#and setting up my very first discord server was kind of daunting but i did it with channels and intro posts and all

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

the deeply dispiriting feeling of being told that a handful of friendly strangers in a shared community would like to be part of a group you've proposed, only to hear from none of them and still be the only person in the discord you created when invites are about to expire almost a week later, leaving you paranoid and wondering whether you set it up wrong or just haven't received any kind of acknowledgement because they saw the work you put in setting it up and all realized you are way too much

[finishwhatyoustarted-event]

Tools Tuesday - Motivation to Start, and Setting Goals - March 3

It’s the first Tuesday of the event, so it’s time for a Tools Tuesday! Tools Tuesday is a weekly part of the Finish What You Started event where I share various resources I have found to help everyone complete their WIP. Have a resource you want to share? Send it in a message and I’ll take a look!

Today is about motivation to start and setting easy goals to keep the momentum going.

Starting a project can be the scariest part. Good news! If you’re participating in this event, you’ve already completed that step! But finishing is daunting, especially for long projects with no end in sight, or ones that you’ve struggling with for a long time.

When you have a big project, especially one that you may have started and put down years ago, it can be intimidating to pick it back up. Give yourself a few minutes to review what you already have done. Read through the last part you wrote, read your notes, check the pattern, etc. If you need to, make notes about what you have, where you remember you wanted to go, and what is inspiring you now. That scene you got stuck on might make sense now, or you see another angle you could draw that tricky pose from. You could even go in a whole new direction.

Be kind to yourself if you feel stuck. You can’t intimidate or yell yourself into productivity!

When you’re ready to work, it can help to do some warmup stretches, especially for artists and sewists, but writers, musicians, and others craftspeople benefit from a good warmup stretch too! If you’re on the discord, check the general resources channel for wrist stretches. And stretch during breaks! This is a stretch guide I keep on my phone, to remind me to loosen up. made by @/tizzymcwizzy

[basic ID: an infographic of a pink figure demonstrating a variety of hand, arm, and upper body stretches. End ID.]

If it’s not distracting, set the mood for your work with an applicable playlist or soundscape. Make sure you won’t be interrupted or distracted during your work time by silencing notifications and minimizing other windows. Let yourself focus on this one thing.

When you do start, set a small goal. It can be word count based or time based, whatever makes sense for your project. Make it very achievable: maybe just five minutes or 100 words. The thrill of reaching that goal can help carry you through another 5 minutes, another 100 words. If you struggle just to get through that goal, congratulate yourself on making your session goal! You can go do something else now. Decreasing the pressure on yourself can help get creative energy flowing. When you make your goal consistently, you can up it, but not too much.

There’s a famous anecdote that whenever author Terry Pratchet sat down to write, he set a goal of 400 words. Whether he wrote more or not, he did his 400. By the time of his death, Terry Pratchet had written and published over 40 novels. For myself, I like to set session/day goals, weekly goals, and monthly goals. That way even if my progress isn’t linear, I can see myself approaching where I want to be. Incremental goals can feel really good! But if holding yourself to a number doesn’t help, find what does.

If you want help from others also working on wips, come join the discord! We have a space for accountability buddies to help keep you on track and a place to write during timed sprints, as well as many resources. This link should not expire!

These all might feel obvious to you, but maybe someone else hasn’t considered them before. What gets you motivated to work on your wip? Do you have any tricks that always work for you? Share them with your fellow participants here!

[treescape]

creator tag game

Thank you to @tessiete for tagging me in this! <3

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I’ve written almost 50 fics so far this year, and I’ve learned something from (and gotten something out of) each and every one of them. Right now, I would have to say these 5 are my favourites.

to have and to hold - (Rated M, the first part of my Vaderwan series in which Obi-Wan gives himself up to Anakin during the battle on Mustafar in order to hide Leia and Luke.)

