November Plans and Updates

So we’re almost halfway through the month, and I’ve suddenly gained a desire to make some plans for the remainder of November. Most of them involve polishing up some stories and writing some blogs I’ve always been meaning to over the past year. Normally, I would’ve partaken in National Pony Writing Month like I have in other years, but unfortunately Equestria Daily wasn’t overseeing it this year. I could do my own version, but I found myself wanting to focus on my own work and squaring away projects I’ve been dawdling over the past few months (or even years). Over the next two weeks, I’ll be doing the following:

• Finish writing “What You Give and What You Take”: This was a story I wrote for a Quills and Sofas contest involving the conflict between Discord and his Equestrian son. It won first place in that particular contest, but that’s not the main reason I want to polish it. Much like Pretty Laces for Good Little Fillies, it’s just been sitting on my plate for so long that I want to finish it before the emotions I had driving that story’s creation fall away. Keep your eyes peeled for it over the next few weeks.

• Finish editing and reflecting the Endings collection: Those of you who were around this site in 2019 probably remember Aquaman’s BronyCon Bookstore event. This was where a stand was set up in the final BronyCon’s vendor hall and a lot of us authors sold our books. Endings was the short-story collection I submitted, and all but one copy was sold (the last one I asked to keep as a souvenir). Now, you might be asking why I want to finish editing it, given how I already sold it. Surely I wouldn’t be so low to sell an unedited book?

  

  Well, of course I did edit it before I sold it, but given this was my first ever book created, there are a lot of problems in regards to structure and design of the actual book. Nothing so egregious that it should have never been on Aquaman’s shelf, but ones that still bug me over a year later. Things like large spaces of white, spacing issues toward the end of the page, and lackluster titles. (And maaaaybe a few typos I missed the last time).

  So this next version should be ready for sale, right? Well, no. I’m not editing it for sale: I’m editing it so I can give it to my mother. She was very supportive of my efforts to write and participate in the BronyCon Bookstore, and she has been consistently asking for the stories so she can read them. I could’ve just sent her here to FimFic, but I think giving her a specialized copy for Christmas might work better as a thank you gift. That, and I don’t want my devotedly Methodist mother to find the story I wrote where Sandbar undergoes sexual psychosis and gets anal through a strap-on called Mr. Kumquat.

  

  Unfortunately for Jesus, being omnipotent means he read all of it whether he wanted to or not.

  But aside from sentimental gifts and wanting to avoid awkward spirituality questions, I also wanted to write a blog about how I felt regarding the Endings stories now that time has passed and I can look at them with a little more distant perspective. This is what I was hoping you guys could read, if you were interested in the stories and wanted to see where they came from creatively.

• Write a ranking list of the Solomon Kane pulps: Kind of a weird aside, but I’ve been reading the complete collection of Robert E. Howard’s Solomon Kane pulp tales. One of the characters Howard made before Conan, Kane is a very interesting Puritan adventurer who I found very engaging in the stories I have read so far. After I finish reading the remaining stories in the collection, I was hoping to write up a brief ranking of Kane’s stories and why I ranked them so. This might be build-up to a Solomon Kane/MLP crossover fic I want to write, but no promises on that yet. Either way, if you find that interesting, expect that blog post by the end of the month.

Now, onto the various updates. I recently released a Filly Anon story onto the site, one that focuses more on the internal drama a Filly Anon would feel rather than the typical shenanigans a lot of other Filly Anon stories depict. If that sounds interesting to you, check it out and give my editor SirReal some love with his stories too.

Also, some people may have caught wind of my update a few weeks ago that I was starring in ObabScribbler’s Halloween special in a minor role. Well, this special, titled Story of the Blanks (based on the fanfic still on this very site), has been released in two parts. I’m only in the second part, but I’ll post the first part too in case you were going in for the story instead of my Oscar-worthy performance.

The audio drama in which Applebloom redpills an entire village of anti-vaxxers.

Please give Scribbler and the other actors some love, and stay tuned for her Christmas special too!

On another note, professional danklord Flutterpriest has readied another year of Jinglemas for us to enjoy. This is the annual event where we write Hearth’s Warming stories for other authors Secret-Santa style and receive our own stories in return. I am participating like I have the past two years, partly because I like getting new stories, but also because I feel writing stories for others actually forces me to be a better writer than I usually am. Two of my strongest stories (at least in my mind) have come from this contest: The Right Reads for professional cool guy Nyronus, and My Heart Won't Buy It for FimFiction's rising star TCC56 (both of whom you should follow if you want good writing). Please come join in with Jinglemas here if you're willing and able. It's a lot of fun!

Of final notice is my second-oldest story on this site, Kung Pow: Enter the Hoof. A crossover between MLP and the comedy film Kung Pow: Enter the Fist, it’s a story that I’ve always wanted to finish but never got around to. Part of the reason was that I kept rewatching Kung Pow to pick up on the types of humor it used and find a way to transplant that into a literary medium. It is actually pretty difficult, and the fact I didn’t even write an outline for the story six years ago when I put it on this site means I’m pretty much making it up as I go. Don’t expect this one to be ready this month, or probably even December. I might push myself to get it done in January for its sixth anniversary since I uploaded it here. Or it might fall on the back-burner again. I don’t know, nobody’s really asked about it in the past few years.

Well, that’s all I have to say for now. I hope I can maintain these various plans I’ve made, and that at least one of them will bring you some kind of enjoyment. Take care and eat your vitamins!