At Last, I Come Back Swinging! "Mothering, Someday" and the Road to Writing Again · 5:47pm Jun 1st, 2020
Blog Number 78: "Round One Goes To Impossible Numbers!" Edition
Good news first! After a month-long hospital stay, paperhearts has returned to the site, safe and sound!
At the moment, he's prioritizing family and getting things back in some sort of order, but it's just enough relief to know he's still alive and, if not well, at least well enough to limp out of the clinic like a returning captain, ha! I wish him a full recovery.
In the meantime, a brief bit of stock-taking before we plunge fully into June, the first month of our summer heatwave trifecta.
By the way, have I mentioned I'm the one person on the planet who hates summer? Spring and autumn/fall are pretty, mild, well-balanced, and colourful seasons to me. Despite not achieving those heights, cold winter I can usually manage (plus, obstructive snow is about as rare here in England as sightings of airborne reindeer, so we're usually lucky on that front).
Summer, though, is a personal dread. Too hot, too bright, too easily uncomfortable, with the nights too short, the wind too weak, and the air filled by too many insects. And to cap it all off, I'm starting this particular summer with a miserable headache and the world news of the last few weeks weighing down my brain. Please pray for my sanity, people. 
A bit of a big'un this time, so contents page as per personal protocol.
2020 and Impossible Numbers' Writing
May 2020
The Road to Writing Again
Mothering, Someday: Concept and Creation
Velvet and Derpy
Getting to the May 2020 Pair-Up
Mothering, Someday
PonyFest 3.0 - Sadly, I Didn't Go
The short version is I'm mostly gushing over my writing last month. Viewer discretion is advised.
2020 and Impossible Numbers' Writing
With a few minor exceptions (see: any fic I've published this year), 2020 has been lousy for writing. May has thankfully proved to be a turnaround month, but it's a sorry state of affairs when I manage to write, in one month, almost twice as much as I wrote from January to April combined.
That's not good form, and in any case I'm falling behind my own self-imposed targets from late February this year. So one of the goals for this month will be to keep up the momentum from last month.
Not right now, though. If nothing else, I gotta sort out this headache first.
May 2020
Fortunately, May was a spectacular return to form as far as writing went. Total word count for this month is, for the first time since March 2018, on par with the National Novel Writing Month targets. Nothing much, just a little something called...
almost 75,000 words!
To quote the modern aphorists of the information age: Mind. Blown.
Best of all, they actually resulted in a substantial longfic, after so, so long. I feel on form again, coming back swinging, and ready to jump back into the game, ahaha!
The Road to Writing Again
You already know what that fic is, but if I may indulge a moment:
If you may recall, the May 2020 Pairing Challenge was announced early last month, and I declared my intention to participate (after sending in a fic, of course, because one could send in multiple entries and I prefer to feint in the direction of prudence).
Naturally, I had no intention of stopping there. More ideas came to me for it. So many that it would take months to complete them all, so clearly I had to prioritize. That's the devil with ideas: they're easier to concoct than to complete.
One of those survived the selection process.
Mothering, Someday: Concept and Creation
Firstly, since the contest didn't have a strong theme beyond "pair two rarely paired characters together", I came up with my own to pursue.
I'd decided to use publicly available trivia and knowledge of the month of May itself, doing a little research for that purpose (for instance, finding out that it was etymologically derived from the Greek god Maia, for "mother"), and use that as a launching point for a thematic idea. It's often pretty fascinating what hides behind words we take for granted.
Since "Maia" and "motherhood" share a connection, I targeted mother characters present in the show, or at least (in Derpy's case) assumed as such in the fandom. Hence Twilight Velvet and Derpy.
It certainly helped I'd written about the two characters in various forms prior to now, so I had some familiarity and confidence handling them. Velvet and Derpy were both characters I'd had multiple plans for: any prior fics of mine with them in it were merely what survived long enough to get published. That meant I also had a collection of associated characters for each, the better to put them in a social context that could flesh them out further if needed.
In short, I had my own thorough, worked-out headcanon, pre-set and ready to fire.
Velvet and Derpy
Plus, they were two characters I'd grown to like over time. Usually, I'm reticent about borrowing from fanon (quite apart from the fact that even canon is now something I pick and mix from anyway, I generally prefer a more independent approach to character creation).
Derpy in particular I didn't much care for until only a handful of years back. It's not that I disliked her early on, but like with Octavia, Doc, and Bon Bon, I found it hard to get invested in well-explored background characters (in fanon, at least) when I found it much more fun to write for lesser known ones.
