This was an idea which came up in chat and as such, I decided to more or less get it out of the way. If it's worthwhile, then it at least proves I can operate somewhat in my current state, and I can try to do more later.
However, as mentioned in my self-assigned guidelines, I have a personal word count minimum for collecting pledges and this? Ain't it. If anyone feels it's worth a Ko-Fi tip, that...
2019-02-25 00:38:53 +0000 UTC
View Post
And there's that stray random artwork again.
(It almost makes me want to commission something. To wish I could commission anything.)
Two new chapters up, totaling out to just under 8500 words. I basically had to strangle the hours free from the clock, but I got enough of them to come loose. (This wasn't all in one day, though: the first 25% was done a while ago, and I was lucky enough to have minimal interruptions today.) If nothing else, it ...
2019-02-17 01:10:58 +0000 UTC
View Post
This 6100-word piece currently holds a unique distinction within my catalog: it's the only story to be entirely composed on a tablet.
I was sitting in the hospital.
Waiting for my mother to be discharged.
(Urinary tract infection. I don't blog about everything. It becomes overwhelming pretty quickly.)
For eight hours.
So I found a table in the cafeteria next to an outlet -- a very cold table -- and tried to work with the ta...
2019-02-01 00:49:57 +0000 UTC
View Post
There were some consequences to the conclusion of Triptych, and one of them was aimed directly at me. I'd finally shipped two ponies, and the upvotes on certain comments seemed to insist that the early part of that relationship not take place within the white space.
(Which, in a way, was actually reassuring. I spent a lot of time and verbiage trying to set up the idea that those two could work together at all, so having readers actually wanti...
2019-01-30 03:49:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
It's probably not a coincidence that the story wound up partially being about horrible things happening because you cared enough about maintaining your own sanity to risk leaving the house. *sigh* Well, at least this may mean I might be figuring out how to channel some of this...
Just under 6500 words on this one, and it's the concept I couldn't find the strength to work on at the end of last month: the idea that with just about every infant pony going through th...
2019-01-28 03:27:08 +0000 UTC
View Post
The current pre-post Patreon prompt text in this composition window is "What are you thinking about?" Well, this month, I've been thinking about doctors. It feels like all I've done this month is run back and forth to doctors, visit hospitals, visit people at hospitals, and try to work with the needs (and expenses) of medical care. It may feel that way because it has a fair relationship with the truth. And today, I got to wrestle with somebody else's ...
2019-01-25 03:49:13 +0000 UTC
View Post
This morning, at roughly eight a.m, I had an idea for a lightheated comedy. Something holiday-themed, if a little belated for the holiday in question. A touch of silliness as the year began to close out. Because it's been a dark month, I already did one dark story and... I thought it was just time to have some fun.
At approximately ten a.m, I got a call from the physical rehabilitation center. It informed me that my mother had twice attempted to get o...
2018-12-31 04:43:22 +0000 UTC
View Post
I took a mini-poll some months back, asking which series character people would most want to see serving on a pony jury. And the winner? Based on number of responses and upvotes to comments, there's an argument for -- Chryssie.
This marks only the second time I've written her, and the first was my initial chapter for the bed anthology. (So technically, ...
2018-12-30 03:43:07 +0000 UTC
View Post
I did threaten that the next CDA story would feature Joanna...
The CDA pieces tend to earn their Dark tag, and I consider this one to have met the minimum shadow requirement with room to spare. And posting about 9400 words which, in their way, have a little to do with religion -- with the story effectively going up on Christmas... well, the CDA pieces also tend to get their downvotes. I'm not expecting this story to be any different.
(Honestly, I'm hopin...
2018-12-25 05:03:45 +0000 UTC
View Post
Five and a half years.
Fifty-six chapters.
513,000 words.
Lotsa downvotes (with more to come).
I just changed the tag to green.
Tonight, I rest a little, and cry just a bit more than that.
Thank you for coming along
Give me a day or two. And then we can talk about where we might go next.
2018-12-01 04:22:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
Just short of 14k, which is why this post won't be a long one. There isn't much left in me which is capable of posting, and you don't want to know how many typos I had to fix in order to make this post coherent. For now, there's only three things to say.
