September 2021 Newsletter · 2:16pm Sep 1st, 2021
Hi everyone, I hope you are well this upcoming September.
I have a lot to say this month. As has been the case the past two months, a lot of what I am working on are works-in-progress. But they are progressing. I'll confess that progress has slowed, and I will explain throughout the newsletter for why.
Personal
I have a daughter in third grade...in Texas. Now I don't know how much every reader keeps up with the news, but in essence, things are going badly in Texas (among other places). The governor seems to be actively trying to get people killed with things like issuing orders like banning mask mandates or vaccination requirements, which are the exact things that would be most helpful to everyone.
I get too worked up trying to get into all the specifics for where I am, but my daughter's school district has a mask mandate for now though I still resent that they went the full first week without one.
August has been an extremely stressful month. That stress will likely continue until either the state government actually stops being so terrible (unlikely) or until my daughter can be vaccinated, which is not projected as even maybe possible, last I heard, until next spring in 2022.
I will reiterate. If you are eligible to be vaccinated for COVID-19 and have access and for whatever reason are still not vaccinated, please please please get vaccinated. It does not help just you but everyone, such as children under 12 who have to go to school in person. Hospitals are being overrun too, in case that hasn't been made clear from any news source to you.
I feel it significant enough to say, August has the anniversary of both my dad's death in 2008 and my older brother's death in 2020 (as some readers at Fimfiction may recall).
Another bit on the personal side of things is that my daughter having to go to bed earlier means I go to bed earlier too, so some time was cut away from that as well since after her bedtime and before my bedtime is generally the best for recording, editing, writing, or just about any fandom project.
I got stuff done this month. A lot of stuff, but I did scale back on audiobook stuff in part because of all this stress, the change in bedtime, and in part because inspiration finally struck for something else I'll explain further down in the writing section.
With that in mind, let's move on with how I've done these newsletters the past couple of months.
Revelation Into Mercury
Reminder that this is the name of the arc for the audiobook project of The Master Mev, Chapters 12-20. I am recording my narration before bringing in other actors to streamline things when I am ready. In my last newsletter, I noted I was up to starting Chapter 15. In August, I finished Chapters 15 and 16 and started on Chapter 17. I do not expect to finish Chapter 17 by the time this newsletter is published, but I am at about the halfway point of it. Chapters 18-20 are long compared to the past several chapters I have worked on, so they will take longer, besides the already noted extra stress and less spare time.
I had been expecting to make a casting call between October and January. I will now scratch October off that list and say I expect it between November and January.
Since I showed off the Spitfire role last month in my drafted CCC project, I will now show off the Maud role. Doing things like this helps keep me hyped.
And here is the latest on the word counts table. The blanks are where I expect characters to eventually have lines but are actually calculated as zeroes in the total for now. The actual zeroes are where I do not expect characters to have lines. I caught a few mistakes last month on re-reading the newsletter, so it's possible some exist again. Nonetheless, this should give you a generally good idea of how the roles and counts are up to Chapter 16.
Utaan 42
This project has stalled. I'm at about 33% in a solo recording. I finally requested permission from the author and have received no response. I have sent him messages before without a response, so that is not too surprising. I still wanted to try, given another audiobook project for one of his other stories is in the works.
While the lack of response has not stopped me completely from still recording and editing, hoping to eventually figure something out, it has definitely lessened some of my motivation. Between the above noted stress in Personal and another writing project I started, Utaan 42 was the easiest thing to scale back in my efforts.
Project Dashcord
This is the project for an eventual monster transformation of Rainbow Dash into a vicious draconequus that looks like Discord, based on the Austraeoh series. Sadly, I really have not made any progress on this since last time. Unless I have something new to say, I'll stop mentioning it in newsletters starting next month.
Writing - The Master Mev
The Master Mev text version is still on hiatus. I am leaning toward mostly my current drafts as they are but even so, I have a couple of things I need to add. I'm hoping I can get back to it when I am done with my audiobook narration recordings, which is currently expected to be around November.
I have edited the text of Chapters 15 and 16. These edits are minor and to help it sound better when read aloud.
Writing - Companion
Companion is more of a code name until if and when I can come up with something I like more.
That said...
I have a confession to make. I didn't say anything last newsletter because if I couldn't think of anything in time, well...so be it...
Anyway...sometime I think in July...I had the sudden desire to have another vampire Rainbow Dash story ready by Halloween this year (for an initial chapter, not an entire thing if it went beyond a one-shot) Last year, I published Vampires About Ponyville which is admittedly the story with the lowest rating of my 3 stories.
Still, I had fun writing it and do like to go back and re-read some stuff myself. Plus, some readers liked it.
While I do have drafts of both a possible remaster or sequel or even other different stories, they are not drafts I am happy enough with to publish.
Inspiration finally struck sometime in August. I can't pin down the exact date.
Nonetheless, I have something that is yes, another Rainbow Dash vampire story because I like writing them. Sure, I wish I could write a great epic Rainbow Dash adventure story like Austraeoh or Harmony Theory since they are my super top favorites to re-read out of anything, but...well, I'm not as happy with my attempts on those. Maybe one day, but it's not a day between now and Halloween this year.
The next vampire Rainbow Dash story, code name Companion, will feature Rainbow Dash (of course) and Coco Pommel.
While my original hope was to have something by Halloween, I am now thinking maybe I could have something earlier in the month of October, no earlier than October 1st.
I have laid out a plan for the story. I am happy enough with the first chapter and working through the following ones. The first chapter is long by my standards. Most of my chapters are 2000-4000 words in both The Master Mev and Vampires About Ponyville. My current first chapter draft for Companion is roughly 6300 words. I want to be working on this story between now and Christmas, preferably publishing something every 1-2 weeks after the first chapter is published sometime in October. That can change if the later chapters prove to be too daunting of a challenge.
Video
I did make and publish a small video about my excitement for empowering a couple of dragons in Dragon City. The Master Mev is mentioned since both dragons served as inspiration for a couple of parts of the story.
Closing
Reminder, I do have a small Discord channel, https://discord.gg/cncfY6f , that might share some of these updates as they happen throughout a given month.
That's a wrap for this month. See ya.
