It's been a while... · 4:53pm Sep 2nd, 2021
I'm not sure where to begin, really. Most of that is because I feel like I'm entering a dead silent room and the hinge has let out a piercing squeak to announce my either wanted or unwanted presence, but here goes.
None of you deserved to have a story you enjoyed just... abandoned like that, and for so long. I guess it hurts to say "abandoned" because that was never the intention of the break I took from the story to pursue another, but in reality that's what happened when I let my focus shift fully to a shiny new idea that I just ended up running with. I'm sorry for that because a lot of you were super supportive on this wild ride and it was always a blast to put out a chapter and see the excitement in the comments or DMs afterword, just as it could hurt but I would try to turn the voiced criticism of the choices I made into a learning experience. To those of you still here, if you're still holding out hope for the continuation of Final Frontiers, all I can say is...
I'm trying.
It's been so long but I recall the desire to take a step back for a break arose from the feeling that every choice came with this nagging, out-of-body perspective of writing myself into a corner. I was also overwhelmed by the work of feeling like I needed to go back and fix issues, update the older chapters which were rife with my more sophomoric writing to something more practiced (yet still admittedly flawed), and still forge ahead with fleshing out the story outline I have when this weird brain of mine would constantly bombard me with Ooo, what if we did this? What are the ramifications to the planned plotlines if we did this thing, too? Starting fresh with something else seemed like a good break as well as a means to recharge and come back more focused than before.
Now, almost two and a half years since my last published chapter, I have to wonder why I was gone for so long. I loved Final Frontiers, I can't begin to explain how much fun it was to take one thing I loved (Star Wars) and, after finding out a detail of how magic worked in a world I wasn't and still am not entirely familiar with (MLP, though I haven't even delved into any of the new stuff), feel everything sort of fall into place in aligning how the introduction of a character from one universe might unfold in the world of the other and then all the possibilities that might follow. The closest I can come is to say it felt like magic, which in my editing pass of the blog is kind of cringe to read aloud but I've said what I said.
So, where have I been?
Life has changed a lot since my last post. I quit my dead-end job to pursue another field I was passionate for, met someone and had my heart broken by them and my best friend, went through a spiral of bordering-suicidal depression, then the company I worked for went under and I begrudgingly went back to work for the place I left before just so I could take care of myself and my elderly mom. I had the delusion that the employer I went back to was a good person, however I've come to realize they used my desire to be anywhere but the apartment my mom hoarded to fill the void they couldn't find any other employees to fill. I met another person for something casual, faced eviction because my mom wouldn't change her behavior and I hadn't learned to set healthy boundaries to not facilitate her hoarding. The person I was with found out her roommate was actively grooming a 13 year old with plans to meet the underage girl and run away. We went through a whole ordeal of turning them in to police and having the justice system completely fail in its obligation (word of advice? If you ever are in this position, skip the useless local authorities and go straight to federal if you actually want something done), then in the midst of all that anger she broke things off with me and I fell back to the monotonous cycle of existing to only work. After a period she and I kept connected as friends because we both enjoyed each other's company and had a lot in common, though in reality I completely admit I had caught genuine feelings when things were supposed to be casual. I needed something to break that and reset so I met someone else, had some fun, and we went our separate ways. That, as it turns out, gave my friend time to sort out the trauma of her roommate and I moved in with her.
Now in an environment where I wasn't residing in a toxic relationship every waking hour, I pulled myself out of the rut I'd been in. My new roommate and I got back together. Only a few months later, however, everything got locked down due to COVID. When things started opening back up I learned to set boundaries with my employer where I would no longer let my skills be exploited if equal compensation to represent them wasn't offered (surprise, surprise, it never was) so by September I ventured out of the comfort zone I'd let myself wallow in for too long and took on a new job delivering for Amazon. Definitely an upgrade, even with how brutal it is.
Then in October of 2020 I got married! My wife had long since been aware of what I wrote and, as luck would have it, rather than call it off or serve me divorce papers after reading some of it she admitted to being a fan of Flutters 
Still, that hasn't stopped her from regularly giving me shit about my writing, and the Rainbow Dash Bishoujo figure on my desk likely doesn’t help her forget (and man, maybe I'll endure the ribbing to add the Sunset Shimmer next to it!).
Current Status of Final Frontiers
At the moment the first draft of the next chapter is done but it's been a while since I've read the whole thing and I'll likely want to do quite a bit of editing to eliminate the unnecessary content and fill other gaps. As I think I've said in an old blog, the topic of abuse is a bit triggering and I don't have much of an idea how I want to handle it but I want to step out of my comfort zone and see what I can do. Further complicating things is I'm feeling faced by two hurdles of content which I'm trying to figure out how to deliver in an acceptable manner, the first being an element I can't reveal and the second being how to convey how much time passes during the events of this chapter - Titus certainly isn't getting rescued overnight but I don't want to simply put "several weeks later" at the start of a paragraph and leave it at that. I'll figure something out.
Speaking in the long term: the plan is to have this upcoming chapter cover his captivity as well as the efforts by Lyra to locate him after Luna shares what she discovered in her dream-watching in "Uncle Titus" chapter (the clues being the spearhead and the box), with the following chapter starting as both launch their separate plans and things kick off. That chapter has about 75% of its core content written, with secondary scenes scribbled "in the margins" which still need to be fleshed out, and the subsequent chapter to that is about 30-40% scribbled. Somewhere down the line we'll reach the final chapter which is 95% written.
So, to the best of my knowledge that's the extent of things at the moment. Again, I'm deeply sorry for letting Final Frontiers languish where it has been for so long and I'll be working to push through finishing the rest of it, though I certainly don't want to do so at the cost of the story so it may be some time.
Welcome back and congrats on your marriage.
I just found this story last month and tore through it. Yes there are some errors, but over all it grabbed and held my attention to the point that I caught myself reading at work. Great job on an amazing story and I cant wait to see how it concludes.
Had the story on my radar for a while, whenever you return to it I'll read it eagerly! Take your time