Go on then, one last story · 5:14pm Jan 2nd, 2021
So uh, hi everyone! Not sure how many skeletons sitting in front of CRTs this post will be sent to, but here we go.
I joined this site in 2011, tried my hand at writing for a brief while, then dropped off years ago. To date it, the last episode I recall seeing was before the S3 finale aired. I never watched any further than that, but I recall greatly enjoying the show back in the early days when I'd watch it!
Early on, I tried writing a Twilicorn story in conjunction with another fan. That was 'Expectations'. Once the co-writer (main writer, let's be honest) left, I tried to continue it, but I struggled quite badly and couldn't carry on, much to my regret. I learned a lot from that failure though. I did manage to write a very short one-shot back in 2013, after which I kind of left the brony fandom entirely to do other stuff, though I did pop back to read other people's stories here from time to time. I tried to write another one-shot, but ran into a block half way through and gave it up.
In 2018, I got a sudden burst of inspiration from goodness knows where. I finished up the half-written one-shot from about four years before and posted it, dusted my hands of it and thought 'well that's me done here then I guess.' That story was 'A Tale of a Mountain Clan', which I was pretty happy with.
Over a year and a half later, I got an email out of the blue from the Royal Canterlot Library saying they enjoyed the one-shot, and asking if I'd like to do an author interview for them? Uh, what? I was blown away by this, having pretty much completely forgotten about the story and hadn't visited this site since I'd posted it.
Even though I'm not a brony anymore, I haven't watched the show since 2012 and basically had nothing to do with the community, the RCL's email sent me down memory lane. I came back to this site and looked up a few old stories I'd enjoyed back in the day, with 'Project Sunflower' and 'Quantum Castaways' amongst the first that came to mind. It kind of started to rekindle the enjoyment I'd found all those years ago. Then I started finding new stories, stories that were still going.
And then I remembered the stuff that I wanted to write, and the need to make my own stuff came back to me. I dug out my old notes from around 2012, and remembered one particular story, what was supposed to be a very short story, and I thought, what if I wrote it now?
I've always said that I can't write, my brain just isn't wired right for it. That's kind of true, but through this story I've discovered that while I have great difficulty getting words out of my crappy brain (you can probably tell from the way this blog is worded, and I intentionally leaned into my brain's weird wording when writing the story), there are things I can do to help it work a bit better. I started writing, just tiny bits at a time. One thing I learned years back was that I can't write when people are expecting me to write; it feels like people are watching over my shoulder. I can't do that. So instead;
Chapter 1 goes up today, but the entire story is already complete. I began writing in January 2020, and finished the final chapter in late December. 12 months and I didn't breathe a word to anyone, and I cannot tell you how good it feels to finally share it with you folks.
Since every chapter has already been written, there will be no delays, no writer's blocks, no doubting whether the story might suddenly end before the end, worrying about starting a story labelled 'Incomplete' or if the author might drop off the face of the Earth. For the next few months (unless my maths is off, which it often is), there will be one new chapter every three days until the story is completed.
Why not upload it all at once? One of the best stories to have experienced back when it was being posted was 'Anthropology', which saw a new chapter every Monday if I recall. Once a week, on the way to college, desperately trying to get enough signal on the train to load it. But a week is a little too long, so we're doing once every three days. It's a mystery story! Being able to binge a mystery is no fun. I've got a few other things I'd like to say about the story, but not just now, I don't want to give anything away.
So yeah. I have no idea how this will be received, no idea even if there will be a single person around to receive it. Maybe no one will see this or the story, but that'd be fine. I enjoyed writing it, I've learned a lot from writing it, and it's in a way brought back that love for inventing stories I dabbled with back in the day.
This is my fond farewell to this community. I messed up years back when last I wrote, but I hope to make it up with this. There won't be a sequel, and I don't think I'll be writing anything else for this site afterwards, so this'll pretty much be it from me. I'm pretty proud of what I have to offer the two or three of you that might read this post however, so I hope to end my FiMF journey on a high note.
