So... there has been a lot of hate brewing up again. More of the same really. I really don't plan to go into it too much, other than to say that it is happening.

And I'll leave it at that.

A lot of bad things have been said about The Chase.

Some of those things are valid, some of them are just people being petty, and other things, well, are easily dismissible.

I started The Chase because I wanted to write a massive sprawling epic that was complicated, tricky, difficult to navigate, and mostly, to teach myself how to write. I had written a few pieces at that point, and was seeing some faults in my work. I needed to manage details better. There were a lot of places where I had thin spots in my story.

So I thought to myself, the best way to learn how to write an epic was to write one. I actually started writing two. The Badly Written Life of Purple Prosey was also started, and it was meant to document the whole life of a pony right up to the grave.

I really didn't know what I was doing at that point... I had ideas, concepts, plans, but I had no idea how much work it was actually going to be. I was kinda stupid looking back on it, I just sort of thought that I'd plow through it somehow, make mistakes, and learn as I go.

There was To Dance in Shadow, but I made so many mistakes writing that. There were a lot goofs. Bad goofs. I didn't know what I was doing.

So I started to write The Chase. i made quite a number of mistakes going in. Looking back, there are a lot of things I would do differently now. The dialogue has some issues for a while in the first part of the story, but it smooths out as I was fumbling around for distinctive speech patterns. The Royal Pony Sisters for example seldom use contractions. But I was still sort of sorting everything out as I went because I was just having fun. Serious fun maybe, fun with a purpose, but fun.

The Badly Written Life of Purple Prosey crashed and burned spectacularly, which was disheartening, but understandable. For a time, I was certain that The Chase was going to suffer a similar fate... but I kept writing. I picked over my work carefully, tried to figure out what was wrong and where, (like Celestia calling Bucky 'Bucky' in the beginning of the story when it really should have been 'Buckminster' to match her sense of formality... that still stands out and bugs me and I am so tempted to go back and do some editing, but I sort of need a roadmap of where I've made mistakes)

At some point, I learned a few things. Writing is hard work. My notes grew and grew. I had to do research. I had to find some means of making some kind of realism. Some attempts were much better than others... others were pretty bad and I backed away from those. I ain't saying what though. Once the story actually took on a life of its own though, past about, oh, 150k words, I tried to fix a lot of what was wrong in the first 100k words and immediately made a lot more mistakes.

Whoops.

Fixing those mistakes caused a lot more mistakes. Whoops.

Fixing those mistakes lead to pacing issues, format, formula, basic chapter construction issues because I knew exactly fuck all about what it was that i was doing.

Whoops.

It was like pulling a thread on a sweater and then making everything unravel.

Looking back on the first 300k words, there were a lot of things I probably could have done a better job with. Scenarios that I could have constructed better. Sequences of events that I wish I had written differently, because frankly, they were bad. There were a few failed attempts at changing my writing style... and when I go back and look at them now, I want to bang my head into my desk. Some of those attempts were cringeworthy.

There was a brief time during the Isles arc that I thought about abandoning the story. Really... I won't say where, but there was a point where my own mistakes became almost insurmountable.

And then I read a blurb about writing from Neil Gaiman.

After that, I kept going. The mistakes still bothered me, the desire to have done things differently, but I decided that the mistakes I'd made would serve me well on my next attempt. But first, I needed to finish this attempt.

After this point, there was more fumbling.

And then, I sort of fell into a groove. Things got easier. Which made things worse.

When things started sailing smoothly and some of the issues sort of ironed themselves out, the previous mistakes, which annoyed me, became almost unbearable. All I could think of was the old chestnut "if only I knew then what I know now." Ugh.

There came some serious stumbling points past this point... I had a good working knowledge of what to do, how to do it, but applying it was tricky, executing it was harder than I thought it was going to be, and the knowledge that I had really screwed up in a few spots was depressing. Disheartening. Plus, the Isles arc was awful to write. I grew to hate it so much.

At some point, after the Isles arc ended, I thought that it would be a good place to stop the story and just make it end. I felt that I had succeeded in a few spots, failed miserably in others, failed spectacularly in just a couple of places, and I really wanted to just make it end. Stop the story and take what I had learned to work on something else.

Leaving so much unresolved felt wrong though.

