May '21 Writing Update

I see a lot of people who seem much more professional than myself doing these, so let's give this a try. A snippet of the story is below the break.

The semester has finally come to a close on my end. All of my papers have been submitted, and I only have one more final on Friday that I am not concerned about, so I will have plenty of time to write my story. I am taking a summer class starting the 17th, but it will be asynchronous. What I do not know about it, however, are the deadlines and workload held within it. I am mildly concerned, but none of my asynchronous classes thus far have been ridiculous time-sinks. I will also be doing researchy things, so I can imagine that will be eating up plenty of time, but I should be able to stick to ~1.5k words / day on average. The next chapter is just about ready to get going, but after a final and a commentary block tonight, I needed a breather. The goal is to knock out the big scene from that chapter, then the next, then the next, until it's June.

It feels like I'm finally getting out of the hardest year of my life, really. Nothing about this year was pleasant, but I've learned so much about me and changed what needed to be changed for myself to grow. Something about online classes and sitting in the same chair for 12 hours a day was not jiving, surprise surprise. Thank Celestia I switched out of engineering when I did. Because of all this, I found writing, and it's been fruitful even though I haven't had the time I've wanted to put in since the winter where I was writing a bunch and doing good work.

The previous semester has not barred me from my writing, however. I've been keeping a running tracker of the story on my profile page, and as of writing this blog, I have written just under 10k words since that last blog and completed three chapters. I am still restructuring some things in the outline, and the story will probably have less than 24 chapters after some of my recent brainstorming. It's gonna a good bit of editing, but I'm glad it's progressing well. I need to just get my ideas down and I can go from there. I uhh still don't have a name I'm set on, but it'll come in time. Hopefully by the next time I update in June, I have more than half of this thing done. Then I finish end of June, edits and rereads in July, first post early August. Only time will write this book, as long as I keep up my fervor (which hasn't slowed down yet), I should be able to stick to that. No promises, though.

So who is this thing about, anyways? Why should you care? I guess I'll just have Luster tell you herself. (this draft is rough)

Everyone reading this is awesome btw. Catch you on the Flipside.
~Tech
/)

---

That day, my brain preferred to do its work in the park. I quickly filled my bags and headed off along the cobble streets of Canterlot, my mind using the winds of the open air to power my thoughts.

Petrification magic was the topic of this report. I wrote two pages of background knowledge, from the earliest cockatrices to the crystalization of powerful magical beings. I gave a full rundown of the methodology of the spell, including references to the original incantation and an explanation of the headspace of the spell. I mused upon further possibilities in the research and application of the magic, some of which the princess might pawn off to a review board for discussion of its viability. These rubric-bound portions I could write under any sedative or sleep debt. 

I only needed to finish the report with a ‘related friendship lesson’. This required my full attention. The royal ruler was not interested in hearing about more conversations during my running practices, so I needed to come up with some other life experience which I could apply to this paper. Somehow, I would find a way to stretch my memories with my creative freedom and language control in order to create a sufficiently productive essay. This process took time, and although the princess controlled the raising of the sun and moon, she could not move the hands of time backwards just for me.

Perhaps adding something about my encounter last night could help? I argued both sides before relying on some advice which the ruler herself had mentioned in one of our recent lessons. I have to be ‘A Mare of My Word’ if I want to be respected among any community, including the scientists and researchers. She portrayed it along the same lines as honesty playing into good friendships, although we were talking about leadership positions.

Princess Twilight Sparkle was incredible in so many ways, but this friendship thing always baffled me. How could a pony earn wings from fraternizing? In all my years of studying, magic has fooled me in unexpected ways. Yet, even this event confused experts for two decades and still was not solved. I could understand seeing the value in something which caused the most important change in one’s life, but forcing it upon another pony who is going to school for a wildly different venture is delusion at best. Right? Right.

Ugh.

Yet, she has been overly helpful to me. Giving me guidance to fine-tune my casting during that first year, she catapulted my abilities. She provided opportunities for me to go above and beyond what other students were doing. She shared herself with me, allowing me to peer behind the curtains of an incredibly influential pony, so that I might be able to do the same one day. I’m sure that my reports, lessons, and questions took her away from the most important duties in Equestria at times, but never once did she leave me hanging.

I looked up to her. I gave her the whole of my respect. If I needed to write out some friendship lessons for her sake, I would.