A massive thank you to everyone and anyone who has every read something I've written! Thank you also to the Royal Canterlot Library for directly inspiring me to give writing another shot. If you followed this page years ago and got this post as a ping, I just want to say it's an honour to see you again!
Ladies and gentlemen, or should I say fillies and gentlecolts, may I present to you;
"Retcon"
-Beige Monkfish
Well, that was a surprising trip down memory lane. Farewell, Beige!
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Hey, now that's a name I haven't seen in a while! How's it going?
I'll still be around the next few months as the story goes up, I've got another blog planned after a certain point (because spoilers), and I'll still be reading!
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Oh, it's...okay, I guess. Pretty good in many regards, to be honest, but the last stretch of 2020 decided to throw a wrench into things by first killing off one of our neighbours (whom we really liked—we've actually taken in his little dog. Who's epileptic, because nothing can be easy, I guess), continuing on with the equally unexpected death of my father in law (on Christmas day, because 2020) and the kinda expected death of an aunt (1st day after christmas).
On the other hand, our first child was born (sadly too late for FIL to meet him) and the whole CoViD thing and my wife losing her job due to it actually kinda fit nicely into that, no problem juggling job and child for the forseeable future.
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Oh, I'm so sorry to hear. 2020 really has been a terrible year. Hope things get easier from here.
Also, congratulations! All the best to the three of you
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Thanks. Luckily, no obvious candidates for the soon-to-be-deceased status are in our family, so we should hopefully be safe for some time. And job-wise, things have actually been pretty great since 2019, so there's one less thing to worry about.
And thanks, it certainly has been an...interesting experience so far.
What a farewell to the site
Look forward to seeing what you've come up with, came for expectations but now you've set some newer ones :P
Always glad to see someone on the site doing well and I truly, wish you the best for the future.
Well, welcome back! Even if it is brief ^.^
If ever you do decide to give the show a shot again, I can highly recommend seasons 5-9. Amazing stuff
Well dang. A hello and farewell from an old guard writer. I gotta tell you, you can write. I don't know if you remember a little old writer's workshop called /fic/ but I spent a bit of time there. If RCL liked your story, and the way this blog reads is any indication, you've got the stuff, dude. I look forward to reading this last masterpiece you've left.
Don't fail me now, reply formatting!
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Hey Raindrops! I'm afraid I never was familiar with /fic/, my entire writing history is pretty much just this one website alone, and I was really happy with Mountain Clan up til now. Thank you, hope you enjoy the story!
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Hey again Coaldust! I've been considering restarting watching the show, it's been plenty long enough, cheers for the recommendation!
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Hey Toast! Jeez, Expectations was so long ago, I'm genuinely surprised anyone still remembers it! Thank you for your kind words, hope you're doing well as well!
It was really interesting to look into your brain during writing. I'm also someone who really wants to say things, but can't control how to get in the proper headspace. It's an honor to hear about how someone with those same patterns just kept plugging at it, until one day they just chose on their own time to end the experiment. Also impressive is this kind of sendoff! You spent so long working on this story in secret, without encouragement/eyes on the back of your head from readers, to give us a big gift that updates quickly and on a schedule.
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Hey! This may not be of much help to you, but this is what I found helped me; I'd always struggled with just getting words down, but it actually fine to just write down something even if it's pants. It's a whole lot easier to reread something and make it better another day when you have the context around it, rather than trying to make something out of nothing. Weirdly, what helped me the most was writing at the dead of night, which is when my brain is most active. About 80-90% of this story was written on a phone in bed at around 1-3 AM, then edited later on desktop. I wonder if it's because this time is when I usually read, so that's the kind of mode my mind would be in?
I definitely couldn't have gotten very far with anyone watching. It's much easier when I can pretend no one is going to see it and that I'm just writing for myself. That way there's no deadline, no worrying about keeping people waiting, I can take all the time I need. Dunno if any of that it any help, but that's what I found useful.
Hope you enjoy the story!