This chapter title was always waiting for this moment.
There is one chapter to go.
And for those wondering about that title... we have the theme, don't we? So what would come at the very end?
2018-11-29 02:53:47 +0000 UTC
View Post
Well, it almost had to be a shorter chapter this time: just about 6k. But even so, for me, it was more emotionally exhausting to write than the prior one. And I have to wonder how the people who've only read Triptych will react here. There are two other stories which have a direct bearing on the events of this chapter (Blessing and 2018-11-26 01:58:47 +0000 UTC
View Post
I got lucky. The holiday saw enough invitations issued to give me the peace and quiet I needed, and so writing occurred. (By comparison, tomorrow morning is skipping sales to take care of a bloodwork test.) The result is the latest chapter: 12k of We're Not Quite At The End Yet. Because there are still things to resolve, and this should tie up a few of them -- but not all.
I can say this with some safety now: I think there's three chapters to...
2018-11-23 04:11:40 +0000 UTC
View Post
This is one of those cases where the story's tone completely shifted between initial idea and composition. When I first had the concept, it was just going to be Luna stumbling through a day of trying to get to the sweets before the place she was targeting went out of business forever. But then I decided that a 'Luna among the populace' story was a little too close to Jury Dut...
2018-10-31 00:58:19 +0000 UTC
View Post
After the last two chapters on Triptych, I had to try for something lighter -- and the concept of 'Luna goes out for chocolate' has quietly transmuted into more of a micro-drama. (Overnight, while I wasn't looking.) That one will likely appear soon -- but before that can happen, it was time for something silly. And thus a 6k word count about a variation on attending your own funeral while alive -- and rapidly finding yourself wishing for death. N...
2018-10-29 01:22:24 +0000 UTC
View Post
It's one of the chapters I was most afraid to write.
(Then again, from this point forward, they all hold that status.)
It is probably going to set off a minor flurry of up to three edits on the WMG and Recap pages.
(No Ibid.)
Stick the landing, or no one will remember anything else about the flight...
The next thing to go up may be a one-shot about Luna really wanting some chocolate.
I'm mentioning this because if I...
2018-10-27 02:56:25 +0000 UTC
View Post
Back on the horse -- so to speak, and at least for a little while. I managed one more-or-less clear day, and probably pushed too far in using it. The post-Monster coughing has already begun, and all I did there was sip. For this level of feeling lousy, I should have at least finished the can...
But the chapter is up. (The multiple Comments notifying me of my errors will probably need another hour.) And it's a long one: just over 14k on the word coun...
2018-10-22 06:29:49 +0000 UTC
View Post
...I have no idea how that art appeared above. I think something in the site's code just grabbed the nearest picture from the Similar Stories sidebar...
At any rate: after what's felt like some semi-deep drama in the other August postings, I wanted to close out the month with something lighter. So here we have 5800 words of mostly being silly for the sake of silliness, because we've been diving into the shadows for most of summer and at some point, even Luna will want to come...
2018-08-31 21:47:30 +0000 UTC
View Post
9400 words on this one, and --
-- I'm not sure just what this exhaustion is.
Part of it is physical: writing can be a draining act. I've been going for hours. But a good deal is emotional. This chapter contains one of the scenes which, on a very real level, I've been afraid to confront. Something where I got one shot at doing the images in my head some level of justice. It could have potentially frozen me for a while -- but I pushed, and so it's up.
2018-08-30 02:25:33 +0000 UTC
View Post
Very tired (and will almost inevitably have some degree of insomnia after writing). Keeping this short.
That last line?
I have been saving it for years.
I'm not sure how to measure any degree of success. Maybe by facehoofs. Or groans. Or the number of people openly wishing for my death.
7200 words on this chapter. And now I fail to sleep.
2018-08-28 02:01:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
In some ways, this is a chapter which people have been waiting for. The Continuum has a few resident Hate Sinks, and one of them has remained offscreen. She's only been mentioned a few times -- and those mentions were enough to make some people loathe her. Doing so sight unseen.
