Update on My Situation

FOREWORD

This is a cross-post of the same profile summary included on my FanFiction.Net profile page, which you can find here. Certain details of this post are explained in more detail there. In addition, new story updates will be posted there first as I progress, read below for more details on what my new direction as a writer is.

INTRODUCTION

Good evening once again, my fellow readers and writers. I come to you tonight to explain where I've been, what I've been doing and have gone through, and what the next steps for my stories and my future as a writer are. It's been a very long time, but let's sit down and have a chat, shall we?

SCHEDULE CONCERNS AND WHERE I'VE BEEN

First off, the big thing you guys and gals and everyone in-between are probably wondering is where exactly I've been, and why I kept saying I'd make more content for you to enjoy, only to immediately fail in the delivery of said content. The thing is, until very recently (like literally last week kind of recently), I've been so busy with life throwing new challenges at me that I haven't been able to update or even so much as share new happenings.

The main factor of why I haven't been writing for a while now is simply the fact I had lost the drive and motivation for a while. Writing was an amazing thing for me to do to relieve stress and flex my imagination in my free time, as well as give all of you your own method of escape to whisk you away from your own respective issues you might be having, but ever since just now three years ago when I started working at the company I'm still with, I slowly found myself with less and less time. My Rio story was the single greatest burst of combined inspiration and motivation I have ever had, and that story was marked Complete on the second day I was working at the company, but after that point, it felt like things were slowly going south. The majority of my motivation afterward got wasted on White Fang, which I'm not proud of now that I look back on it. Like I explained in my last update, it also didn't help I had an over-the-top plan for The Trials of Destiny that was simply never going to see the light of day due to the fact I didn't go in with a plan.

In addition, another major reason I stopped writing, as I had mentioned in my last update, was an attempt to begin playing eSports and use that as a work-from-home job. However, I have now abandoned that idea due to seeing exactly what I'm capable of and examining my prospects and learning curve, and concluding that I'm simply mentally not cut out to handle the pressure of eSports. That began to eat up a massive chunk of my free time in mid-2020 as I invested more and more effort into getting better, and while it was looking good for a while, I have come to the understanding it would have been a better goal if I'd undertaken it when I was still in middle or high school, not already being an adult, especially when one considers I'm already up on age compared to the oldest player in the league I'd wanted to compete in, so I'm no spring chicken when it comes to learning new and complex things.

I had already come to this realization a few months ago and realized I wouldn't be able to make that plan work, which brings me to the final major reason I haven't been able to write: life. In September last year, I had to fly elsewhere in the country to help my brother out of a tough situation, and in the process nearly maxed out my credit cards, which I've had to get as much overtime at work as possible to make up. The problem in that plan happened in February: I got in my first major car wreck one evening on the way home from work, and I've been dealing with the aftermath ever since. On top of that, my mom decided it was a good idea to quit her job while I was already out a car, then right after I got a new car with my father's help, my mom proceeded to have her first accident in over twenty years and total her car, leaving me to handle ALL OF THE BILLS for the past three months with only light assistance from my father. The light has only just now shown itself at the end of the tunnel, as I had to take my car into the shop a month and a half ago to get some repairs done, and I once again have my own car to drive, meaning she can now get a job and start paying her part of the bills again. On top of that, I only have a couple more doctor appointments before I can put this whole sordid mess behind me, and finally return to a relatively normal life.

NEXT STEPS

Now we come to what's next for me as a writer. I have a whole bunch of different things I want to do, but I'm taking things one step at a time.

First off, I am officially back, and am going to be slowly working on writing more stories, now that my motivation and imagination for the pen and paper are coming back to me. HOWEVER, I won't actually post any chapters for a good while, possibly as long as the rest of the year, since I'm no longer going to be doing 'upload as I write' like I have the past eight years. I've already had to rewrite one story and discard several others that had the potential to be something better because of this way of writing with all the other things I've had to deal with in that time, from middle and high school in my earlier days, through college and now my job and life's usual difficulties.

Since I've discarded the seat-of-your-pants writing style I'm probably known for, there's only really one logical way to go now: pre-planning stories in advance, which is exactly what I'm doing. I just bought a lifetime setup for the popular writing tool Plottr, and since familiarizing myself with the layout and the many features it provides, I'm now using it to plan out my first new story in years. I'm not going to spoil what exactly it is going to be about, but I will tell you it's going to be a rather ambitious crossover that I think has the potential to become my most popular story if done right, which is why I'm taking the time to plan out exactly what I want to do with the characters, plotlines, and other elements of the respective universes in the story.

MY STORIES

What exactly does this mean for my other stories? I'll go through each one-by-one, with an explanation of why I'm doing what I'm doing with each as a brief afterword.

The Trials of Destiny: This story is now ON INDEFINITE HIATUS. Going back through my stories the past couple days since committing myself to this new path has... to be short, left a bad taste in my mouth, and this story is a big part of the reason why. I can see what the me of the past wanted to do with this story, and it makes me want to strangle him with how much he tried to throw at himself. Bit of a lesson to all you aspiring writers out there: if you want to plan out a SERIES, plan out each individual story FIRST before trying to tackle such a large project, otherwise you'll end up like me - burned out and with no drive to write that story anymore. I think it can still be a good standalone story, but I'm dropping the whole series idea I had going for it to keep it more intimate. I have yet to decide if I want to continue working on it in the future, which is why it's on hiatus and not outright cancelled. However, I can confirm that should I return to work on the story, it will receive a SECOND FULL REDRAFT, pre-planning included (aside from the first chapter, I think that's some of my best tragedy writing I've ever done).

The Legend of the White Fang: This story is now CANCELLED, and I will remove it from my FanFiction.Net archive on New Years' Eve. There are still some people who might like what I was doing with the story, such as how I gave Toothless a bit more backstory, but White Fang was part of the crash I suffered in terms of motivation because of the pressure I'd put on myself. This was a story that was meant to begin tying other stories into Destiny in preparation for a big Dragon Ball-style finale story, but seeing as how that plan is now scrapped, this story is no longer something I want to recognize, since it's pretty much +backstory HTTYD but with Blu and Jewel added, which isn't really much of a change. Again, this is no longer recognized as one of my stories, and I will remove it from my FanFiction.Net archive on New Years' Eve, December 31st 2022.

The Power of Us: This story is ON TEMPORARY HIATUS. While I will be focusing on my new crossover story, I still genuinely want to write this story, but the same hangup I mentioned before remains: I wish to work with a co-author so that I may help bring out the full potential of the groundwork I've laid down. More details on what I want to do with this story specifically are on my FanFiction profile page, which you can find linked at the top of this blog post.

The True Homefront: This story remains complete, but will need some final tweaks. Because Destiny is not going to be part of an interconnected series anymore, and subsequently removes the need for White Fang to exist, I will be doing a re-edit of the final two chapters of Homefront to make it a self-contained story, and removing any mention of outside factors aside Shisui leaving for Japan, which was something that was going to lead into its own story, but won't really be necessary to change since it's vague enough that it can be left open-ended.

AFTERWORD

I thank all of you who've come back, or whose who are just seeing me on this site for the first time, to take the time out to read this update. I'm not going to make any promises since I've already shot myself in the foot enough times here already by doing that, but I will be doing my best to bring you guys new and fresh stories to enjoy in your downtime! In the meantime, have a nice rest of your day, and happy reading!

-MajinSM

-- WRITTEN 10 JULY 2022 --