Ask an Author: Hoofing It.

(Image: two My Little Ponies painted by Amy Mebberson.)

Welcome to our $3 reward level, where people ask me questions, mostly about the business, craft, and process of writing, and I answer them as best I can.  Reasons this is a good idea:

* I am an internationally published author
* I release an average of four books a year
* I have won multiple major awards
* I actually make my living doing this

Reasons this is a terrible idea:

* Have you met me
* Like, ever
* I should not give advice to anyone

Now it's time to ask me literally anything, and watch as I flail around in an attempt to provide a coherent answer.  Please feel free to discuss in the comments, and to submit new questions either here or by emailing me through my website contact form.  As a reminder, this reward tier only works if we have questions: please, please feel free to share yours.  If you want to ask anonymously, just send your question in via my website, and say that you'd like me to leave your name off when I answer.  If you do not ask me to redact your name, it will be included, if only because it's fun to see your name in print sometimes.

This month's question comes from a patron whose name has been tragically consumed by my notes file, who asks: "I have a question for the queue.  Talk about your My Little Pony collection.  I know it was large in your youth and went away and it being recollected. Are you recreating the original collection?  Extending it?  Do you have favorite subsets?  Do you have a list somewhere that people could check if they spot some in a resale shop to see if there is one that you're looking for?"

So this may seem like it's not directly related to the art, business, and process of writing.  But no!  No, it is very much related to all those things!  Because while a lot of things can be credited for inspiring my love of writing, it was My Little Pony that originally inspired my love of long-form storytelling and overly complicated plots.  Without My Little Pony, a whole lot of things would not exist.  Possibly including me!  I had a very rough childhood, and at times, finding reasons to survive was as straightforward as "I have a birthday in two months, and there will be new Ponies."

So let's talk about my My Little Pony collection.  It is, almost entirely, generation one, the chunky-bodied Ponies that came out in the 1980s; I have some members of other generations, but G1 will forever have my heart.

My Little Pony launched in 1982.  My first Ponies were a gift from my grandmother--she bought me Cotton Candy and Minty.  I would go on to acquire the rest of the original six, and then more and more, until I had a plastic horse army of my own.  We were incredibly poor when I was a child, and Ponies were cheap, durable, and difficult to sell.  This mattered, because there were many untrustworthy adults through my home, and I was often sharing space with my two much-younger sisters, who would abuse my possessions (unintentionally at first, and then with more and more intent, since I didn't like them and they were being told that I had to like them, which made them resent me and break my stuff).  Since my Ponies could survive grabby hands and couldn't be pawned, they got to stay.

I was in a situation where giving me money wasn't the answer--give me money and it would be taken away.  Giving me Ponies, however, meant something brought me joy, and I needed joy.

When I was fifteen, my mother kicked me out.  This sounds colder than it was: she had been forced to move outside my school district, and if she took me with her, I would be pulled out of my college-escalator school and put into the first Bay Area school with metal detectors.  I was a weird, fat, sensitive, loud, queer kid who still played with plastic horses.  I would not have survived the transition.  So she booted me to find my own way, and I wound up living with a series of friends.  I had with me one suitcase of clothes, one blanket, two stuffies, my Magic cards, and a box of books.  Everything else was put into storage, including my Ponies.

When I was seventeen, my mother lost that storage unit for non-payment, and my entire original My Little Pony collection.  (This would have been 1995, in Pleasant Hill, California.  I periodically put out a plea for anyone who might have purchased that collection to get in touch and get it back to me.  I will give them money.  I just want my Ponies back.)

Coincidentally, this was also the year eBay was launched.

As soon as I had money--so around five years later--I began buying My Little Ponies off the internet.  Initially, I was focused on re-creating my original collection, which is how I learned that some of my Ponies had been quite rare and were thus Quite Expensive.  Now, this was Quite Expensive in 2000 money, when I had a minimum wage job and Ponies were easier to come by; those same Ponies are often Quite Expensive in today money, when I make slightly more but Ponies have become much rarer.  So I couldn't afford all my original Ponies, and I began buying Ponies I'd never been able to have before.  Bit by bit, I restored my herd.

Which has led to today's situation: I have considerably more Ponies now than I did as a kid, including Ponies from other countries, Ponies released after I hit high school and pursued them with less single-minded devotion, and custom Ponies.  I have playsets I had never thought I'd even get to touch.  And while there are Ponies I can say for sure I didn't have as a kid, I can't tell you for sure which ones I did have.  My herd has grown beyond that, and memory is fickle.

But while I had Ponies and a childhood, they played out the biggest, most elaborate games.  They had kingdoms and wars and betrayals and alliances, and many of those stories, refined and aged up, are reflected in my October Daye series.  I learned to keep eighty threads in my head at once from playing Ponies.  It was important.  It was essential.  It made me who I am today.

I do have a list, but it's constantly in process, being refined and updated, and I generally give it out only when asked specifically.  If you need to see it, hit me up!

And now, some silly bits:

Favorite subsets: The Summerwing and Windy Wing Ponies are among my favorites.  The Flutter Ponies are among my least favorites.  The Sea Ponies are favorites, the Baby Sea Ponies are least favorites.  And so the wheel turns.

Favorite childhood Pony: This is a tie between Seashell and Little Flitter.

Favorite non-canon Pony: My custom Mari Llwyd Pony.

Pony I have the most variations of: Posey, who I have in multiple "real" (made by Hasbro, sold under the My Little Pony name) versions, and several customs, including a gorgeous flocked sitting-pose Posey.

Favorite pose: The sitting Earth Pony.  Least favorite pose is the rearing pose.  They're too unstable.

Most precious Pony: Rapunzel.  I wept when I first brought her home.

Rarest non-custom Pony: South American Seashell.

Weirdest casual flex: I have an almost complete set of deflocked So-Soft Ponies.

I love my Ponies so much.  I think it's important to have something in your life that isn't monetized, isn't optimized, but just brings you job.

So that's that.  Like all of us, I'm stressed and sad and cabin fever-y from COVID, but please, please, ask me questions for February!  I don't want to have to start taking questions from Elsie, it would not end well!  Remember that I'll take questions about anything, and that if it can be answered with "yes" or "no," it's not a great question for this format; also if it's something I can't flog for paragraphs, like "how often do you brush your cats."  If you're tired of this reward and want to suggest a replacement, drop those here too.

Meanwhile, if you want your question to be kept for future use, emailing is better than commenting, if only so I've got a long term copy in my inbox.  But I do see all the questions, and try to remember to copy and keep the really interesting ones.

As a final note, please do not submit questions through Patreon.  Either leave them here to hopefully be answered for this reward level, or email me.  Thank you.