HVAC Classes · 6:19am Mar 5th, 2021
So this is going to be a bit of rambling, so for the tagged story, look at the bottom for the tl;dr.
Really long story short, I had been sucked into the working life. Worked at a call center, managed to get away to work for an insurance company, which was great while it lasted, but they were looking for Customer Service Reps for the phone and I had been excited b/c of the data-entry side, so I didn't get my short-term contract renewed. I had gone back to the call center because I couldn't find anywhere else that wanted Data Entry. I also applied for an Electrician Apprenticeship, but I didn't realize how fierce the competition was, and didn't get a spot. Literally three days later my friend (who had moved into my area and then out of it a year and a half after that) said he was coming back to take HVAC (Heating, Venting, And Cooling) classes, and I just blinked and decided to go all in on it as well, given that it seemed sorta similar to being an Electrician, and it pays really well.
So that's the story of how I'm doing 36 credit hours in only 1 year. After finals next week, I only have the 2 8-week classes left, and I can start work as an HVAC Tech, hopefully making around $20/hr. (Which is pretty good for the Midwest.)
As I reflect on my stories, I realize several of my problems with Looking Through the Pokeball. It had started as just an experiment. I had been writing something else I was more proud of at the time, and I saw how well a couple of other Pokemon crossovers were doing, but they had Pokemon and Ponies able to understand each other, and I thought that was bullshit, so I figured, "Hey, let's just see how popular this gets, if it's just being a crossover that does it."
Problem is, there was no way to test if that's what it was, if my writing was better or worse, etc, and by the middle of where the story is currently published, I realized that just writing whatever, without a plan, was getting harder. Because it was just an experiment, I had very few plans, aside from this is how this story will end, and here's where a sequel would go and end if I do that.
My main trouble now is that... Well, I don't care about the first story so much as the sequel that was going to go with it. I've tried a couple of times to start writing and get them headed in that direction, and I just... Don't have the motivation. I'm tempted to just start writing the sequel to see if I can still write at all, but then I wonder... Do I still go for the sequel, or am I better off just finding a way to re-introduce Fluffy and the others as if for the first time along the way? I just don't know.
TL;DR - I'm alive, but not sure if I should just start writing the sequel, or treat the sequel as a stand-alone because I'm having such trouble working on LTtP. Thoughts? Suggestions for how to help?
I think you should make the sequel standalone, because Looking Through the Pokéball has a lot of plot threads that don't go anywhere and characters who are immediately abandoned.
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Alright, thanks for the feedback. I was/am starting to lean that way, given how there were a couple of characters I didn't portrait/show as well as I wanted to. The only downside is that it means Glenn and Jess (or whomever I replace her with) won't be swapping between a pony form and a
Pokemon form, lol. They'll "just" be boring humans... Probably. I'll have to give it some thought, since the story would need to be better-contained. Also won't likely start posting until I have the entire story written, so that I don't have yet another incomplete story.
5468155 Are Glenn and Jess Fluffy and Crystal’s real names? Since when could they turn into ponies?
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Oh, right, spoilers, sorry. XD
It was eventually going to be a thing due to other things that I'm going to shut my mouth about.
Also yeah, those're their real names. I think I only mentioned them a few times, so they got buried under everything else.