Inspired by the concept of an Erdos number, I tried tracking various authors' electreXcessive numbers. electreXcessive himself gets a 0, all nineteen writers he's collaborated on a story with get a 1, all writers they've collaborated on a story with get a 2, and so on. I thought it would be a fun little game, and I figured I'd run out of

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The short version: Chitin is going to take a while to be the best it can be, but I'll do my best to at least keep it from sucking.

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Before I say anything else, I want to make absolutely certain this comes across: none of this is anyone's fault but mine. I'm not blaming anyone, and I'm thankful for all the critique I received. I promise not to turn into one of those authors who throws a hissy fit when criticized, and whenever there's a flaw in my stories, I encourage you all to point it out and help me improve.

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If you just care about Chitin, it's slightly delayed while Razalon is at Bronycon. Feel free to ignore the rest of this.

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First, because the passage with Fluttershy and the mirror clearly wasn't working, I've made some small revisions that I think should help explain what's happening. (I'm a little wary of showing my hand so early, but it's already shown to anyone who looked at what groups this story's in and noted the odd one out.)

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I used to feel locked in when I posted part of a story before the whole thing was ready. I kept thinking of new ideas that, in order to work, would require me to go back and change things I'd already posted. Because of this, I got into a habit of keeping it all locked away, endlessly rewriting and rewriting until the whole thing was finished and perfect. If this took a long time, I reassured myself that since I hadn't posted it, at least no one would be waiting for it.

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A friend of mine was recently sporked and bombarded with comments insulting both him and his story. All things considered, he's taking it reasonably well, but I haven't taken it well at all. The sporkers brought up so many things I should have noticed, or things I noticed but didn't push hard enough on. The story could have been so much better, and so much rewriting could have been avoided! I keep questioning my judgment, and it's making it very hard for me to write anything--every time I put

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I'm having a much harder time writing the CMCs than the Mane Six in Chitin, and I think I've figured out why. I'm not just relying on how the Mane Six are written in canon, I'm combining various fanonical interpretations of them, applying different ideas on how they would act in abnormal situations. The CMCs . . . well, not a lot of fic does much to establish that the CMCs aren't just different heads of the same hydra. (The only fic I can think of offhand that really goes into the

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I'll just post the email here. SPOILERS for How Equestria Was Made:

Feo Takahari:

Thank you for submitting "How Equestria Was Made" to Equestria Daily. I found a lot to like here, but I have a couple of questions I want to pose. I'll ask you please to think about these questions, see if they're anything you want to address with a little rewriting, then resubmit the story as "back from Mars" through the regular story submission process.

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My short story "In the Cosmic Waiting Room" made it into the spec-fic anthology Mnemosyne. (Well, "science fiction, fantasy, and horror," because that mouthful is more dignified than just calling it spec-fic.) I can't really promote spending $3 on it just for my story--but I can promote spending $3 on it for some others.

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