First off, Away had a really lovely review from The Red Parade over at My Little Reviews & Feedback!

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For some reason, on August 23 and again on September 10, someone went through my entire story collection and hit downvote on (almost) everything without reading the stories.

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So! I'm still here, and reporting on a week of Things Happening! Oh, yeah, apparently there was some news in America, or something, but... this is about Fimfiction and me.

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It's been a while, but - while I'm not likely to write anything new, sorry! - I'm at a place now where I feel comfortable logging back in and reading (and sometimes commenting!) again. I know this didn't really merit an announcement, but I've seen a few DMs and comments since the last time I was here, and I just wanted to reassure people that if you want to message me or leave comments, they will be read, and not just disappear into the void!

So, in my head are the voices - more in speech pattern and phrasing than in pitch and tone - of everyone I think about. When I'm working on a story and I've got a good idea of the character's voices I'm more or less transcribing what's going on in my head rather than thinking up stories and crafting them.

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I have insomnia.

It's something I've dealt with for over thirty years, so it's not a big surprise when I have a sleepless night.

When I was a kid I would use those wakeful times to take everything in my room and clean it all up and put it all away properly. I was pretty lazy about keeping my room clean, so it was a good way to kill time. It happened about once a month.

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Okay, so today is the day for retagging stories. We've got a bunch of new tags to play with:

• 2nd Person
• Drama
• Equestria Girls
• Horror
• Mystery
• Sci-Fi
• Thriller

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(And while I'm at it, a small progress report.)

Other than "not fast enough," I don't really know.

Trying to measure writing speed is like trying to measure a cat: you've got a vague idea, but it won't stay still enough for a proper measurement.

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So, I just wrapped up a conflict that has been affecting the story since chapter five.

173w, 6d ago

Yeah... it's been a while.

I should probably slap a spoilers tag on the rest of the blog. So...

Warning, the following will be spoilers on everything relating to Green from chapters 5 through the current chapter.

Still with me? Okay.

So, Twilestia and Twinkie.

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These last few weeks have been overwhelming, and not just from the busyness of the new house. In trying to make something of “a nu start” here, I've been diving head-on into some old anxieties, which is never entirely smooth.

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So, in light of my new 100-follower status, I've redesigned my userpage to highlight both my most successful stories, and also some of the less successful pieces which I remain especially proud of. At the moment, I've only written 14 stories in just over a year, and that's including the somewhat dashed-off clop trilogy that got me my start and gave me this millstone of a username, so the distinction is kind of academic, but I'm hoping to just keep on writing new stuff.

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I think my writing has reached an impasse. I am having difficulty with several aspects of the writing process. Planning is easy enough, I can write an entire outline in my head in seconds. Characters? I can create a dozen, and name all of the attributes, in the amount of time it would take me to write and complete this blog post. Worlds? I can envision a million of them.

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I won't make this long, but I was just thinking about the last episodes, and how I feel about the show itself. Firstly, I know people are going to disagree, but I liked how things were wrapped up. Did they do everything I wanted? Not hardly, but they did actually conclude things. Ever since I saw the abrupt ending of Hogan's Heroes as a child, I have never tolerated a show just stopping. Granted, in the case of Hogan's Heroes, the network axed them and a bunch of great programs at the time

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Secret Moon's Self-Isolation Contest 2020
*WINNER*

TAway

• MLP: FiM
• Dark
• Slice of Life

A unicorn with an unwanted special magical talent isolates herself on a remote hillside, away from other ponies, for their sake and hers.

• Death
• Celestia
• Luna
• OC

The Cloptimist · 8.2k words  ·  110  4 · 1.6k views

Well, I guess now I can officially put "Award-Winning Writer" on my business cards without getting in trouble with the trading standards people.

....Excuse me a moment.

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A few people added some of my older stories to their libraries and reading lists this past week, and I was just sitting here looking at them. If you click through, you can see "Of Clouds" with the most reads and upvotes. People genuinely liked my story (which shocked the heck out of me because it was my very first attempt at fanfiction). As you look at the later sequels, though, you notice the number of views drop, along with the number of likes and comments. I'm not complaining, though, just

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The best way to grow as a writer, I'm told, is to challenge yourself. Deliberately try to do something different. Unfamiliar genres, Oblique Strategies, artificial conditions, whatever.

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