100th Blog, Time for Something New!

By which I mean a user name change. "Badly Drawn Turtle" was never intended to be long-term, it was just something that popped into my head when I decided to move on from my initial user name (PrinceDolph, which is a character I like from a book by Piers Anthony; I started to feel guilty using the name of a character that wasn't mine as a personal identifier). I've been meaning to come up with a new name for a year or more, now. I liked the sound of "Quick Keys", and used it for a few accounts on other sites, but it still didn't feel right; I can type pretty fast compared to the average person, but that isn't exactly a central part of who I am. At this point, of course, you're probably thinking that I'm taking this user name thing too seriously... and you're probably right. It doesn't have to have a deep connection to who I am. But I'd like it to. On the other hoof, if I keep looking for perfection, I'll never be satisfied. So I've finally settled on "Narrative Style", for my love of stories and storytelling, even if I have trouble doing it myself, sometimes.

You might notice that "Narrative Style" follows pony naming conventions. That's on purpose, because even though I've always hung out at the edge of this community, it will always be part of who I am. Part of my mind will always be pony, even as I take this user name to other websites. I'll also be changing my avatar, at some point, to a cutie mark design for this newish ponysona of mine. If and when I ever get around to drawing it.

But there's something else, as well. I am, as anybody who's interacted with me knows, rather grumpy and irritable. Getting into arguments doesn't exactly help with that, so a personal promise of mine is to attempt to stay pony-focused on this site from now on. That means no more blogs filled with off-topic political rants, and a conscious attempt to avoid similar arguments in other places around the site. I'm saying this semi-publicly because knowing that other people may have read it will help me keep that self-promise, something I also have a lot of trouble with (hence all of my one-chapter-posted incomplete stories).

Finally, one story that I've been pushing myself to complete for years has actually seen some progress in the last few weeks. It's already twice the length of anything I've previously posted, and I feel like I might actually be able to finish it if I can keep this up. I feel like it's... maybe two-thirds done? I can see the rest of it, I just need to get it written out.

Edit: I had to change this post twice to add missing "I"s. At some point, my half-broken "I" key is going to actually drive me to get a new laptop. Either that, or the battery will actually die; it's been threatening to do that for months, now.