Authors Notes: Sunday in The Park With Sunset · 1:31am Aug 14th, 2021
Oh look, I published a thing!: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/448807/3/wondercolt-weekends/sundayintheparkwithsunset
Yes, that's right, I finally got done writing the third part of my anthology (trilogy?), Wondercolt Weekends. When I started work on the anthology some two years ago now, I did in fact have three parts planned out. But, for whatever reason, the third part of the story was always the sticking point. I went through multiple ideas of what to write about it, and except for nailing down that it had to feature Twilight and Sunset, I wasn't able to come up with an story idea that worked. I believe my earliest ideas involved Pinky painting in the Park, and a sort of mistaken identity thing between the two Twilights and Sunset... but I was never really happy with that idea. After that, I toyed with the idea of Twilight and Sunset doing something science or academic related together, but just couldn't seem to nail down what the conflict in a story like that would be. Then, by happenstance, I found the work which inspired me to write this final installment.
I was in a Book-A-Million, which was strange in and of itself. I have way to many books I've yet to read, and I'm actually pretty cheap so I usually go looking for books in places like Savers. But I was out with friends on a lovely July day, for the first time in too long, and started looking at the manga section. It was well stocked, though like every manga section it seems there were plenty of series where the latest volume was available but not the first one, which makes it rather tricky to get into series. This rule seems to work for used manga, only more so, for nobody ever resells the latest issue or issue one, merely all the filler in between. So I idly scanned the shelves for a volume one of something that looked interesting, something thick enough that I'd at least spend a hour reading it. Amongst the Yuri section, I spotted something that looked like it fit the bill.
Donuts Under a Crescent Moon is a brand new manga, written and illustrated by Shio Usui. It caught my attention for several reasons: firstly the lovely soft pastels of it's cover art, and it's unusual title. What's not too like about a story with Doughnuts and the Moon in it? Secondly, as it's back cover proclaims, it's "A Yuri Romance for the Modern Career Woman!". Or rather, it's about modern "office ladies" in Japan. So many manga or anime, especially romances, are set in the Middle School and High School settings, because that's the main demographic of readership. But as much as I enjoy reading about and writing for younger characters, it is refreshing to find a work that doesn't involve that and showcases the relationships of older characters. I don't want to spoil too much for my readers, because I want to encourage all of you to seek out this excellent manga, but reading the first chapter was both what sold me on the book and also convinced me that this was going to inspire my next story. Needless to say, it involved doughnuts, a park bench, and two very broken people getting a little closer to one another. Those are images and themes that are so compelling, that as an author I couldn't help but think "what could I do with a set up like that?". That chapter is just the beginning of a very charming manga, and I hope to pick up the second volume when it comes out, I believe, next month.
I have always found the idea that Twilight and Sunset share a special bond thanks to the shared trauma of taking all the magic at once and turning into she demons, as Twilight says "Fascinating". Yes, that's a Trek reference, too. Anyways, I wanted to take the theme of "two very broken people" from Donuts Under a Crescent Moon, and that relationship as established in cannon, and explore it more in depth. I wanted to touch on not just the shared trauma, but the shared road to healing both the girls are on. Healing from that kind of thing isn't an "one and done" thing as the show has a tendency to suggest, but rather a long, hard road to travel. The important thing to realize, as Sunset and Twilight do, is that you don't have tp travel that road alone.
Needless to say, I was worried given the themes of this latest installment in comparison to my earlier parts of the story that it would be too dark. To be honest, the events of 2020 and 2021 have in someways made it quite hard for me to be in the right mood for writing things that are happy and light, and I was worried that this latest work was going to encourage that negative tendency when I picked up the (metaphorical) pen. But having now written it, I think I have managed to inject enough humor and fluffiness back into the story so that it isn't too soul crushing. I'm reliably informed that it's better to end on a discordant note that have it crop up in the middle of the piece anyhow. And anyways, it's an anthology. Any continuity is purely the result of a shared delusion between us.
