This update is actually two chapters. There's about 10,800 words between them, but... I felt like the opening scene required a chapter all to itself. Something where the reader could pause before going on.
And I know I have to explain why I went back to this well for the final posting of December, and the year as a whole. It's because of the following:
I could think of no better way to summarize the crawl across broken glass of 2021 than the way this sectio...
2021-12-31 03:26:36 +0000 UTC
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This chapter: 7k words spent in a clearing.
Next chapter: Tartarus.
...well, the entrance to Tartarus.
The Gate.
The guardian.
And one echo which I've been waiting for a while to write.
Let the torment build...
(No, we are not playing Promethean. There are limits.)
2021-12-29 01:49:23 +0000 UTC
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I'll keep this short. (I have to. I'm utterly exhausted.)
Some of you know that I did go to Trotcon. (And it didn't take out my car. My car is being looked at for a problem which existed before that. ...surprise?) Not everyone may be aware that I stopped in 2021-12-24 23:51:48 +0000 UTC
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So.
Um.
I posted a 7600 word chapter on this particular story for one major reason: it was closer to the forefront of my mind and I needed to get something posted today. Because tomorrow is for scrambling a lot, and... I'm losing the weekend. All of it. Plus Monday is probably for lying in bed and twitching, which I'm going to call 'recovery'.
So.
Um.
Someone took me very seriously yesterday. Then a few more peo...
2021-12-16 23:24:04 +0000 UTC
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So who wants to talk about Trotcon?
I've been darkly joking about it in the Discord server, during those times when we're not all being tortured by advent calendars. It's this coming weekend, and I could go. <...
2021-12-14 23:38:16 +0000 UTC
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I'm sorry.
Consider me to have been trampled by a centaur. Accidentally, of course. Not her fault. Sometimes you just get into a gallop and keep going. I didn't mean to neglect everything else. It's just that... writing Glimmer requires a certain mindset, this has been a hard month in many ways -- the car, the unveiling of the headstone -- and ultimately, I fell into emotional sync with Cerea.
It doesn't mean
2021-11-30 21:46:55 +0000 UTC
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Just under 6000 words. None of them will satisfy what feels like the majority of the readership.
Sometimes I wonder if any other writer on the site is in the position of constantly dreading their own comments section.
*sigh*
"Just you."
I haven't eaten.
I haven't blogged.
I haven't set the record for Shortest Patreon Post.
But I thought about trying...
2021-11-24 01:42:08 +0000 UTC
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I'll keep this short.
The chapter is about 8300 words.
I worked through what should have been my lunch. Again. And dinner. Ibid.
Tomorrow is the unveiling of my mother's headstone.
I have to make a speech. About five minutes.
I was writing for hours and the hardest words come tomorrow.
I need to eat something.
It won't help.
2021-11-21 00:55:27 +0000 UTC
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...I swear I'm going to reach Glimmer...
It's been a very rough month: personal issues, some minor illness (just a cold, but a lingering one), and a lot of time spent trying to get the car repaired, registered, inspected, licensed, and then I had to repair it again. I still have time to reach five posts for November, but... I'm behind. I know it. And in order to reach two postings as a step on the way to give, I went with the story...
2021-11-17 23:01:24 +0000 UTC
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I swear unto Sun and Moon that this wasn't meant to be 12k going in.
This idea originated about a year ago, and potentially could have been folded into the letters written to the Weather Bureau. Because control of atmospherics means that Equestria lacks certain details which we accept as everyday risk. Outdoor events aren't rained out. There's never been a designated kite-flying day without wind, or where the gusts were too high.
I'm pretty sure some of yo...
2021-11-09 00:58:04 +0000 UTC
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When I make three typos while trying to compose the title of a Patreon post, it's a sign that I'm tired.
Please don't ask how many I just made while trying to put that first sentence together.
Also, for a second, 'put' was 'pit'. And then it was 'piut'.
Tomorrow is Halloween. I mention this because it's one day early for the typos to be haunting me.
6400 words on this one, and that's because it was a bad time to go for 15k. I hit a natural chapter bre...
2021-10-31 00:04:00 +0000 UTC
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This one is about the pressure of the cliffhanger, and having to answer it fairly quickly -- which, of course, because we're in That Portion Of The Story, leads directly into another moment of potential suspense. Not as bad as the last, IMO, but -- there's still a question of 'where do we go from here?' Especially since we haven't been in Cerea's POV for a little while, and what she thinks of all this is somewhat important.
Except, of course, to herself. She d...
2021-10-26 23:14:40 +0000 UTC
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I'll keep this relatively short: it took me about 7200 words to finish putting the story on track for what so many people claim they want. Which naturally means this isn't going to happen immediately (or rather, the next chapter has some intermediary ground to cover first) and when it does take place, I can pretty much guarantee that it's not going to go well.
But this is what people seemed to want.
...actually, it's been part of the story's master plan...
2021-10-22 23:35:01 +0000 UTC
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This one got stalled out over and over, because the engine called Real Life kept kicking into gear. As some of you know, I finally got a first-stage decision on the fate of my car: this cost me pretty much all of yesterday, because I had to go manage some of the banking paperwork. This morning was about getting through to two departments of mo...
2021-10-20 01:26:16 +0000 UTC
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Everything which happens in a writer's life is potential story fuel. Everything. No matter how painful it is. The line in the sand is emotional autocannibalism: anything stopping at the border of it presumably just needs the right plot.
So given the death march of hope which was the first half of October, today's story is about offensive words and things being cancelled.
I almost gave it a Comedy tag.
