always meant to end with Luna deeply in love with Twilight, and Twilight willing to give it an honest try.
So I began rewriting the whole thing. For a couple of months, I actively worked on the story. I kept at it and enjoyed writing. However, as college dragged on, my depression came back. Not as strong as it had been in high school, but still bad. I lost all interest in doing pretty much anything, including writing. I kept writing, however, out of a sense of obligation. I was writing for my readers, not for myself. Looking back, I feel like my writing suffered for it. That was part of why I stopped working on the story again. At the same time, I just stopped caring. It didn't matter to me if the story had was good or not. I had lost all of my interest in writing.
It was a couple more years before I began writing again. When I came back to the story, I was still upset with the direction it had gone. The over-arching idea was still one I was happy with, but the path I had taken had soured. So again, I set about rewriting the story. This time, I only ripped up a few chapters instead of the whole thing. I rewrote those chapters, and I can honestly say that I'm much happier with how they've turned out.
At this point though, I encountered a huge problem. I was running out of story to write. I had never planned this story. I don't often plan my stories out, I just let them wander and go where it feels right. But with Stargazing, I needed to control the story far more than that. I had to actively make sure it kept moving forward. The problem was, I had never actually made plans for the story. With where the story is now, I honestly have no idea how to handle anything. I don't have any ideas for bringing Nightmare back to Canterlot. I'm not even sure if that's what I want to have happen. I sure as hell don't have any way for Nightmare and Twilight to sit down and talk. I've got a few half formed ideas, but they're not next steps. There is a whole host of other things that needs to happen first. I just don't know what all of those things are, and I don't know how to address the ones I have identified.
So, once again, back in mid 2018, I stopped writing Stargazing. I was still writing other things though, things that better fit with my writing style, things that I could fully write.
Then, in early/mid 2019, my fiancee of almost eight years left me. It was not a good time for me. This last year has been exceptionally painful for me as I've tried to come to terms with a whole host of things. I'm not going to get into any of it here, because that's between my ex and me. One of the outcomes, however, has been a reevaluation of myself, and of what interests me. I still like reading romance stories. I still think romance is the genre that I can write best. Unfortunately, right now in my life, I can't write romance. It's painful.
For the past few years, I've been mostly writing other things: short stories, fluff pieces, random ideas that come to me, and a few prompt fics. Right now, with where I'm at, that's what I feel up to writing. I'm not going to force myself to write Stargazing anymore. It didn't work out well last time, but now, instead of apathy, I'm filled with a lot of bitterness. The only romance story I think I could pull off right now is one that would be emotionally painful, one full of abuse, damaged characters, and I doubt it would have any kind of happy ending. In short, it would be romance only in the sense that the story is about a relationship.
Instead, I'm going to be writing things I feel comfortable writing. I've liked my little fluff pieces. I've got a chapter or two left to write for Sunset Brings Twilight Glasses, just to close things off. There are a few one shots I've got sitting around that I wouldn't mind actually writing. Mostly though, I'm working on a continuation of Queen of Nothing. I've really enjoyed the idea for that world, and I've actually got a general plan for the story. I am already working on the first chapter, but I won't be publishing anything until I have a plan for the whole thing.
For those of you who've been waiting over six years for Stargazing to actually be finished, I am truly sorry. A part of me wishes I was in a better place and could finish the story off. Most of me recognizes that the story has been dead in the water for years now, and I shouldn't have dragged this out for so long.
You’ve been through so much, stay strong.