April - May 2023 Update: On Delays, Screwballs, Contests, Equestrias at War, and (Maybe) Commissions

A bit of a shame to be so delayed... thrice in a row now when it comes to monthly updates. Still, things must be, well, kept up to date.

For writing, after finishing A Playback and ~~~, I've been at work on the Screwball-focused [ALBERTI]. I've also realized my hubris in thinking I can hop onto various writing methods and not have any growing pains whatsoever, because it's taking longer than I'd like to, not to mention that this supposedly short story has already ballooned to over eleven thousand words. It's rather bad form, and I do want to make a story that doesn't hit five digits. Still, at least I'm now in the revision stage, which shouldn't take me more than two weeks before sending it off for pre-reading.

Also, I might be joining this year's Equestria at War Writing Contest, especially with a generous deadline of mid-July to give me time to put its ideation on the backburner while doing a clean sweep on [ALBERTI].

For reading, let's go rapid-fire:

• For new long stuff, I've picked up UnknownError's The Princess and the Kaiser and Mokoma's Equestria At War - In the Shadow of the Sun, both Eqeustria at War fics. I'm also reading Logarithmicon's Under a Synthetic Sky, winner of the second sci-fi contest (though I bookmarked this before the results came out; I got it really because I've seen Logarithmicon around on r/mylittlepony... and to shill a little, I did the cover graphics for his Resolution of a Queen way back when).
• For new short stuff, we've got one from the aforementioned contest: CopperTop's Patch Notes. There's also LockAndKeyHyena's Heat, which was a nice bit of G5 unsettled-ness. Finally, Moonatik's Shifting Sides, set in an AU that I admit I've been following on and off very recently.
• For ongoing things, I can always rely on the steady output of MagicS's Rainbow Dash Around the World. I'm... well, I've lost count of how many chapters I'm in a long time ago.

Last but not least, I'd like to softly announce that the idea of commissions has been churning around in my mind as of late once more. I've hesitated on this because, if you've been following me for a while, my frequency of output certainly isn't something worth subscribing to on some Patreon-esque service. Still, I've bandied the number of $1 or $2 per story as an accessible barrier of entry to compensate for that, but we'll see if I'll actually go through with this, because another thing that keeps me clamped up on this is how I'd advertise myself as a "hey, you can commission me" guy: appending it to my profile bio as is feels rather desecrating, and putting it on the end of each story and/or blog post feels rather gimmicky to me if I were the one doing it.

...and that's all for now! Hold me accountable and feel free to DM me with violent reactions and what not if I miss out on a June update! May God keep you safe.