Needed Time to Let Chapter 9 Simmer... So Rewrites!

Good <insert timezone specific greeting here> y'all.

I've pretty much spent my entire Sunday writing and rewriting. Good use of the day if I say so myself. Better than cleaning the apartment, right? ... Ahem...

Yes, yes! I know it's still a wreck! I never have company over, so why do you even care?

So, I just got done with the first draft of Chapter 9 of Electro Swing and I needed something to do while I waited to give it a second pass. It's a good idea to not look at your first draft immediately after finishing. Go clean out the cat box as my English 101 professor put it in community college. One of the best teachers I ever had. But back on topic, this chapter is a bit all over the place since Fleur is well... very Fleur in this chapter. I have a few jokes in there that I am not sure I want to keep in, but are totally in-character for my version of Fleur de Lis (AKA Schlurr De'Lish). I am very glad she is in this story though. I am not sure if it'd be possible without her.

Anyway, I said I would before, so I did it today and did some more rewrites on Forbidden Melodies. When I wrote it, I was doing it as a one-off with no plans of writing anything else in that universe and going back to working on Unraveling a Rainbow and The Trying Times of Ahuizotl but after the response it got, I was inspired by people's attention to it to keep going and write some more things in that universe. Then 2017 rolled around. Feel free to look at my blog post Re: Happy Thanksgiving Y'all! Circa 2017 - Stream of Conciousness for what happened there. Seeing that a few of the writers I respect the most on the site left some pretty critical reviews of Forbidden Melodies, I went back today to revisit it and see what I could clean up.

Suffice to say, not much has changed aside from cleaning up a few slippy wordings, some errors that contradict some of the stuff in Gloria Celestia and Electro Swing, and once towards the end where I slipped into Celestia's head when in Octavia's perspective. Probably the most noticeable change is spacing out the paragraphs like I do now to avoid huge chunks while reading on phones. Hope it makes the process easier to get through. Overall though, I don't think I've "fix't" any complaints that some folks levied against the fic. It is still rather predictable from beginning to end, but after giving it a reread, I like the pacing the way it is.

Except for when the concert started. Why didn't anyone ever tell me explicitly that I literally gave the same information about Luna twice in three paragraphs?! Oh well, No promises that I made it better or worse, but at least it doesn't conflict with Electro Swing now! Guess I'll need to double-check Gloria Celestia as well later. Writing a sequel 7 years later after the first story came out is hard.

Now that I have revisited and rewritten bits of it, I now feel more comfortable linking it to Electro Swing so readers of both will see the connection. While it's not necessary to read either story without the other, they take place in the same universe. Chronologically, Electro Swing happens after it as well, so characters may make references to it every-so-often if it is fitting. At the very least, folks will know who Steeplechase is better from his appearance in chapter 4 and mentions throughout the story. They are tied to Vinyl Scratch after via the Equestrian Society for the Performing Arts.

See ya'll Wednesday!
- Rego

P.S. I have a Japanese driving test next Tuesday that I'm worried about. Pray for me or wish me luck! I am super nervous about it since It's going to be 100% in Japanese for the practical portion and that's the one that everyone notoriously fails! You gotta schedule it out a long time in advance and... ugh! Why does America always have to be "exceptional" in the literal way of opting out of things that would make my international life easier? If I were from most any other English-speaking country, I could just apply for my license to be translated and accepted as a Japanese one, but noooo.