It has been some time, hasn't it? · 3:46am Feb 9th, 2022
So, I guess the first thing I want to say is an apology to those who enjoyed Darkness Falls and Love & Tolerance. To those who read and liked those stories and awaited updates that never came. Thank you so much for the support you did give me, I greatly appreciate it. And no, this isn’t an “I’m deleting the stories” or “stopping updates entirely (canceling)” journal post, I promise!
I recently received a message from one of those who liked Darkness Falls expressing disappointment that I haven’t updated in two years. They did so kindly, so no bothering them about it! That’s when it kind of struck home how long it’s been since I worked on either of those stories, a fact to which I feel ashamed of.
In all fairness, I’ve been super busy with life stuff. I feel like I’m beating a dead horse when I bring up the fact that Covid and this still ongoing lockdown nonsense has definitely complicated my free time to write. For those who don’t know, I work in a hospital where I live, so the onslaught of Covid-related patients has made me borderline exhausted every single day when I get off work, and has made extended work weeks with being on-call a nightmare.
The other thing that complicates my writing process is a combination of chronic writer’s, a tendency to overthink details within the story and narrative (basically the “how do I get there” gets in the way of the “getting there”), and, as ridiculous and eye-rolling as it sounds, I get discouraged when I get little to no response when I write.
Now, I do know better than to think my stories should be instantly successful. I know it takes time, consistency with updates, et cetera. For me it feels like a raw feeling that I have a great deal of difficulty in getting over. It doesn’t help that I did post a clop story and it is a good deal better received than Darkness Falls, which the latter is a work of passion since I love the Fallout Equestria universe and long dreamt of weaving a story in that universe created by Kkat. It certainly sounds silly, even as I type this I’m rolling my eyes at myself.
I guess what I’m hoping to do is just offer the explanation of reasons for why I haven’t kept up with the updates.
And I view it as excuses, all of them.
So, I’m going to try again. I do have half of the next chapter sitting in Google Docs, waiting to be finished. So I’ll try to get that up when I can. I want Darkness Falls to continue, because despite the reasons stated above, I cannot stop thinking about what I have planned in the future. Twists and turns, villains and friends to pit against and team up with Silver Starlight, areas and locations that I envision frequently. And weirdly enough, I have future chapters and scenes that I just had to write right then and there, but because they take place a great deal further in the story, they cannot be posted now and I’ll likely have to overhaul them when the story eventually gets to that point. Hell, I am doing an admittedly very slow roleplay with a pair of friends set in the Darkness Falls universe of Stalliongrad, in the hopes of getting me out of my narrative and inspirational muck (it has not worked as well as I had hoped).
Another such reason is that I don’t want my stories to wind up dead. I know as a reader that it is depressing to have a story that you like, by a writer that really captures that fantastic feeling of a narrative and characters that you enjoy, and to look down at the “last updated” text and see that it has been years since the last update, or to see “Hiatus”, “Canceled”, or arguably worse, the perpetual “Incomplete” sign. Yeah… I don’t want that for my work.
So, I guess to sum up this confessional journal, I’m going to try getting back into writing my stories. Not purely out of guilt, but because I still want to. I can’t promise timely updates. I can’t promise when or give some kind of date or deadline. Simply because if I do, it would be a flimsy promise that I probably won’t be able to keep. And you all simply deserve better. Updates will come when they come, but I won’t stop again. Not again.
And if anyone has any tips for me to try, I’d be grateful just to hear them.
Thank you, all of you, just for taking an interest in what I wrote.
Take care.
Glad to see you!
Welcome back, friend! I understand completely with regards to covid and hospital work, I'd not be in a mood to write myself if I had to pull overtime for the best part of the years. Honestly, I'm just happy to see one of my most anticipated favorites coming back to life after all this time.
For advice, I'd say Tmtake your time with it, dedicate a bit of time every day to write at least a small bit of what flies through your mind (like half a paragraph for example) and then see where things go, and most importantly: have fun.
Thank you sincerely for the update and the good news. I can't wait to see where things will go with good ol' Silver and Stalliongrad! Be safe, and happy word-hunting!
5637183
Thanks in kind, friend! Been a while still, but I've been making progress. A little here, a little there, when I can.
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Glad to see you too!