TThe Bonds of Love
MLP: FiM
Romance
Sad
Slice of Life
Heartache is not so easily overcome. Indeed, many can quickly heal and move on. But for many others, healing is a long, arduous journey that never seems to end. Luckily, the path to healing is easiest when those you love stand by your side.
Suicide / Self Harm
Other
Starlight Glimmer
Gallus
Silverstream
Young Six
Summer Script · 309k words · 96 5 · 3.2k views

The Writing of The Bonds of Love Progress Update 8 · 5:39pm Jul 16th, 2022

Hello again, everyone, I’m back once more to provide yet another update concerning my progress on "The Writing of The Bonds of Love."

Unfortunately, this update consists of mostly bad news.

As mentioned in my previous update, I initially intended to finish discussing the last three chapters of T.B.O.L. and then post a final update, confirming both the “Writing of…” was nearing completion and possibly even a release date for it.

This is not that final update.

Long story short: The month of May completely kicked my a** and June followed behind to make darn sure I stayed down.

As for what exactly happened to me during those months…? Well, if I may get personal for a moment: I’ve suffered from anxiety and stress for quite a while now. And around the middle of May, that anxiety worsened drastically.

Everything was relatively normal at first, then suddenly I went entire days feeling like I had a veritable guillotine over my head. Background panic plagued my mind nigh-constantly, even the slightest of issues could send my mind reeling in turmoil for hours after the fact, and I did legitimately break down crying at one point.

So yeah. That sucked.

As for how I am now…? Well, I’m certainly feeling better, at least as of the time I’m writing this. The anxiety is of course still present and significantly worse than what it used to be, but I’m managing as best I can.

However? Needless to say, for nearly that entire two month period, I could barely work up the motivation to write. And that’s where I bring us back to the topic of the “Writing of…”

I do have some good news here, at least! Ch.14(Family, Part One) is discussed and ready to go, sitting at a comfortable 17k+ words, including additional tidbits.

Furthermore, I managed to go through everything I had done before and re-edit it, cleaning it all up and into a properly presentable state. This means that once I finally finish the entire thing, it’ll take less time to upload than I originally expected. And it also means the only thing I truly have left to do is discuss Ch.15(Family, Part Two) and the Epilogue(Love).

I really wanted to finish those chapters too before making another update, but I figured you all had the right to know about what was going on, especially given how long it’s been since the last update.

To reiterate: I am feeling much better now. Hopefully, I won’t jinx myself by saying that, but for now I am leagues better.

Now then, let’s end on a brighter note, shall we? Yep, time for yet another excerpt!

Yada-yada, these will be included in the final “Writing of…” and are subject to change, yada-yada…

And for today’s topic, how about a brief snippet from the recent Ch.14(Family, Part One) discussion:

Now, with the Novo matter discussed, how about we actually talk about some of the recent Gallus-Stream relationship developments. More specifically: Their increased physical intimacy.
I mean, we already see Gallus does indeed now use Silver’s love of his headcrest-combing against her, but it’s so much more than that. Silver nestling into his side, Gallus giving her a kiss(And knowing her well enough to suggest drawing to help her de-stress, d’aww! ), and of course, their make-out sessions.
I know it might have been unnecessary, giving such prominence to their constant kissing and whatnot, even for a Romance story…? But I couldn’t help myself. After all the pain I put them through, I adored letting them simply openly love each other with nothing stopping them or getting in their way, sans a certain Princess of Pouncing. But even more importantly than that, this was a brand new element to their relationship I could write about.
They had never really shied away from being lovey-dovey before—Kissing, holding talons, snuggling, and all that jazz. But they had their first major kiss last chapter which afforded me a chance to cut loose and show even more of the physical side of their relationship. Needless to say, I’m glad for that. It was fun writing those particular scenes, even if I’m not sure I wrote their make-out scenes as powerfully as I could have.
Of course, there’s yet another reason I was glad to show off their newly emphasized physical intimacy, and that was to show the negative consequences of it. Why? Because I couldn't help myself and needed to continue writing some kind of conflict into the story despite being dead-set on not writing any major conflicts between them, aside from Ocean Flow.
This particular subject, however, will be discussed later. For now, I had no intention of doing anything more than showing Gallus and Silver being happy and lovestruck, and telling a fun, much more lighthearted story than what had come prior.