Just under 9500 words of...
2021-10-15 23:49:14 +0000 UTC
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On the one hand, I shouldn't try to write 8900 words when I'm sick.
On the other, I was pretty much out of time for getting better.
(No fever. Sore throat, light intermittent coughing, slightly runny nose. I am not in panic mode yet, and I am still convinced that if I go outside without a mask, I will kill someone.)
Every longform story has at least one chapter or scene which I'm just afraid to write, mostly from fears that I'll screw it up. For DEL...
2021-09-30 00:32:29 +0000 UTC
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I swear it's not meta.
...I swear it's not all that meta...
This was inspired by something which happened on the site yesterday. We had a plagiarist, and they were proud of it. Three stories ripped off across four submissions, because he broke one of them into sections and called it a sequel -- doing so for a story which has 136,000 views.
I didn't typo.
He claimed the author was his friend and had given him permission to post it. Th...
2021-09-25 02:02:27 +0000 UTC
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Just over 8000 words in this chapter for what's turning into Cerea Month, and I feel like the majority of them are nauseating. (Insert your own 'Estee's writing' joke here.) There are some characters whose perspective I don't care to dip into for long.
This is an extended scene which had to be separated from the previous chapter. I had to end on Cerea leaving the party: swinging directly into this without benefit of chapter break might have qualif...
2021-09-13 22:11:00 +0000 UTC
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8100 words bring us to the end of the party. Let's put it that way. The party is over and in many ways, we're about to enter another stage of the story.
(As if it was much of a party before this.)
I can already feel the comments coming on this one. At least a few of them are likely going to center on misery and what's perceived as character torture and demands to know why I keep making this worse. And to that, all I can say is this:
If that's how they...
2021-09-11 00:03:41 +0000 UTC
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Well, this one is going to get a few people angry. Because there are readers who are only around for this story, they haven't encountered certain aspects of the environment before, and here comes a designated factor of the 'verse at supersonic speed.
In that sense, I've seen this explosion before, along with the associated downvotes. Looks like it's time to go through it all again.
Just under 8200 words on this chapter, and it comes with an extra concern. ...
2021-09-08 01:18:54 +0000 UTC
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...okay, so the party's going to be more than one chapter.
I throw myself on the (lack of) mercy of the Natural Chapter Break. We've talked about that before: sometimes you find a point where things have to stop for a moment. Continuing on, in the same chapter, from that last scene... it would have altered the emotional signature of the moment far too much.
So I stopped at just under 5900 words, and I plead for mercy. Also some...
2021-08-30 20:30:31 +0000 UTC
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7100 words brings us to the verge of the party itself, and I had to stop there. It's not just a question of pacing and the natural break: the party has a chance to be a very long chapter (or could wind up as two). Even if it's not that harsh on length, the events which are about to begin will need some space to themselves.
You could argue for a minor tradition in my writing, although it would be based on a pretty small sample size. Parties do not go wel...
2021-08-23 00:26:57 +0000 UTC
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And we're back under way,
With the Anchor Foal rush having crossed the finish line, I can pay attention to our other ongoing races. In this case... well, as y'all saw, we never did get to the Algonquin. Cerea's party is a little more inevitable, and 5400 words brings us that much closer to the gates.
(This is another reason I didn't want to alternate on stories before the wrapup: I had a pair with party events on the perceived schedu...
2021-08-19 00:24:00 +0000 UTC
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The longest chapter. Almost the longest chapter I've ever written. It came in at 16k, and there was a natural break point at the 5000-word mark, but... I'd said just one more. It didn't feel right to change that, let alone collect a pair of pledges. (If you disagree, you know where the Ko-Fi jar is. And I may break it into two chapters when this goes to print.)
(It's probably going to ...
2021-08-11 03:22:50 +0000 UTC
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For the next-to-last time.
9200 words, and now the finish line is truly in sight. The next chapter will be the final one.
It's been a long time.
A long journey.
But we're not quite done yet.
Stick the landing...
2021-08-05 23:51:10 +0000 UTC
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11.3K on the word count to finish the month, and... to just about finish me off. I'm drained. Exhausted. I made sure I ate breakfast this morning, to the point where I went out for that meal. First time in months. I shouldn't have done it: raw expense and time, but... I knew that once I started on the chapter, that was it. No stopping for anything, cooking included.
Because we're in the endgame. Every chapter becomes prog...
2021-07-28 01:15:36 +0000 UTC
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At this point, I'm considering a straight run into August: we stay on this story until it completes. We're not that far off now, and a direct shot at the finish line might be kindest to the readers. So if you're waiting on DELWMG and/or
2021-07-24 21:54:17 +0000 UTC
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10.4k on the word count.
I have been waiting to type six of them for nearly five years.
2021-07-21 22:11:29 +0000 UTC
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So this is officially Fleur's month.
(July is hot. She's pony-hot. Deal with it.)
7700 words on this chapter, and the first person who complains about getting less than last time is begging to be kicked. Chapters end when they end. So do stories, and there are many ways in which this one has entered endgame. I don't feel we're going to wrap it in July, but I can see the finish line from here.
The next update will be on Anchor Foal
2021-07-15 22:41:45 +0000 UTC
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And sometimes it has to be one chapter, regardless of length.
And sometimes that chapter is 14,400 words.
And sometimes there's a pattern, because I did this on Triptych.
Because I'm the only one who can see all of the cards, and there comes the time to put most of them face-up on the table and explain why this is supposed to be a functional grouping.
Because we go all the way down...
2021-07-07 02:12:33 +0000 UTC
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