That's what I am.

Been a while with no word, I know.

So, after I finished up the last chapter of NOC, I wanted to get down into the weeds and start revising/editing the entire thing, working on it towards the end goal of making it into a big ol' novel of some kind. I quickly ran out of steam with that, finding the task daunting, intimidating. The process of writing it was arduous, taking me roughly a year and the end result is something I have faith in conceptually but not in execution.

I had some discussions with a friend who'd been helping me along, concerning how to proceed. Different angles to tackle, ways to present the story, what to cut, what to add, all that. As it stands, I still don't know. Truth be told I feel rather adrift with the whole project. In my head it's this dramatic saga with nuances and messages existing in a rich world that I could talk at length about, a whole society with tons of interconnected dynamics and relationships, but what I've laid down is just a sequence of text blobs on a furry site that got very little attention, and holding onto that silly little dream of it being what I feel like it can be and deserves to be is proving more and more difficult.

On the other side, that story exists in the same universe as the other project I've been saying I want to work on since November of 2019, and one I farted a few chapters out for back then. That in and of itself is a reboot of a behemoth project I wrote from roughly 2012 through 2015 before it petered out and was left unfinished. That has all these intertwining arcs and characters I fell in love with where I also feel it deserves a proper retelling, and just like the above, every time I sit down to work on it, I feel like that picture of the teeny excavator scratching at the dirt near the grounded ship in the Suez Canal.

Meanwhile, I've become involved with a project that a friend of mine is working on, a rather serious one no less, that's not set to be released for about a year and is having some roadblocks of its own. I'm greatly enjoying it, but it does take up a good chunk of energy that's pulling me away from putting time into my own. Then, on top of all that, my work has gotten more hectic to the point that I have only a small sliver of day that I can devote to these endeavours.

I wasn't sure how to lay this all out there (nor how many people would actually read it), but I figure I should explain why I basically vanished after that last chapter was posted, and hopefully explain where things are going now. I'm not done, I just am at a crossroads and having a struggle with taking the next steps. Hopefully that will change soon.

Thank you, those of you who've been sticking around all this time.

Donut

Okay, so... I mentioned NaNoWriMo and stuff like that before (I think), and if you follow me on Twitter I've made similar allusions, all basically centering around the idea of working on the FATBC "reboot" of sorts as progressing towards making it as a full-length novel and then seeing if I can get it published.

Well, I've decided on a different approach.

One of the reasons the original FATBC project did so well, by which I mean was so fun to write and was able to develop as deeply as it did, was thanks to everyone who was taking the journey with me. Comments, whether full-on critiques and feedback or even off-handed reactions, often had massive ripple-effects on the story. After all, ol' Terrance's entire arc was spawned from someone saying he looked like a "closet queen" in an early sketch page, which got the wheels a-turnin'. Additionally, seeing engagement helps keep ME motivated.

All of that gets lost if I were to try and just sit at a desk and crank out a novel-length work. I've been introduced to the idea of "beta readers" and the like, but I think I'd rather just make things more open from the get-go. I've been working on beat sheets for the story itself as well as a rather surprisingly huge side-arc thanks to one  jerkcentral, and I realized that trying to get all of this put together into one big work all at once would take a goddamn long time and I fear that this account would just fall into silence in the meanwhile.

So, the current plan? Return to the old formula. Chapters posted here with a visual attached to help set the scene, keeping a mildly regular schedule, and using the format to allow myself to drift into side stories and let the various arcs weave in and out of one another. I'll still be using those beat sheets, but won't have to agonize so much over when the focus can change and there isn't "wasted space".

Because the lion's share of the FATBC project was/is with characters intrinsically tied to the old sportsball league that it no longer is, getting it ready to start posting here will take a bit longer since, in my zeal to get to writin', I didn't alter many of the already-existing characters under the assumption of "ahhhh I can fix that once I get the first draft finished." Which means I gotta make some changes to things just to reinforce that, yes, this is entirely independent of where it had existed before, and more importantly, it's how it always SHOULD have been.

We're up and rolling, and I've been working behind the scenes despite all being fairly quiet over here. The first couple of chapters are going to be the hardest to push out because a good bit of it is pretty much re-writing what I did before with the new focus, but once we get the rust off the hinges it'll be moving at a much smoother pace.

I'm already surprised at how... intense quite a bit of it became (I blame the people who've been helping me brainstorm), and hopefully you'll like the changes even more than the original action. Some of it will be starkly different, some will feel very familiar, but I think all of it will be stronger than ever.

As always, I thank you all for your patience and I'm excited to share what's in store.