New (The Owl House) Story Live, Plus Newsy Stuff · 6:50pm Apr 29th, 2021
Hey, pony peeps!
So I know it kinda looks like after that last blog post where I said I was back writing stuff again and to expect updates from me, I proceeded to then do what I always do and disappear for a while, usually into a well of depression or something. HOWEVER, that didn’t happen this time and I actually have been writing this whole time! I’ve spent the past four months or so hard at work on an Owl House novel, much like I said I was going to back in December. That said, it … just … ended up being a lot longer of a thing that I originally thought it was going to be. Fully written, it clocks in at a smidge north of 142k words, making it the longest story I’ve ever written by a comfortable margin. So yeah, didn’t disappear again, just took longer than I foresaw at the start.
The important takeaway there is that it’s fully written, though. It’s still going through the final polishing edits, but the bulk of the work’s done and it’s time to start publishing. I’m serializing it, because, ah, 142k words is a lot for all at once, but it’s going up at a set schedule of weekly updates of one to three chapters at a time for the next few months (each update somewhere in the ballpark of 5-10k words). But what, you might be asking, is this all about?
The first two chapters are now live on Offprint.net. Updates are weekly on Thursdays, and starting next week, it will begin updating on AO3 as well, lagging one week behind its updates to give Offprint an exclusive period on new chapters. If you’re curious as to why I’m doing this or what Offprint is, I refer back to my previous blog post again, where I went into some details on Offprint and my choices in using it as a platform. Offprint continues to still be in closed alpha, so if you’re not feeling like signing onto something like that right now, you’ll still be able to read on the site if you’d like and just not have user features like leaving comments. Feel free to leave any comments on the story here on this blog, I will read them and it will be very much appreciated. Or, conversely, you can use AO3 instead if you'd prefer and leave comments there. It’s the same story, just lagging in its updates by a week.
As Dangers in Fiction goes live, I’m going to post shorter little alert blogs with links, so expect those for a while. Hopefully a weekly blurb blog isn’t that annoying.
Logistical stuff aside, I am very very glad to be finished with this project, it was quite the undertaking. I wrote all of it over a pretty tight window of time, averaging a speed of production that’s the fastest I’ve ever been as a writer, including the period of time in 2012-2013 when I was writing pony stuff in an unhealthy, self-destructive way. Working on this has been sustainable, though, and was also a joy to write. One’s mileage my vary, but I think this is the best thing I’ve ever written and I’m excited to share it. I know that The Owl House is not necessarily interesting to pony peeps (though you should check the show out if you haven’t, it’s very good), and that going off-site to read something is a big ask, so if you’re wanting to pass on it, I understand.
In other news, let’s talk upcoming writing projects! After finishing drafting Dangers in Fiction followed by two solid weeks of edits and rewrites, I took a brief break from active writing, had a breather, worked on some other things like painting the cover and putting together an Ikea dresser, and then started in on … drumroll … a new ponyfic! Further details will be forthcoming on that, but it’s for a contest running on the AppleDash group, which looked like it’d be fun and set some brainworms into motion concocting a story (and if you're so inclined, you should enter it, too, though be aware the details have been slightly updated/delayed since the initial posting). This one shouldn’t take four months to write as it is not a novel, so expect that soon, interspersed between Dangers in Fiction updates. And when I say soon, I mean I’m about halfway through drafting it already. It’ll be nice to be able to post something that just goes on fimfic and doesn’t involve needing to refer anyone to other sites to read stuff.
Also, also! As luck would have it, the stars aligned with weird timing this week and I am set to appear on this week’s episode of The Barcast Podcast. Recording is this Saturday and will be streamed on Twitch, then available in multiple podcasty places later, I’m told. Catch the details of it on this thread (where there’s still time to suggest some questions if you’d like). Should be fun!
Anyway, that’s the current state of affairs for me. If you have any questions or just wanna chat or something feel free to leave a comment below. I’ll be popping in again next week when the second update goes live on Offprint and the story starts up on AO3, so I’ll definitely be more vocal for the coming weeks here. Getting back to work writing now. TTFN.
Holy crap Christmas came early this year!
…Y'know, I've been meaning to take a stab at exploring the Owl House fandom. Methinks that you might've just given me a doorway.
Cool.
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Oh, stop.
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Join usssss, we have cookies that are mostly not full of eyeballs.
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She’s lying. The cookies all have eyeballs. It’s just a question of how many.
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Not a lie, I did say mostly.
yo, 2k blog comin' up, get hype in chat :O
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lol, y'know, I actually crossed the 2k follower line a few months ago, then I think a bunch of accounts got banned/deleted as a batch or something, because I dropped 8 followers all at once and fell back to below 2k.
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oh, that's followers, not blogs >.<
Well, retroactive congrats and gj on finishing a novel :D