The title, meanwhile, came about slightly by accident. I was struggling for a title for the story, and somehow got to thinking about Tom Lehre's "Posioning Pigeons in the Park"... and I felt it had to be something about being in a park with Sunset. So, I started searching for other works with "In The Park With X", to try and avoid accidentally copying someone else's title somehow. In the process, I wound up copying another work's title. Sunday in the Park with George is a musical by Stephen Sondheim (who's musical Frogs I'm a massive fan of.). The play is a heavily fictionalized story of the painting Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by French pointillist painter Georges Seraut, and the end of his relationship with his mistress Dot. Guess which part Sondheim added? Anyways, it's a pretty good musical judging by the clips on YouTube, and I liked that the play's subject alluded to me very earliest ideas about how to end my little trilogy in an oblique way.
Thus, Sunday in the Park with Sunset. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!
What does the future hold for me? I'm not quite sure. I do know that G5 is coming out right about now, and I look forward to watching the movie when I get the chance. I should hold some new ideas for us to play with as writers, and hopefully fan reaction will bring in more readers of pics about characters new and old. We'll have to wait and see. I will probably do my saw horse story next, I've been getting some inspiration from reading the works of Frank H Spearman, a Western Railroad writer which I read a review of in a railroad magazine whilst on vacation. Honestly, reading his Held For Orders makes me want to try and write straight railroad fiction! His characters are very compelling, and the incidents suitably melodramatic. Fair warning, it was written in 1901, and it shows. That said, I thought I'd share my little literary discovery.
This weekend, I'll be at a Civil War reenactment in Burton, Ohio, and no doubt I'll write an AAR about it. So, I might be a bit slow responding to comments. But I look foreward to them!
Ooh. Thanks for sharing the "how" as to this chapter's origins. It was a fascinating read!
Have fun at the reenactment!
Have fun and stay safe at the reenactment, Blue. Thank you for the new story and the book suggestions, too!
Thank you for writing. :) And for the extra information.
And have fun at the reenactment!
Question, though: is Wondercolt Weekends now complete? The blog post makes it sound to me like it is, but the story's indicator appears to still be set to "On Hiatus".
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Yeah... just noticed that too. I don’t think he was planning anything else since school’s starting again.
I’ll pester him about the story’s status when he returns from the 19th century.
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Heh, thanks and thanks, then. :)
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Resse, to answer your question, I'm afraid it was a case of "indecisiveness strikes again" on the part of yours truly. When I started Weekend Wondercolts, it was intended as an anthology of at least three stories. Initially, these stories weren't as closely related as they are in their current form, so the anthology was structured such that I could always add more chapters as I came up with new ideas. Weekend Wondercolts was sort an experiment into writing a longer, multi chapter story. Over time, it's evolved such that I don't think I'd want to add anything more to it as a story... yet also I don't intend it to be my last story featuring the Equestria Girls. So I tried to strike a middle ground, with a "hiatus" tag, to sort of tease my readers. But evidently, that's just confused them instead. Whoopsie! So I'll be changing it to a "completed" tag here.
In retrospect, given how I'm usually more on hiatus than not thanks to school, I suppose it'd be more useful to inform people when I'm active! With this next semester being kind of busy for me, I probably won't be doing too much pony writing in the near future. However, I do plan on finishing the stories I have in the works (at least two at the moment) when I get the chance. I really enjoyed writing Weekend Wondercolts as a anthology, it was a fun challenge to write a multi chapter work. But I think in the future I'll stick with stand alone stories. Firstly, I think my story production speed is too slow to keep up momentum in a multi chapter work in terms of ratings. Secondly, I feel now I would prefer for each story to be counted as a separate story as it better reflects the work I've put into to them as an author.
So that's the story, the story behind the story, and the author behind them. I'll be posting my ARR of Burton later tonight, I hope everyone is looking forward to it because it was a great experience! I have lots of fun stories to tell you all...
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Ah, thanks for the explanation.
And good luck with school, with writing, and in general!
And I'm glad you enjoyed that. :)