Pre-November Ponderings: Ten Years, 50,000 Words, and Absolutely Zero Ideas · 4:00pm Oct 29th, 2021
Blog Number 162: Near-Anniversary Edition
Now might be a good time to plan for next month. NaPoWriMo, for instance. It turns out I've already written over 50,000 this month, and I wasn't even aiming for it! That's a good sign. 
And on November 10th, it'll be ten years to the day I first watched the show.
Still one of my favourite funny-awesome-heartwarming moments. 
Re: NaPoWriMo or NaNoWriMo or whatever you wanna call it, I'm encouraged by the fact that my writing streak seems to be returning.
See, for the first eight months of this year, I didn't write much. Certainly much less than usual: my best month was May with 21,156 words, and that was a blatant outlier. Most months didn't even break the 10,000-word barrier. Especially compared to the list of unfulfilled projects I definitely want to do justice to, watching my performance this year hasn't been fun.
"Ah don't wanna write eventually. Ah wanna write NOOOOOW!"
Then about mid-September, I finally gained some momentum, which meant I finally broke through this weird invisible barrier and felt like my normal self again. It was only 26,715 words, but since almost all of those were in the second half, I felt that was a good sign.
And now October's basically doubled it, I think I've found something that works.
I doubt this year's November will be as good as last year's November (that one was insanely productive... though clearly a one-off), but I'm confident I'll get a good result this time. Besides, there's still so much I want to do and so many more barriers I want to break. So much room yet for improvement.
One day...
...one day...
Re: the tenth anniversary of my introduction to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic... I'm still not sure what to do for it. It's not every day you get to celebrate a decennial anniversary.
(Yes, I looked it up: "decennial" is to the tenth year what "centennial" is to the hundredth. And now you know...).
Thing is, I've already blogged about my early experiences here, so that'd feel a bit redundant. In brief, though, to give you an idea of how quickly I warmed up to the show: I watched the entirety of Season One in a couple of days. That's how quickly I went from "huh, looks interesting" to "MORE! MORE! GIMME GIMME MORE!".
The inspiration! The lovely, lovely inspiration!
As for the last ten years... I've mixed feelings about them.
There's no denying I've produced a pretty number of fics, and I definitely feel like I've ironed out a lot of creases in my writing over the years. If anything, entering the fanfic scene has broadened my horizons in ways I almost certainly never believed possible ten years ago: MLP in particular is a great playground for experimentation and exploration. For a few years, keeping up with the ongoing show alongside other fans was nicely exciting, and collecting the DVDs I wanted was a pleasure. I've even completed a novel, something I've wanted to do for a long time!
On the other hand, writing has often been hell. I still feel I'm performing below my true potential, especially as it becomes obvious I haven't quite mastered the ambitious art of consistently combining quantity with quality. The show's had its ups and downs, with (in my opinion) increasingly more downs the longer it went on for. The fandom's had its bad moments I could've done without. And for all that I have completed one novel, several more never made it far and some of the passion projects have practically haunted my brain day in, day out.
It could've been better...
...it could've been worse.
So in short... a decent decade with parts worth celebrating, but the next one had better be bloody better. I want to kick it up a notch, sooner rather than later.
Well, that's all for now, apart from me still working on that third Imposing Sovereigns entry. It's so close, but a couple of unexpectedly bad days would be enough to derail it. It could be a close-run thing. 
Till then! Impossible Numbers, out.
Does that mean "National Pony Writing Month"?
5601409
Yup. It's an Equestria Daily event that's been going on since at least 2012, though I don't think it was on last year. So far, I've seen no announcements for it this year either.
5601412
Ah. Well, if you do whip something up for it or just in general and need a copy editor in a pinch, I'm rusty but would be happy to step up. I work free, so you can look at it as either a saving or getting what you paid for!
More or less how I feel about my last decade of writing. But hey, it's been fun thus far. Here's hoping that's true for both of us going forward.
5601413
Thanks, but among other things, it'll take some effort just to get something done at all. No guarantees, especially with my history. The odds are I'll probably just write a novel's worth of words instead of an actual novel (the idea of NaPoWriMo was based on National Novel Writing Month, after all).
5601414
Well, on the bright side: fewer mistakes to make next time around.
But seriously: implied challenge accepted. Let's do this thing!
5601414
Actually, now you mention this, I never would have guessed. I always thought you were the more casual kind of fanfic writer; I tend to think in terms of big ambitious projects.
5601422
Well, yeah. That should tell you something about my more ambitious projects.