KOTD Finished · 8:25am May 26th, 2021
Two days ago, at 5:53am, I finished my final chapter. There's four in total and I'll be posting them all over the course of 4 days, one per day. Let me tell you, it's been a ride. I've had so many ups and downs, disgustingly inappropriate reviews, amazing fans and I learned a lot about myself. I used KOTD to vent when I couldn't afford a therapist and those chapters were some of my best. Are there things I'd change about the novel? Yeah but I'm saving those for when I publish it which means taking out all the MLP parts.
I know five years is a long time to finish a book but I've had a lot of personal stuff go down, especially with COVID. I took multiple month-long breaks, didn't fully know where I wanted certain sections to go plot-wise and had to do some heavy rewrites. When I first started writing, I thought I could do weekly updates and ended up rushing things. Once I got to chapter 44, I got tired of this raincloud over my head, knowing my previous chapters weren't that great...by "not great" I mean total shit. So I went and spruced them up a lot. Then found out that Google Documents spellcheck is awful. So had to use my work computer's Microsoft Word to spell check them ALL. This process took about 2 months to complete.
Then I changed my writing style a bit but that would also require significant rewrites I decided to save for the new version. I wanted less information being told to the reader by the main character's narration and more told through dialogue or implications/actions. That involved having to copypaste the info given, either remove it where it is or rewrite where it is which can break how a scene flows. So then I ended up with a large pile of info to give the reader and finding places to plop it. Sometimes I'd repeat info across multiple chapters so then you gotta write down all the information you give you and mark where you put it and just...uuuuggghhh. Don't even get me started on writing characters, making them interesting, giving them quirks and arcs and it's all just a lot when you're looking at a story this large.
I've been told every nasty thing under the sun and while those hurt at the time, they made me a stronger person in the end. I no longer fear rejection or criticism after hearing the worst. Not condoning toxic criticism but there's a silver lining I guess. I've rebuilt my fanbase 3 times but after the show ended, it never recovered. Those were some fun times but I learned I had a validation addiction problem. Over time, I decided to take it easy, enjoy my story and work on it as a project, not something to use for clout. Once that stress was lifted, writing was 10x easier.
Anyways, thank you all for reading and for sticking with me over the years. Once I finish rewriting KOTD for publishing, this version has got to go. This won't be for years but after I post up the final chapters, I won't be posting here anymore and will probably just check back in for the comments as I've kind of outgrown the fandom. It kept me going at the worst times and I met some wonderful friends here. I love you all and hope everyone grows as much as I have over the years.
-Tim
Hard work pays off, eh? Ya done good kid, real good.
Be sure and drop us a link when you publish so we can go have a look at the finished product, yeah?
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Not to be vain, but it's going to be dope. There's so much shit I'm going to add