State of the Author, Pride Month '22 · 7:43pm Jun 23rd, 2022
Anyone play Vampire Survivors? It's great, you guys.
I've been quiet here for a bit, so I guess it's time for an update.
Last I checked I am still alive. That is not nothing. 2022 is... a lot to deal with, y'all. Kinda seems like at this point my brain is so fried I can only communicate through Star Swirl the Bearded's steely gaze onto the distant horizon. Things are always happening, and yet there is somehow always nothing to talk about. Touching on any one thing is like poking at a small part of a large sleeping beast that is best left undisturbed. Anyone else feel like that a lot of the time lately?
So I'll talk about stories instead.
To recap: Starting at the new year I was working on editing the first draft of The Seven Trials of Clover the Clever, chapter by chapter, from the beginning. This went pretty well at first. Chapter 3 took a bit more effort but I got through it, and then chapter 4 was excellent and cooperative. But chapter 5... proved more difficult. It was an important chapter so I wanted to get it right, but it was also a chapter I'd left in a rough state the first time around for various reasons, so it would take a lot of work. And it was hard. I spent weeks staring at the core of it feeling like I was getting nowhere, until two months ago today inspiration struck. For something else..
"Well," I said to myself, "clearly I'm not getting anywhere with this right now. So while I wait for my brain to unjam itself about that, I might as well work on something else".
So for the last two months I've kept working on that new story: The Legend of Star Swirl the Bearded and the Griffon King.
It is, as I said in the previous blog, a one-shot sequel to The Education of Clover the Clever, following up on a particular plot thread: just what happened to get the Griffon King to swear revenge against Star Swirl and regularly send master assassins to kill him in decades since?
I'm at the end of the second draft now. It's some 16.5k words long at present, and might grow longer still. It's... been quite cooperative, actually, for that entire time, which is unusual for me. It's continued to grow in meaningful ways every week. And... while I don't want to jinx it... it kinda seems like I might actually post a new Star Swirl story sometime soon 
The mind boggles.
Well, we'll see how it goes. It needs at least one more round still, at least. But I've sent it out to my prereaders and I'm eagerly looking forward to seeing what they think. Star Swirl the Bearded is still who he is, and everything he does he does to defy expectation and also comprehension.
I hope everyone is hanging on out there. Happy Pride, and don't let the bastards grind you down.
Awesome! Looking forward to more wizard words.
Gorgeous Moon + Vandalier is my favourite.
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Yup! Same here. Really looking forward to whatever mischief Starswirl gets himself into. Right now I am imagining his visit to the Griffon King's Palace/Eyre to have the following song (thanks to the wonders of Equestrian Harmony Magic) as things start to go chaotic and pear-shaped during his visit:
(Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels OST - Zorba the Greek)
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It took many, many tries but just now I finally completed a full run with the character who dies in one hit