It’s probably no secret that this series is my favourite thing to write 😅 This one came about because I was talking with tess and orientalld about possessive Vader and I just wanted to write a quick one shot SO badly where Obi-Wan was having to navigate Vader’s possessiveness and manipulate it to his own ends. Of course then I finished it and realized I definitely wasn’t going to just leave it there. It’s been one of the easiest things I’ve ever written. I think I planned and wrote it in about two days--which is incredibly quick for me. I tend to think on an idea for days or even weeks, and then actually write it out over a couple of weeks, agonizing the whole way over every word, but this one wasn’t like that. So I would be fond of it for that reason alone, but I’m also just...I don’t say this often, but I’m happy with how it turned out.

beneath the arching boughs - (Rated T, the first part of my QuiObi Witcher AU.)

This is the first (so far the only, but hopefully not for long) part of my QuiObi Witcher AU. This one was another one that was fairly easy for me to write, though I did let it sit for several weeks before starting it. I was originally planning to do a much longer, chaptered fic, which was daunting to me. Then it hit me that if there was any AU that would work really well as a set of interlinked but standalone entries, it was a Witcher AU. This one is kind of my happy place. There’s pretty much no conflict, at least between Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon. They’re just happy together, even if they so often have to be apart, and so in love. And I just wanted to write something like that.

flash point - (Rated M, a Vaderwan oneshot [so far] in which Anakin freezes Obi-Wan in carbonite.)

(now you can’t yell at me, tess 😆)

This one started from a discord conversation with jo and tess. It was the opposite of the previous two in terms of writing. I wrote the opening lines, the closing lines, and a few other random lines (including the very short fourth section), and then left it for weeks. I came back and finished about half of the first section, and then left it for weeks again. Came back and finished the first section...left it for weeks. You get the idea 😂 In small part, this was because the angst was hard to write--but also I think I was just scared to write it. It was this big idea in my head, and I so badly wanted it to work out, that it felt like I’d never be able to actually find a way in to the story. It really pushed me, and I’m grateful for that.

and you write to me of love - (Rated G, a QuiObi oneshot in which Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon write letters to each other after Naboo.)

This one I wrote for a prompt in the QuiObi Discord Server’s MaytheFourth prompt fest, and I was so frustrated while writing it then I was near tears more than once and almost completely gave up 😅 I wrote multiple drafts, disliked each one, and just couldn’t seem to get it figured out.

And then it hit me. The early versions of this one didn’t have Qui-Gon’s letters, just Obi-Wan’s point of view--and that’s what the fic was missing. Qui-Gon’s voice. So I wove in the letters, alternating with Obi-Wan’s point of view, and this is why we don’t see any of Obi-Wan’s letters in this fic. We already have his voice and point of view, and I needed Qui-Gon to balance it out, and it seemed fitting to include him in the way that Obi-Wan would be experiencing him in these moments--at a remove, only through his words, requiring us to read between the lines. Mostly I’m just so damn glad I finally figured out a way to write something for cat’s gorgeous prompt. And in the end I just like the soft way it turned out.

tactile orders - (Rated E, an Obikin AU in which Senator Kenobi and Jedi Knight Skywalker are assigned a mission together.)

This was written for the Obikin Discord Server’s Secret Santa exchange. There were moments in this one where I felt so inadequate writing it because let me tell you, I struggle to write spicy scenes when I have to like, transition the characters from not having sex to...having sex. But I had so much fun writing Obi-Wan’s voice in this one. I feel like it was a bit of a lighter style than I often write (a style closer, actually, to how I used to write before academia happened to me) and it was a ton of fun.

Tagging (with no pressure!!!) @castiels-black-eyed-winchester​ , @acatbyanothername93 , @jswander , @luckee , @xeniaraven , @tomicaleto

[whirlwindflux]

Looking back at TrotCon 2017

For me, deciding which conventions to attend each year is always a challenge. Many times, my decisions are based on distance from home, when I can take my vacation time at work and a combination of community guests, musicians and VIPs. I’ve never been to TrotCon before, and ironically, it’s not the typical things that sold me on this event. Living in Southern Ontario doesn’t give me any local options, but TrotCon happens to be the closest event to where I live. I’m not sure who came up with the witty comment on the website about changing your license plate to TROT-CON, but as soon as I read that, I was sold. With every region of Bronies being a little different, reading that was when I figured of all the Bronies I have met these ones are my kind of people! I purchased an Earth tier sponsor badge, booked my hotel room and waited patiently for the weekend of the event.

