January Plans and Updates · 4:29am Jan 13th, 2021
Hey all! With the way things are in the world now, I figure now’s as good a time as any to square a lot of my writing away. Part of it may just be my own way of finding some order in the chaotic mess our world seems to be spiraling ever deeper into, but that’s hardly the worst reason to try and crank out some horse words. Besides, procrastination has always been one of my major vices, so posting plans that at least 50 people will see might light a bit more of a fire under my butt. So from now to Feb. 15, I will be attempting to do the following activities:
Finish Kung Pow: Enter the Hoof: I mentioned this unfinished story of mine towards the end of my last update, but I was rather blasé about it back then. This wasn’t a story many people paid much attention to, and the movie the story was based on didn’t really lend itself well to literary interpretation (the whole point of Kung Pow was the goofy dubbing). Yet as the years have gone on, I’ve found myself wanting to finish it out of pure completionism. I’ve set a personal deadline of Feb. 12, partly because it’s a month from now and also because it happens to be the Chinese New Year.
The Chosen One really wanted it to be a Valentine's Day fic.
- Finish writing What You Give and What You Take: This story I wrote for Quills and Sofas about the strained relationship between Discord and his Equestrian son has been sitting in the “Edit” pile for a few months now. Best to go and finish it before I forget the ideas I was going for within it.
- Finish editing and reflection on the Endings collection: I went into more detail about this in my November blog, but I wrote a collection of stories for the final BronyCon called Endings. I was hoping to edit it in time for Christmas so I could give it to my mother, but that fell through. Better late than never though, so I’ll be working on that editing on and off for the next month. I’ll also finish my reflections on the stories, since having to reread them a year and a half later might provide a lot of interesting feelings on my work.
Finish writing memoir about the final BronyCon: This is something I’ve been promising for years now, and I think it needs to be done. The story of BronyCon 2019 was not a happy one for me personally, and I feel I need to talk about it in order to exorcise some of the demons. This is definitely one you’ll want to avoid if you don’t want to hear a downer tale of family and fandom drama. But sometimes the ugly things need to be discussed, and I think writing about that would help me some.
Though don’t read it right after the Kung Pow story. That’ll provide emotional whiplash like you wouldn’t believe.
- Rank the Solomon Kane pulps: Another thing I talked about in the November blog. The Solomon Kane stories written by Robert E. Howard are interesting, and I figured I’d crank out my personal feelings about them on this website. Partly because it’s a platform I have access to, and partly because I’ve been considering ways to do an MLP/Solomon Kane crossover. Not technically horse words, but a topic I feel strongly about nevertheless, so what the hay.
- Quantify sequel possibilities: With the success of Pretty Laces for Good Little Fillies back in November, I got quite a few questions about whether or not there would be sequels to that particular story. I was hesitant to confirm, just because I had a lot of other stories I felt deserved sequels more. So I figure within the next four weeks, I’ll type out a program of my stories I think could use a sequel and see which ones invoke the most interest from me (or you guys, if you show any interest).
- Revisit old unpublished stories and redraft them: Despite what my story history might tell you, I’ve written quite a few stories that were never published on this site. A lot of these were for the WriteOff Association or National Pony Writing Month, and most of them were clunkers I cranked out when I was still trying to figure out this writing thing. While I doubt these will be finished as drafts by Feb. 15, I do think I’ll at least have the outlines for improved drafts done.
Figure out my ‘Missed Contest Stories’: Throughout all of 2020, there were a lot of contests flashed on the contest announcement page that I really wanted to get into. However, 2020 being the year it was, I never found the chance to submit to a lot of these contests (or the aforementioned procrastination kicked in). Ergo, I’m planning on jotting down the various ideas I had for my submissions and seeing if I can twist them into feasible story ideas in the near future. Except for those Appledash contests. Those only appealed to me because their prize money was insanely high.
Literally me if I had entered those contests and won.
- Read and rank Season 10 Bingo, Filly Anon, and Jinglemas stories: These were three of the contests I actually did participate in last year. While I am still waiting for my Jinglemas story to be completed, the Filly Anon and Season 10 Bingo contests are long over (in fact, I even got an additional Bingo card for a sequel that Shrink Laureate kindly gave me). My plan was to read all the stories and reflect on my favorites of the bunch. Shrink kind of did this with the Season 10 Bingo, but I figured I could put my own spin on the idea, or maybe even draw attention to stories I felt didn’t get the view-count they deserved. And no, I don’t care if there’s already a group for that.
Well, that’s it from me for now. I hope one of these projects have caught your interest. Thanks for your support, and I’ll see you later!
