How I was shoved off the cliff (or how I ended up writing a story I had no intention of writing). · 10:36pm Mar 3rd, 2020
It has been nearly five years since I started writing a story about a silly little unicorn and his rather crazy adventure to get some ghouls to the moon. A story that I never really had any intention of writing, simply because the idea was really only shared in an attempt to fit in more with a group of strangers at a convention. In fact, I didn't know I had a passion for writing until I got started on this little project. Yet, here I am. And as I wait for the story to get approved and to either succeed or fail by its own merits, I find myself wanting to write down how I got started on this insane ride of a journey. Mostly because it is a fun story I enjoy telling and partially because I'm starting to forget details about it and it is worth recording somewhere. So why not tell it here? Fair warning, it is a long tale. But I hope you enjoy it all the same.
Alright, so in order for this story to make sense, it is important that we start with how I got into the fandom. Don't worry, I'll attempt to keep this part short. Basically, I had a bad case of insomnia and, on the second day of no sleep, I got the bright idea to bore myself to sleep. And having heard about MLP from The Escapist (back when I actually visited the site) and from an LPer freaking out about John De Lancie play Discord in the show, I decided that that would be my insomnia cure. It backfired. Badly. I ended up watching up to the fourth episode of season two and had been a fan ever since.
From there, I discovered the Friendship is Dragons webcomic and the community I would be a part of for quite a few years. It wasn't until I started watching the Fallout is Dragons game and wanted to figure out the world they were playing in that I was introduced to Fallout: Equestria and Fallout in general (Fallout New Vegas being of particular importance). And Fallout: Equestria is... a story I have a love/hate relationship with (to the point where I wanted to write my story in a way that didn't require people to read it if they didn't want to). But the Fo:E world captured my imagination and I found myself coming up with an OC and dreaming up what kind of trouble he would get up to. I may actually write down the thought process behind the creation of my main characters at another time, if people are interested in that.
Anyway, the story would have ended there if it wasn't for an announcement that NewbieSpud, the author for Fallout is Dragons, was going to have a panel at the Everfree Northwest convention in Seattle. Now, I had never been to a brony convention up until that point, let alone one that was two or three states away from me. And my crippling anxiety at the time basically made sure that I would have a horrible time if I went there (nausea is a horrible thing to get while on a trip). But I was sick and tired of convincing myself that I couldn't do anything due to my anxiety or shyness, so I went and volunteered to help run the Tabletop Gaming room for good measure. After all, if I went to the con and ended up bored with it, I'd like something to do other than sitting in my hotel room for an entire week.
And it was during one of my shifts during the con that I would meet two people: Shimmercoat and Heartshine. They, along with a couple of other volunteers, were talking about Fallout: Equestria and some side story ideas they had come up with. Having just finished reading the story a couple of months ago and seeing an opportunity to make some friends, I shared my own idea for a story: my take on the "Come Fly With Me" side quest from Fallout: New Vegas involving a silly little unicorn helping a bunch of ghouls fly to the moon on a nuke. To my surprise, they thought it was an awesome idea and Heartshine in particular asked if I was going to write it. I gave a rather weak yes in response, having little intention of actually writing fan fiction (90% of it is crap, after all. And I have no interest in writing crap). She seemed to have accepted it and the conversation moved on from there, eventually ending when she had to leave to get ready for a Fallout: Equestria panel she was speaking at. A panel I ended up going because I wanted to learn more about the community that had grown around the story.
It was an interesting panel, where one Somber talked about a story he wrote called "Project: Horizons" for half the time while the other half was devoted towards talking about writing side stories for Fallout: Equestria. I don't quite remember all of the details of it outside of Somber saying "It is hard to write in a vacuum" (something that would prove to be quite profound to me over the years, but that's a story for another time). What I do remember of the panel, though, was the Q&A section at the end. One person came up and talked about his Fallout: Equestria/Warhammer40k crossover and asked if it was too silly of an idea. Heartshine answered that, no, there isn't such a thing as an idea too silly. In fact, someone told her earlier of an idea about a silly little unicorn helping a bunch of ghouls fly to the moon on a nuke. And that that person was definitely going to write that story.
I knew she was up to something the moment she noticed me come into the room a few minutes before the panel, but I didn't think it would have been this. Of course, I could have pretended I didn't hear that little bit or noticed her looking at me when she said it. It was much harder to ignore the people that were genuinely excited by my idea. Even harder when the person next to me noticed me sinking in my seat, asked if that was my story idea, and then shook my hand and said he looked forward to reading it when it was done. I waited until the room was mostly empty before I went up to Heartshine and asked her what the heck she had just done. The answer was that she was just giving me a push just like Gandalf did in The Hobbit when he shoved Bilbo off a cliff and into an adventure. And when I asked where the heck I was suppose to post it, Somber chimed in and said FiMFiction (I had read Fo:E on Google Docs and didn't know FiMFiction was a thing at the time). With the rest of my concerns/complains shot down rather succinctly, I committed myself to the task that was unceremoniously placed on my shoulders.
A few days after getting home from con, I opened up Google Docs and got to work on writing my silly little story. And it has been a roller coaster ride ever since. One that I nearly abandoned a few months into it, but that is another tale for another time. Maybe even next week, if I feel up to talking about it. For now, all that really needs to be said is that I doubt that the people back then still remember me or my story. But I'm glad it happened all the same. If for no other reason than it helped me eventually prove to myself that I can actually do something that I've set my mind on doing. And hopefully, within the upcoming weeks and months, I will see if anyone thinks it was all worth it in the end.
For me? I think it was worth it.
A bit of a late comment, but it's a good thing to stick to a project. I've gotten into setting goals for myself recently an it's helped me be productive, which is a healthy state to be in. Good on you for taking the leap, and an excellent choice in vidya. Fallout: New Vegas is definitely a winner for me.
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Late or no, I appreciate you commenting all the same. And while I do agree that setting goals and sticking to a project are good things, I'll add that you should make sure that those goals are realistic and that you're not sticking to that project for bad reasons. I say this because originally set the bar for myself way too high and that ended up making the first six months or so of my project a nightmare. I didn't want my story to fall under the label of "bad fanfic" and I didn't want to disappoint all of the people I named above. So I'd force myself to write everyday for a few months before completely burning myself out for even longer. Rinse and repeat until what should have taken me at least a year to complete ended up taking almost five years in total.
And the people I was stressing myself over to impress? Next time I went up to con, half of them didn't even remember who I was. But by then, I had woken up to what I was doing and decided to write for myself and no one else. I still have the bar set up pretty high for myself (if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it right), but I'm no longer burning myself out while writing a story that I enjoy. Still haven't quite gotten to the 1,000 words a day goal that I've set for myself (especially considering that the regular writer can do 7,000 in a day), but I'm getting there.
As for New Vegas, I'm glad you agree that it was an excellent choice. It still remains my favorite Fallout title and when the modders finally finish porting it over to Fallout 4 you can bet that I'll be messing around with that. But while everyone else seemed interested in porting the main quest of NV over to the FoE universe, I simply took a look at "Come Fly With Me" (one of my favorite side quests, despite it being really short and straight forward) and asked myself "I wonder what would happen if a Tenpony Tower pony got wrapped up into that?" If nothing else, I hope my take on it turns out to be fun and novel for the reader.
Anyway, I'll stop talking your ear off and thank you for leaving a comment.