Updates Plan 1 · 6:55am Apr 2nd, 2021
Greetings once more! It's definitely been a while since I last posted anything, and that seems like a problem worth addressing.
My usual instinct is to not commit to anything unless I'm completely certain I can actually get it done, which on sites like this typically works out to not posting anything unless it's already fully finished. However, by this point it appears blatantly obvious that my doing so is unlikely to be compatible with my posting anything at all in a remotely-reasonably timeframe. As such, I'm going to make an effort to publish new content even if doing so requires me to go way outside my comfort zone, and I'm stating it publicly so I can't simply back out when I wake up tomorrow and decide this was a terrible plan (and also so that people will be able to poke me if I lose track of what season it is). No guarantees, needless to say, but hopefully having made an explicit commitment will suffice to trick the part of my mind that's terrified of letting others down into recognizing that the worst way to let my followers down isn't posting things that I might not complete but rather never posting new things at all.
To that end, my targets as the plan currently stands are:
In general: Publish at least one reasonably-substantive thing each month for the rest of this year. Ideally that would mean proper story updates and/or blog posts, but I'm willing to live with stuff like individual scenes or random setting info in a pinch (such as if I lose a few weeks to a bad depressive episode, or if I get called on to do a bunch of prereading at once).
For Autumnfall Change: Release at least one update each three months for the rest of this year. Thus far I haven't figured out a way to address everything that demands more detail in a single chapter and still wrap things up with a satisfactory ending, so since I'm already stepping out of my comfort zone I figure I may as well go serial in hopes that that will permit a better narrative flow. I'm not entirely confident in this given that I've never attempted to write serial content before, so if I do figure out a quick way to cover everything with a nice ending I'll probably change plans to that instead, but I'll still need the practice sooner or later, so worst-case scenario it should at least be a good learning experience.
Regarding news (plus request for readers): Get up-to-date with goings-on again. For various reasons of varying goodness or lack-thereof (typical winter solstice depressive episode, hyperfocus on other projects, losing track of what month it was, and so on), I haven't checked my feed in several months, so I've got a bit of catching-up to do.
Given that that will likely take some time, it would be very helpful if anyone reading this could point out anything especially major or noteworthy that I ought to prioritize. In particular, I'm looking out for:
- Important site- and/or community-related stuff.
- Ongoing contests I could enter (especially ones with good prizes to serve as extra motivation).
- Essential drop-everything-and-read-this stories and/or blog posts.
And if I think of anything else, or if anyone else suggests another good target to aim for, I'll add that in too. For now, though, it's getting late here, so I'm going to wrap this up – in part because I need some sleep, but also because if I hurry I can post this before local midnight. And that way, when I inevitably awake on the morrow full of rue and regret, I'll be able to take some small comfort in that even though I didn't have a chance to get anyone else, at least for this April Fools' Day I was able to prank myself.
Reserved for potential updates that don't merit inclusion in the main post.
You say you want to update Autumn Fall, but the story is claimed to be complete?
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Sorry for the late reply – I've been busy the last couple days. As mentioned in my RCL interview for AC, I feel there are certain things it ought to address that I wasn't able to fit in due to contest limitations, and at the moment I think the most logical place to do so would be as a continuation of the story rather than a sequel or some other alternative. The reason it's still marked as complete is that I'm holding off on changing that tag until and unless I'm totally certain I'll end up extending it significantly – after all, even if it is missing some important elements, it does still more-or-less work as a complete story as-is, so I don't want to leave new readers with false expectations.
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Okay thanks. I just have to say I think this is one of the best science fiction pony stories I've read in a while.
I think you did an effective job of avoiding most of the well-worn tropes of My Little Pony fanfiction.