Now, I was too aware of those moments where I had changed formats in the story, they really caused me to cringe, but I did it again. A few more times actually, as I kept trying to learn the process.

Problem is, I'm still learning.

The story is incredibly flawed. There are some serious mistakes. Some major faults. The only thing I'm really happy about is how I've managed to keep track of the details and play out the various threads... I haven't screwed up on those too badly. I've kept track of the little important bits that connect the story together and I think that is probably my strongest asset in the story.

The Chase started off as terrible fiction done for fun. (And learning) There were a couple of moments where it veered towards average. It has a few spots where it shines brightly, I'll allow myself to say that, but there are a lot of places that I don't like to go back and see spots where I failed. As far as learning experiences go, this has been a doozy. Juggling the complexity has been difficult and I'm still learning. I regularly fumble. The cast has grown almost too large to effectively handle and give everyone an appropriate amount of screen time. (In a manner of speaking) I have grossly miscalculated how many words this was going to end up being... mostly because I had no friggin clue what I was doing when I started. I was Bilbo Baggins leaving the Shire and not knowing the journey I was about to partake in. (And this is far more true than it first appears... there have been trolls in this adventure. Big ones)

There are moments where I almost feel that some of the characters have almost become cardboard cutouts of their former selves. The cast has grown ungainly. I am hoping with the current story shift that was planned (and is underway) that the focus goes back tightly upon the family once more, interspersed with bits of story about the school, with background events being background events that are scattered through.

The current zigzag through the entire cast has been exhausting and I'm really glad that part of the story is easing off and the story is transitioning to the next phase.

Again, even recently, there are so many things I wish I had done differently, like Griffonholm and the aftermath. There was so much of that arc that I didn't put to type, and wish I had, but I also feel that as it currently was... I wish it had been shorter. I seesaw back and forth on my feelings about it.

I wish certain things hadn't been handled so clumsily. I wish certain transitions were a little smoother. Others, I wish they were a bit more abrupt.

Mostly, The Chase is something I wish I could write after I had written a few major epics so that it could be told in such a way that it deserves to be. My delivery has been left a little lacking and I wish I had done better. I'm entirely too aware of the mistakes I've made.

This is actually why I've halted some of the work on The Catch. I want it to be a big sprawling epic, and I want to be good. At least as good as I am capable of writing it.

Writing The Chase has affected my other works... Princess Luna's Suicide Solutions... part of the reason for the delay was that I really want it to be a better story, I was busy making my mistakes in The Chase so I could make Princess Luna's Suicide Solutions a better story by extension. At least, that was the plan. I can look back on Princess Luna's Suicide Solutions, see the same kind of mistakes that I've made in The Chase, and I just sort of bang my head against my desk. But I've been fixing the problems in the The Chase, so I sincerely hope that the same issues in Princess Luna's Suicide Solutions will be remedied. I'm scared shitless about writing the next section of that story.

So... in summary:

I've fucked up. In the process of fixing those fuckups, I've fucked up some more, but hey, my fuckups are getting better. (I hope) I'm probably going to fuck up some more in the near future. There is a lot more work to making words appear on the screen than I thought there would be. Thank you for reading my fuckups and thank you for the fact that you keep reading. Hopefully, it means that you also see my progress.

**deep breath**

Now if you will excuse me, I have more fucking up to do for fuck's sake. Fucking aye.

Just keep going. Like I said before, if this is you trying to learn how to write, I'll love to see what you can do when you have your skills well-honed!

I started writing because I just wanted to tell a story with things I felt I never saw elsewhere. Now it's past 160k words and barely started and, headache inducing flaws that run rampant aside, much better than I expected I could do. I've actually found myself improving here and there by seeing how you approach things.

Far as I am concerned, The Chase has been and continues to be the best story on FiMfiction. You have the complexity, intrigue, humor, surprises and depth of a professional. At least in my eyes. And you continue to earn that level of respect.

Here's to writing fuckups and how glaring they are to one's own eyes while they so often remain minor to another's.

Keep up the good work, Kudzu!

i look forward to the new chapters of the chase every morning when i wake up because it's good. i started reading it again to see how much it has changed and saw a marked improvement. so what if you say you keep fucking up, you learn from your fuckups and besides your fuckups make for some good reading

'Twas my pleasure reading your fuckups, may there be many more! And you know, non-fuckups are good too.