And then, somewhere between a few projects from 2016 onwards, thereupon I started integrating her into other characters' (yet unwritten) stories, initially just as a sort of joke character or cameo, and over time I found something actually pretty likeable to latch onto. That grew over time: I found a perfect way to integrate her with the concepts I had for other characters, characters which I'd long before grown more invested in (Amethyst and, to a lesser extent, Dinky) without feeling like I was just copying from pre-existing fanon.
One of the turning points was when Loganberry reviewed one of my Derpy fics on his Louder Yay blog (my first review there, as it happens), and singled out Dinky's characterization as standing out compared to most he'd encountered before. That stuck with me, and has informed my approach to her character ever since. And via Dinky, I got around to focusing on Derpy more and more.
This would be nigh-invisible in my published fics: most of this development happened with projects behind the scenes. But I'll explain more if ever I get those other projects off the ground. Suffice it to say that I found it easier to get back into writing shape with characters I'd become attached to over time.
Getting to the May 2020 Pair-Up
So in short, I was confident using these two: Velvet and Derpy. That, and I'd just released an insurance policy and a work to whet my appetite (Haiku Sensei), which at least made me feel I wouldn't be letting myself down too much if I failed to meet the deadline.
Now all I had to do was work out a believable way to unite Velvet and Derpy at all. I figured this was going to be a common stumbling block for a contest that involved mashing disparate characters from all over the place. Luckily, I had the answer via the very method I used to select them in the first place: I went back to the theme I'd started off with - motherhood, Mother's Day, Mothering Sunday, a bit of research into the history of both - and simply made that the triggering event.
Still didn't solve all my problems, though: Get Twilight Velvet into Ponyville, or get Derpy into Canterlot? Since I preferred the idea of taking a rarely seen Canterlot mother and shoving her into an unfamiliar (to her) location, and in any case had an easier time using Velvet as the focal character for Derpy than vice versa, I weighed in favour of the former and the rest of the fic took off from there.
It was originally going to be 10,000 words long.
Ha ha ha.
Mothering, Someday
And here we are, three weeks and several edits and hair-pulling strategizing over release schedules later. I swear, between the sheer size of the finished fic and the lack of time left for editing and submitting pre-deadline, I didn't find a rich deposit of fun in the heavy strata. Part of me wonders if the fic would have garnered more attention if I hadn't crammed the release time into three days. Splitting the thing up into bite-sized chunks was a must. I long ago learned the hard way why it's not a good idea to dish out massive portion sizes.
At long last, that initial mother-centric concept has now become:
I still can't believe I did this!
Gosh oh gosh, why can't I accomplish a fic like this at least once a month? I'd be exactly where I want to be then, no problem.
Because holy blasphemy, does it feel weird to finish a longfic. The last time I finished anything as comparably long as this was way back in December 2018, and when I managed that one, circumstances conspired to make me feel like a reject spat out of hell itself for a while.
(Before you suspect, though: it's not the workload that tired me out there or here - if anything, I was on joyous fire come the finish - but the publishing and facing the reviews - or lack of - over time. I don't want to sound ungrateful. How can I? But even when the public response is positive, the ongoing anticipation jangles my nerves up a treat. 
)
So though not without a few scars and twinges in the leg, I find myself ready to go to bat again, at least for this month. Don't quote me on that or anything, but I do have some ideas ticking away at the back of my mind, and hopefully I'll leave June with more stories to my name than I had going in.
Yay. 
PonyFest 3.0 - Sadly, I Didn't Go
Last item:
Despite what I hinted at a couple of blog posts ago, in the end, I didn't go to PonyFest 3.0. Between the massive editing job of my most recent fic, my chaotic sleeping habits, no particular interest in the scheduled events, and the Internet playing silly buggers with me for nearly two hours at the wrong moment, I lost interest.
I think it might be a while before I try any such online con again. Last three days especially have seen a drop in my mood, so this might just be me grousing on the spur of the moment, but there it is. That said, the year is long, and I'm likely to try again sooner or later.
That's all for now. Impossible Numbers, out.
I loved the story. Thank you for making something wonderful
5273320
My pleasure, and in more senses than one.
It was one of those fics where I strongly looked forward to writing it, and only frail mortal stamina (and a couple of dead ends) forced me to take my time with it more carefully. Thank you very much for your comment.
You're not the only person who dislikes summer! It's far too hot at present. Our record-breaking sunshine is making me uncomfortable.
