You miss 100% of the shots you don't take · 7:04pm Oct 26th, 2020
I bring you two bets today. One is safe. The other may not be.
Let's start with the safe bet: my man Moosetasm has been making good progress lately on parts 2 & 3 of Ponest Dungeon, his crossover opus. I'll soft-link it here due to its M-rating, but it's something that I work on proudly in an editing capacity, and that I recommend to fans of dark and sometimes Lovecraftian action-adventure.
[Adult story embed hidden]
Go on... flip that M-filter. You know you want to...
I mention this because part 2 is nearing the end of its edit phase. This is a good time to catch up on part 1, which is Good, whether or not you're familiar with the crossover material. Moose has even accounted for that possibility deep in the story's DNA: it's the story of a Starlight timeline, ala the Season 5 finale. Yes, a thing from the other franchise has made its way into this world; but beyond that, what you've got stands on its own as a corrupted Equestria. Can our heroes vanquish the corruption, or will they go mad from the revelation of it? There's only one way to find out...
Now, for our less safe bet: I'm going to spend this November doing NaNoWriMo and working on the story that follows To Serve In Hell.
Saying this brings complicated feelings. I've felt bad about dangling hints of its existence in the past, since I haven't been able to back those up with words on the page. Then there's also the practical question of whether it's "worth" writing, when I now know how much time and energy that takes. Specifically, time not spent on life's necessities, and energy spent chasing demons rather than vanquishing them. And To Serve In Hell ended in a perfectly fine manner; why revivify the "franchise's" corpse when it could just stay buried?
But that isn't the end of the story. Time can be made, if it's for the right things. Energy is weird; overdoing it will burn you out, but trying to conserve it can stymie you. And of course you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
I bring no promises, no miracles, no expectations. But I bring this here to be open about where I'm at, and where I'm headed. I might spend the month writing 50,000 words of unusable garbage that chase every possible plot-bunny into nowhere. Or, I might finally hit pay dirt with the freakin' Telltale Heart that's been pounding in my brain for two years.
Place your bets.
Glad to see that header get further use. Best of luck with the TSiH sequel!
On a completely unrelated note, this seems relevant to your interests.
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It is indeed, you magnificent enabler of my predilections.
She’s another one who needs some love, too. Specifically the kind of love she’d find in a story whose first two chapters appeared as a sneak preview in my book at BronyCon last year. One day her true love will find her...
And thank you! This is bound, at a minimum, to be a ride.
I’ll be here to lend my editing and crazy if you need it. It’s not often that I say that I want to be involved in a hell sequel.
Without spoilers (mostly cause I’m not even sure what is going to make it in) what I’ve seen so far for (the equivalent of) story boarding is a mass of well thought out character motivations and interlocking conflicts & politics. It all makes for this giant tangle of elements (not of Harmony... yet?) that Coffee is going to have to eventually Tetris together.
I’m excited, and it’s not even my project.
Also: My DNA! (pronounced mah dee-ehn-eyyy)
Awww, spoiler alert,
Actually... I guess not. I mean, I have to take time to explain it to myself every now & again, so it can’t be that spoilery. (There’s lots of arrows)
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With the power of your crazy by my side, there’s no limit to what we can do.
But yes, the Tetris is going to be real with this one. I suppose it was with the last one, too. Perhaps the trick behind making something like this look like an interconnected whole is to grind your way through all the ways to not have it interlock smoothly, then go back with a literary hacksaw and start making stuff fit the hard way.
There must be a better way.
Failing that, though, there is certainly a way.
Good luck with NaNo CoffeeMinion I believe in you so goddamn hard
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I love you birdman, I will make you proud
But you look a lot less silly doing so.
A sequel to your novel already? Well, good luck to you, says I. I'll be attempting to kickstart my own word generator, though not as part of NaNoWriMo (or is it NaPoWriMo?). I think I'll sit this year's iteration out.
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And the last one took me three. I’d hope to beat that with the next one!
Already? It’s been two years!
I wish you luck with your projects. NaNo is a bit of a mad slog and not always the right choice, much as I love it. I think the time is right for me though. I have reams of preparatory material and just need something to crystallize them.