And now that's over. Because as of this chapter, you can loathe her directly to her virtual presence in your mind's eye.
Introducing Sweetbark.
Just about 7500 words on this...
2018-08-24 00:32:30 +0000 UTC
View Post
It's been one of those months. I've been dealing with Other People's Stress, which has inevitably turned into My Stress, and nothing knocks me out of the writing space like stress. It's taken this long just to get some keyboard time without interruption. And when I finally did get to try and write something?
This.
This is not a happy chapter. This story, as much as any other, is a roller coaster. We had some cringe laughs in the last section. No...
2018-08-21 03:15:35 +0000 UTC
View Post
I've been told that due to Patreon having apparently changed their billing address, some credit/debit card issuers are auto-declining pledge charges. (This is reportedly affecting multiple creators.)
Sure, leaking our personal data all over the Internet is just a sales tactic, but if someone's moved two blocks down the street, it must be fraud...
2018-08-02 20:07:17 +0000 UTC
View Post
First (because this has to go first), there will be more sponsored blogs posted in August. I know my luck well enough to have said the session would only begin in July this time, and it'll continue until everyone is taken care of. I'm not going to neglect the perk. And this time, someone actually asked for a trope to be posted: that'll get done as well.
As for the month-closing story update post? Well, I did promise that we'd get Fluttershy's fir...
2018-08-01 01:55:10 +0000 UTC
View Post
I'm still going to try and post a second chapter on Anchor Foal tomorrow to close the month -- but I haven't done a no-pledge-charge short in a while, nor has there been an all-dialogue story for some time. So here we have just over 1300 words of 'I felt like it' silliness. Because why not?
...well, other than 'here come six hundred downvotes!' why not.
It's a silly idea which arose in chat, and what's hopefully an equally silly execution. Enjoy.
...
2018-07-31 01:32:42 +0000 UTC
View Post
Okay, so the order got switched: fresh story now (and two sponsored blog posts later today), the next Anchor Foal chapter to finish the month.
...why is there cover art from Paper Promises at the top of my preview screen?
*sigh*
It may not matter. Or if it does, I'm too tired to figure out why. 9k word count on the ongoing Barnyard Bargain sub-saga, this time mostly not featuring Mr. Rich. Because somepony had to do s...
2018-07-29 05:18:02 +0000 UTC
View Post
There really should be a longer post for this story. I could talk about how it's one of the oldest concepts to eventually reach monitor print. How a number of people wanted to see it for the centennial posting. How it went in some unexpected places (see the Scootaloo scenes) over the course of its 13k. I could talk about any number of things, and most of them are getting washed out by 'I just wrote for how many hours?'
So it's up. Recover tomorrow, ...
2018-07-25 01:09:55 +0000 UTC
View Post
This may wind up having a dual update this month, as the natural conclusion for the chapter was a bit of a cliffhanger. (If so, it'll come after Mah-Teor is launched, directly into the soil of the Acres.) But for now, after 6700 words and a full can of Monster -- I'm still at the point where I have to keep fixing mistakes in a Patreon post. That means letting the natural break point/cliffhanger be the equally natural end for this section, and stop. &nb...
2018-07-21 02:46:52 +0000 UTC
View Post
A bit over 6700 words on this one, and... it was a hard section to write. This is another one of those things which I know some people have been waiting for, and that meant feeling extra pressure to make sure it came out right. But the words are on the page now (well, the screen -- no physical copies, y'know), and I'm not going to take them back. They stand as-is -- or in the as-is which will exist after sixteen people locate my typos -- and we move on from there...
2018-07-19 02:24:03 +0000 UTC
View Post
I wanted to do something a little lighter in tone to close out the month. As it turned out, I had enough strength to both come up with an idea and write it out. (This time, the second part was the harder one. It was a long week.) It's an Everyone-rated Twilight & Spike story, and it came in at a bit over 7k on the word count.
It also lets me rest for a little while, because there is a heat wave sweeping the country and when the heat index is set to b...
2018-07-01 02:05:11 +0000 UTC
View Post