75,000 words in a month is wonderful work. Congratulations on putting out a longfic. I wish you continuing productivity. :)
5273399
Tuh! Bloody global warming.
Thanks! Although this month, I'm not holding that 75k up as a target to hit (because that sort of overreach can turn on a writer). Still, as we Brits say: I'm well chuffed with that I am, guvnor. Well chuffed.
I'm glad you're doing better with your writing. I just suffered a major defeat with my writing (have yet to talk abou that in a blog entry), but I'm pulling through and will pick back up what is broken right now. And it makes me feel better right now seeing that your writing problems get dissolved now.
5273420
Ah, I'm sorry to hear that, Fluttercheer. I can say from experience it stinks when the old writing machine suddenly shuts down, and all one can do is kick it and hope something happens to restart. Here's hoping you find the fix and soon get yourself back in business.
May was great, aye, but the months beforehand sure weren't, so I'm trying to be cautious going into June.
Incidentally, I haven't forgotten my intention to write more fics for the Cutie Mark Crusaders, because I still need to give these neglected characters some love (seriously, how have I written so few stories for them!?). I even rewatched most of their episodes across the seasons, in order to re-familiarize myself with the terrible trio (and because they're darn good episodes besides).
They're on a long To Do list (I'm juggling other projects too), but they're there.
Oh no, I hate summer too. In winter, it's easy to make myself warm, it comes naturally. Making myself cool? Not so much.
Also, along with the heat and humidity and bugs, there are also people screaming outside when I am trying to sleep with the window open. D:
5273631
People are a problem any time of the year.
At least it's generally pretty quiet in my area, though that also makes it stand out horribly when someone does something noisy (like host a party, use a lawnmower, play music in their cars, or do some construction work).
5273432
The writing machine still works properly, but it was a little too ambitious in its goals and attempted a task it doesn't have the necessary firmware version for yet.
Details here, if interested:
https://www.fimfiction.net/blog/904100/sliding-on-the-edge-between-tomorrow-and-uncertainty-unfortunately-i-lean-more-towards-uncertainty-right-now
.
These are good news. I am still having trouble finding time to read, but I am expecting to finally work this out over the next few months.
5273631
You sound like you could need an exploration of this universe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp84VMazTRA
5277470
Ha, an affliction I know all too well. And it takes so much time to get the necessary installations.
Having just read your blog post... I wonder if it might be worth ploughing through with the draft and worrying about quality control after you have a complete story? Get your passion down on paper first, that sort of thing. This is something I found easier when writing my more recent projects, and it's why I usually don't publish anything anymore until I have a full draft minimum.
Admittedly, I'm a bit of a hypocrite here because of my long history of publishing incomplete works, but if nothing else, I can say: "Don't do that; I did it and it wasn't fun."
Or maybe it'd be worth posting a blog announcing you will take it down so you can complete it and give people a better version? I hesitate in saying this because it's not a tactic I've used myself, but I'm sure many readers would understand and sympathize.
In the end, though, I can't do better than quote SC14: Do what is best for you. It's OK if you don't do things perfectly right all the time. We're explorers, artists. We're going to have to muddle our way through to our victories here and there.
5277630
Well, this is actually what I already did with this blog entry.
I said I will revoke the submission in two weeks, in order to avoid that an unfinished Generation 5 sequel show affects the overall fandom morale, now that the show is over. People (the very few who watched it, at least) will already be disappointed enough that I (temporarily) cancel such a huge project with so much meaning behind it, so constantly seeing it as cancelled in my stories list could be too devastating in its effect on those who miss MLP: FiM already and struggle to cope with its end.
.
Well, I know what you mean but, the problem is not the overall quality. It is, as I detailed in the blog entry, the fact that I am not knowledged enough about enough ponies and creatures we've seen in the show, particulary background ones, because I neglected analyzing them in the years since 2015, when I began paying broader attention to background ponies (until then, I mostly paid attention to Derpy, Dinky and Sparkler) in general and actively began thinking about them.
I was sure that, with three and a half months of planned work to write an entire show bible (including character list and complete episode list), that would be enough time to analyze so many ponies and creatures and get to know to them..... And I tried that hard, but had to realize a little more than a week ago that it's simply impossible to do so much analyzing in that timeframe. So, the current release has to be cancelled and the show is going back to the drawing board, until I know enough ponies and creatures to really construct a proper, diverse cast for all the seasons I have planned.
Not quite sure if that is the best for me..... but it is the best for this show.