A major anniversary, and thoughts about time. · 3:59pm Jul 14th, 2021
Today is the 8th anniversary of my first, biggest, and probably still best story on fimfiction, The Education of Clover the Clever.
It was in the then-unheard of nine month hiatus between seasons 3 and 4. Magical Mystery Cure had just aired and I was absolutely spellbound. I was intrigued and inspired by Star Swirl the Bearded's journal, by Celestia's enigmatic line that "he did not understand friendship the way you do", and by the idea that Twilight was Pony Merlin's spiritual successor, tasked with setting right all the things he got wrong.
I started planning The Crown of Night first, inspired by Magical Mystery Cure and Luna Eclipsed, which was long my favorite episode of the show. I already had the idea of his character, brilliant and impossible to work with, too brash and bold to listen to reason, too powerful to fail outright but prone to succeeding in ways that make you think "there must have been a better way". From Luna Eclipsed I got the idea (seemingly shared by no-one) that he was closer to Luna than Celestia, an idea that naturally placed him in the runup to the rise of Nightmare Moon, and positioned his failure to stop it as a key piece in the great cosmic drama that was the starting point of MLP:FiM itself.
So it was while I was laying my plans for CoN that I hunted down every single mention of Star Swirl the Bearded so far, and realized that in the story of the first Hearth's Warming Clover the Clever, assistant to Princess Platinum, named him as her teacher. And the very thought of it broke my brain. "Wait. Star Swirl the Bearded, this pony who is famous for being impossible to deal with, who fell into obscurity in spite of being the most powerful wizard of his time, whose every deed is a spectacular disaster, whose unfinished spells are powerful enough to scramble the magic of destiny and throw the world into chaos, had an apprentice? Who was a major figure in the founding of Equestria? How on earth did this happen?"
And so, while I was working on the early chapters of CoN, I had a thought about how the two might have met. I imagined Star Swirl the Bearded doing a university lecture with Clover in attendance, with their unique styles on full blast. On a whim I wrote it down, and posted it first. And that's how it all started.
Happy birthday, kiddo 
It's been a wild trip. Thanks for sticking around.
In related news I have managed to extend my productive streak for another month, as I have just declared chapter 14 of The Seven Trials of Clover the Clever a finished first draft. I wanted to get it done for this anniversary so I've been rushing this week, in part because this is likely the last time. There are, somehow, only three chapters left in the story. But those chapters are, for obvious reasons, big and important and are likely to take more than a month each.
This all has me thinking about time. For better and worse. It's been eight years and I'm still working on this same series. Which I love, and sincerely hope to see through to the end. I originally thought the nine-month hiatus between seasons 3 and 4 of the show was a long time, and that I could finish both these stories by then. The first several chapters of both my original stories only took a few weeks each to write, and surely that would continue unchanged to the end, right?
Recently one of my good friends on the site announced he's had enough, and he's leaving. The show that inspired all my fics ended over a year and a half ago. Most of the people I follow on the site have faded away, and I suspect only a small fraction of my own followers are still active here. Time passes. And I'm still working on these same stories. I love my stories, but I hate that it takes me so long. And the feeling that I'm standing still while the world churns and changes and moves on constantly, leaving me behind, is... uncomfortable. I just finished chapter 14 of a 17-chapter novel, but I can't stress this enough, everything I've done on this story since early 2018 is only the first draft. I have absolutely no idea how long this will take. And meanwhile there's a world of potential original stories I could be writing instead and... at the worst it begins to feel like I'm wasting time, so much time, time I'll never get back, on stories very few people will ever see or care about. All because I was unable to let go of things 
Sorry to end on a dour note. But it's been weighing on my mind a lot lately and I needed to get it off my chest. I don't know what's going to happen. I want to finish all three of my major stories. I need to figure out some way to move the process along if that's ever going to happen though. It's depressing to think about. I would hate it if that meant compromising their quality, but... I'm starting to think I need an exit strategy.
In happier news, I finally got my first shot this month. So that's also something to celebrate.
I hope everyone is doing great. And thank you all for sticking around all these years.
Well the shot is most important, so congratulations on that. You never got COVID before this?
And in the midst of all that I forgot all about the preview. Here, have some of chapter 8 of The Seven Trials:
5554886
Nope, I managed to avoid it.
For the record, there's no pressure to actually stay committed to your fics and finish them. If you're afraid of stagnating as a person, then just don't. Write what you want to write, no matter what that is.
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What kind of artist does that make me?
I know that intellectually, of course. But it's harder to convince myself emotionally. Still, it's mostly my own self-esteem on the line rather than worry about other people's opinions. There are so many things I fail to finish
(The normal kind, of course. But it feels sucky.)
If you're still enjoying the process, great. If you feel trapped, there's no shame in, say, reworking it into something less horse-related and more sellable without running afoul of copyright infringement.
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I have thought about doing just that quite a lot over the years. But while it sounds simple in theory, in practice it seems like disentangling all the pony DNA from it would be so much work that starting a new story from scratch instead seems easier.
That said I might keep a grumpy old wizard and his plucky apprentice around in some form or other.
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Okay, I am half-way between, "I respectfully disagree," and screaming like a two-year-old who has to wait ten minutes for ice cream.
FOME: I've had the pleasure of prereading these, and they are freaking amazing and need to exist!
DA: Ordinary pony fics are a dime-a-dozen, but epic fics, intelligently written and steeped in an understanding of myth and archetypes, not so much. G5 is coming and with it an very probable resurgence in MLP as a whole! You will have an audience!
Ah, happy (slightly belated) anniversary!
And good luck; sorry you're having those problems.
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Thanks. In happy news, the early response to the new chapter is very good
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Ah, good. :)
As I see people slowly fade out of the fandom, I'm glad that, at the very least, iisaw and you are still active and writing. The fanfics here sustained me through some dark years and for many of those, I struggled with that feeling of stagnation, of the world whizzing by. They were my colourful breaks from an otherwise beige reality. During the pandemic, I've felt that feeling even more intensely.
If you manage to finish the stories, I'll be elated (and probably devour it in one sitting) and if you don't, I'll understand. I hope that, at the very least, you enjoy writing what you do. (Also, I'd seriously read anything you two write, pony-related or not).
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Thanks for sticking around.
There isn't much there yet but I've followed iisaw to offprint. And since it isn't a ponyfic or even fanfic-only site I decided to put up one of the few stories from my pre-pony writing that I'm still fond of as my introductory piece: Wavelength. It's not a happy story by any stretch, but check it out if you're interested.