Chapter 9 is in the works.

ATM, it's sitting at a fairly paltry 3K+ words. I'm aiming for about 10K or so here. I also want it out pretty soon. Getting back into writing long form chapters is difficult after doing months of short prompts. I was hoping that if I could pump out 500 or so words at a time, it would come together quickly. That's not really happened sadly.

One issue, I think, with this chapter is that it's an info dump.
1) Delusion has to show his real skill set realistically and inform the reader about his former place in the supernatural foodchain.

2) Fancy Pants and Fleur have to reveal the next stage of their plan and give out info about the organization they represent. The organization itself isn't important beyond providing a framework for their reasoning and their paranoia. Fancy has a lot to drop about his own research and theories - some of which are wrong - and has to determine if he'll need to get rid of Fleur permanently.

3) Twilight is going to be learning a lot of Luna's earliest memories and start putting two and two together. And they'll have to talk about that whole "erotic dreams about Luna" thing.

Sorry if this seems rambling. I didn't really plan making a big post about this. I'm just feeling frustrated about working on PD again after so long that I'm struggling to find that pacing and tone again. I've become a better writer since the last chapter. I just don't want that drive for consistency in pacing and tone to hold me back.

God, I need more coke and jack.

I will add on another 1K words tonight before bed so help me.

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Good luck, soldier. I shall be awaiting the next chapter.

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I did not reach the 1K words added last night.

I typed...14 words.

Good lord this is driving me nutz

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*hugs*

So the problem you're having is that you're just not motivated? Or you're so detached from the story that you're having trouble putting it down?

Talk to me bruh.

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It's the same problem I've always had: Getting started.

Even though I know it I just start typing it will come out. I sit here and stare at the gdoc for hours and nothing happens. It's not like I don't know what to write. Everything has been outlined... it just...uuhhggg

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So there's nothing I can do to help?

Come one dood do it for me

do it for the pears

Ok, let me get my eggnog and whiskey and I'll try and get started.

And no offense, but #5:

I think I'll use this thread as my daily reminder. Report progress and problems as I come across them.

I managed to get the word count over 3500. So, thats progress, I suppose.

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I actually had a really good idea earlier today at work. Smartly, I wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it.

It should really set the mood and pace of the start of the chapter. Gonna get started typing shortly. I still have a few chores to handle.

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Awesome dude!

Two days and nothing done but a single prompt.

In some ways the holiday season sucks trying to focus and be creative.

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Alright, cracked 4K words. Things are starting to loosen up now.

The first section is done. Delusions has said his piece and shown his abilities as far as I want to reveal. Now for the next bit: Fancy Pants and Fleur trying to harness chaos powers.

Working on chapter 9 again. Rewrote a huge section in the beginning with Fleur and Fancypants. Originally it was from Fleur's perspective, but I think it feels more powerful and lets me take the narrative in different directions by switching it to Fancypants' POV. Now that that section is rewritten, I can forge into new territory with the duo.

Gonna try to get to ~5k words tonight. I'll be ok if I hit 4500, but I'd rather 5k.

Also working on coloring a naked human Pinkie Pie I doodled at work.

>4500 get

Ok, finished the first section with Fancypants and Fleur.

Chapter 9 is sitting at approx 5K words at the moment and I'm about to attack the meat and potatoes of the whole thing. Luna and Twilight making their way through dreamland to save the princess.

This should be trippy.

>5500 words get

This thread serves as a reminder of just how slow and slackoff I am. I has been over 2 weeks since I got back on writing this damn chapter.

That's unacceptable. And yet...I can't seem to change that. It's not writer's block(at least not as I think about it), it's not a lack of time or creativity. I'm just being lazy. It's already written, in my head so it seems like needless busy work to type it out again.

I also keep getting hung up in odd areas, like describing spells and stuff.
Fuck it though...I'm going to keep pushing. I have built this up too much to let myself and all the great people that have favorited PD to stop now.

Pony Dreams Stats as of March 1st, 2014:

Word Count: 39,511 over 8 chapters.

Views: 5,472 unique views to a single chapter. 28,129 total views across all chapters.

Thumbs: 387 up to 10 down.

Faves: 606<-these are the people that I refuse to let down.

>mfw 6000 words get

Gonna take a lil' break to color a Pinkie Pie pic I've been working on.

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I've read ~300 Twilestia and TwiLuna fics, and I had trouble keeping them straight. Once you've read the 50th "Luna is depressed, Celestia summons Twilight to cheer her up, they bond, it's love" story, they all run together. I started writing little synopses for myself with notes on last updated date, which one confessed, particularly good scenes or plot moments, etc.

My summary of status on Pony Dreams: "Incomplete / likely abandoned." *

SWEET LEAPING HALLELUJAHS, I can finally drop that "likely abandoned" tag! It's a good day.

* No, it wasn't just you. Anything 6+ months since the last update gets that tag. Some of the fandom's best stories are trapped there. The worst is having to note, "Incomplete / likely abandoned / author left site and fandom."

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The worst is having to note, "Incomplete / likely abandoned / author left site and fandom."

Ain't that the truth.

PD isn't dead. It's just fucking hard to write at times. And this is one of those times.

EDIT: finished up Pinkie pic; posted it to appropriate sites; going back to writing.

That awkward moment when you might have to re-write an entire scene because you start to feel bad about making Octavia out to be an attempted rapist.

Yep, re-writing the whole scene. Octavia will not be in Pony Dreams, unless I can think of a good excuse later. I talked it over with Bubble Boom and we're both far more comfortable without the creepy scene and figured out a good way to lampshade the whole thing.

I have Jury Duty tomorrow and will likely have little time to work on it, but I will be back on the grindstone soon. There is a lot of chapter left to go even at 6k words. This one will hit or exceed 10k by the time it's ready.

This post has nothing to do with ponies. Rather, it has to do with a few things that have been keeping me away from them as of late. I've mentioned before that I've been dealing with IRL crap a lot recently. It has been weighing me down and keeping me away from most of my free time pursuits as well as killing my good/creative mood.

Namely I'm having some issues with selling my family home and dealing with a very busy time at work. Times will ease up, eventually. But it's been rough.

What I'm saying as if anyone actually reads thisis, thank you for putting up with me.

Minor update. I just installed Dragon, Naturally Speaking 12 last night.

Tonight I'll set up my profile and start tweaking it. Hopefully I will be using it to just talk Pony Dreams into existence.

>6500+ get

Ok, time to do some editing. Dragon works really well, but it still needs a lot of tweaking.

>7000+ words get!

Ok, more editing and refining.

I have decided, after much hemming and hawing, that I will not be splitting Chapter 9 into two. It feels incomplete because the first half of it is the set up and I don't want to leave everyone hanging.

Too many cliffhangers=bad writing.

Also I need to write a primer for the Story So Far...