A request for help · 10:36pm Sep 16th, 2013
Hello everyone,
Let me begin by apologising to all readers of "Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World" for the extreme delay of chapter 37. It took me roughly two months and a half to write this chapter and am extremely sorry for that. I apologise for not updating last week, even though the chapter was almost finished then and I had promised to finish and post it last week. A promise I evidently did not keep, adding another week to the wait.
It's because of this that I'm not writing this blog.
To put it simply: I need help. It's been more than a year and a half since I posted the first chapter of "Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World", which is a long time. Yet despite this lengthy time period, we've only barely made it to chapter 37, with the halfway point of the story still far off. I like this story, I really do, and I do want to finish it, but it's clear at this point that at the current pace I'm updating, it'll take years to do that, given that I don't get discouraged and give up along the way. At the current pace, Wings of Tomorrow will be finished by the time My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is already a long and distant memory in our minds, and I don't want that to happen.
In order to prevent this from happening, I need to update faster, and to do that, I will need help. Let me explain something really quickly to shed some light on the reason of the slow updates. Until a year and a half ago (roughly around the time I started Wings of Tomorrow), I wrote all of my fanfiction together with someone else. Me and that person were each other's motivation, so to speak, and we kept each other going. Thanks to this person, I managed to sometimes write as much as three chapters a week! A WEEK! Sadly, however, that person and I parted ways a year and a half ago and my writing pace has suffered as a result.
But you can do something about that!
You can take the place left open by my friend and switch my writing motor in a higher gear! You can work with me, and together we can continue working on "Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World" and finish it within an acceptable span of time. You only need to have read and liked the story, posses a chat program (gmail or Skype, preferably) and have freetime in order to meet the requirements for this job! So if you think you have what it takes and want to see "Wings of Tomorrow ~ Lament of the World" update more often, simply drop a PM in my inbox to tell me you're interested.
But wait, I hear you say, what exactly does "helping you" entail?!
It's actually very simple. You see, I'm not exactly looking for a co-writer here, most of the writing will still be done by me. So even if you're not a fanfic author yourself, you can still help out. What you'll mainly be doing is reading the new chapters as I'm writing them, so I can get feedback during the writing process itself. This helps to keep me going, which is the main problem when it comes to new updates. In practice, this mean that I'll write a couple of paragraphs (ranging from 100 to 500 words), then send those to you, either via google docs or Skype. You read, try and see if you spot any glaring spelling errors (you don't have to be pre-reader good at english, we have editors for that, just help me avoid obvious mistakes like typos and stuff), correct them if you want (or tell me so I can correct them) and send the doc back to me, and we repeat the process until the chapter is done.
But wait, I hear you say, how is that different from what an editor does?!
The main difference is time. With an editor, you send an entire, finished chapter in, wait a few days and then get the chapter back. Here, we work more closely together. I give you a piece, you read it and give it back to me, which shouldn't take more than a few minutes. Your help also won't be limited to just checking for typos and stuff. Give me your opinion on the piece you've read. Tell me if you think a sentence could be phrased better, if you think a character is behaving out-of-character, if dialog sounds off or if you have an idea to make the piece even better. Sometimes, if I'm stuck on how to continue, I might ask you how you'd do it. Maybe you will want to write a little piece, too, which is fine!
But I hope it's clear that what I need here is more than simply editing. We work more closely together, and faster too. Which is why it's important you have a chat program and enough free time to come online for more than just once a week. Daily would be ideal, but I'm not asking for that, I know people have lives outside of writing fanfics and I understand that. Given how this way of working requires us to be both online at the same time (unlike a normal editor), it's of course important to take time zones into consideration. I'm European (GMT+1), so keep that in mind if you want to help out. If it's morning with you while it's midnight here, I'm afraid we won't be able to get much done. But that can be discussed, so if you want more info, just ask below.
As for how many people I need, one would be enough to hopefully get started, but if more people are interested in helping out, I won't complain of course.
I think that's about everything. If anything's unclear or you have further questions, just post them below and I'll do my best to answer them. If you want to offer your help, send me a PM so we can get in contact, I promise I won't bite!
I really hope this call for help will reach at least one of you, for the sake of the story if nothing else. If I receive no help, I will continue writing the story, but then I can't promise any improvements on the pacing of the updates, nor that the story will ever get finished. I'm not saying this to blackmail anyone, it's simply a fact, but hopefully it won't come to that.
Thank you all for your attention, and I hope to hear from any of you soon.
Kind regards,
~KoJ~
Ooh, I've done this before. I've helped out several different authors like this. If you want my help, just let me know.
A good idea. I'm sorry to say I can't volunteer for this, but it is a good idea and it sounds like it will help, so do it!
I would be honoured to work with you if you so chose. Such a magnificent story.
If I wasn't running seven different stories with multiple co-authors, I would jump on this in a heartbeat.
In the meantime, I hope you find someone, or several someones, who can help you.
I'll gladly help out as others have said the same. Pretty much though I'm about 8 hours behind you, however that means little in the long run. XD. Especially since you indeed have something amazing going on and I do want to see this story finished so you can breathe a sigh of relief, look at all the work you've done and love ponies all the more! XD.
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Thank you for the offer, I've sent each of you a PM to provide contact info.
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Thank you for your interest. Even though you aren't available, I was still happy that you took the time to read my request and to offer your support. Thanks to the interest of a few other people, you can rest assured that I did get the help I asked for. Thank you again.
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Yw! I'm just glad you found someone to help, and again, if I didn't have so many projects on my plate, in addition to trying to get a job and get into college, I totally would. I enjoy talking with people, and coming with story ideas, and dissecting the processes of a world, carefully reconstructing it from the ground up and repurposing it for other things...
Also, I have to wonder: What happened to the Changelings? If it's story relevant, either don't tell me or send me a PM, I do not talk about story secrets to other people, unless it's my own story, at which point I have to tell someone to make sure it isn't stupid when it isn't in my head.
Anyhow, yeah, ttyl. Good luck writing the next chapter!
If you will need yet another pony to help with the writing process, I can lend a hoof. I haven't done a lot of writing recently, and currently can't even finish chapter 1 of my own new story. I'm just too uninspired for it that, it seems. Hell, I'm thinking of scrapping that in favor of writing a Half-Life crossover.
But either way, I would be delighted to help somepony else write theirs.
I would so love to volunteer... and with my sleeping schedule, I doubt a six-hour time difference would be a deal-breaker... but there are better-qualified people than me who have already jumped at the chance.
Gmt+1 reporting in. I'm willing to help should you still need it. If so, send me a pm and I'll give you my skype info