Initial Thoughts

Let’s just say this wait wouldn’t be the easiest in the world. Being a new attendee, having only the website to base my decision, I wasn’t sure how things would go or what type of atmosphere to expect. I followed along with the convention on Social Media, the sponsor online streams and group chats like the one on Discord, and I almost had second guessed my decision to go. While funny and entertaining, the TrotCon Twitter account can be somewhat daunting to someone who wasn’t familiar with the event. I thought, well… if nothing else, after the weekend I’d be an expert and I could turn the experience into a meme?

Let’s get this out of way right now. If you attended or followed along online you know what’s coming next. Yes, the schedule changed, and access to spaces at the convention didn’t go as planned. When I first read the post about this, my reaction was of somewhat disappointment. As I thought about it more, and let it sink in, I realized something refreshing! TrotCon was honest and upfront with their attendees. I’ve been to other Brony conventions who kept big changes like this a secret until attendees stumbled upon the changes, didn’t see guests, VIPs or didn’t have promised sponsor rewards ready. This catastrophe was handled properly, tactfully, and actually reassured me that the con staff had this under control and knew how to respect their attendees.

Pre-Con Thoughts

After braving torrential downpour, flash flooding and learning that my car makes a decent boat, I made it to TrotCon only 9 hours after I left home! Travel was more challenging and time consuming than I had anticipated, but, I made it! I was there and ready for everything to begin. As I entered the hotel I was surprised with how many other attendees were already there, just hanging out in the lobby as if this was a normal occurrence. I could already tell this was going to be a great weekend! Sometimes it’s about getting the big things right, other times it’s about getting the little things right. Put a check beside check-in, I totally loved the inclusion of custom room key cards.

It didn’t take long for it to be time for pre-reg badge pickup to begin. As I waited in line, I saw people walking away with tiny boxes. I didn’t know why, but thought it was cool. As it became my turn to pick-up, they handed me a tiny box too! Branded Stable Dweller and with my name on it, I took the box back to my room to look at my loot. If you were a sponsor, you know it was filled with all sorts of cool stuff, including the expected sponsor perks! It also included bonus items like a toaster pin! Oh so clever!

Taking care of your sponsors

Sponsors and Pre-registration are what make a convention possible. They offer funds upfront to the event organizers which allows them to have more community guests and VIPs. As a personal note, I will generally purchase a sponsor badge to any Brony convention I go to. I end up buying most of the things they include at the convention anyway, so why not give them the money upfront? I haven’t always had great experiences with being a sponsor as some perks just don’t get delivered or happen. TrotCon delivered and then some! Not only were the perks unique, like a Nerf blaster, and the t-shirt design stellar, but the presentation to the sponsors, in the tiny box (which fit with the theme), made collecting our perks easy! Honestly, all cons should be doing something like this - not handing over a bunch of stuff with no way to carry it. Just know you knocked it out of the park. Other cons should be taking notes!

Standard Convention Activities

Every convention has panels run by different members of the community, staff and VIPs. TrotCon was no exception here. What I will say is this, I enjoyed the depth, variety and insight of many of the options on the schedule. Many of these things I have never seen before and quite enjoyed. I am not sure if an un-moderated voice actors panel was intended, but it let Peter New and Lee Tockar fly off the rails. I’ve never had so much fun at one these panels before!

The VIP autograph process was fairly standard. Like most conventions, it required attendees to purchase a voucher from the convention to get an autograph. I am not entirely sure why this is the practice (and VIP’s don’t just take cash) but not knowing where to get additional autograph vouchers was a bit of a miss. I did eventually find them at the info desk, of all places.

One of my favourite places at a convention is the Vendor Hall. Many of my favourite vendors were in attendance and I had a great time catching up with many of them since the last time I saw them. I loved the variety of primarily pony-centric items for sale, but the inclusion of many other fandoms was positive and didn’t detract from the experience. Further to that point, as it seems to be a strongly contested one online right now, it didn’t overtake the pony experience, but allowed the artists and vendors to show off some of their other interests. Booths were large enough for most vendors to show off their goods and there was still plenty of room for people to walk around without creating too much congestion. I happened to be in the vendor hall during the fire drill. It was handled in an orderly fashion and as an attendee it wasn’t a huge disruption.

Every great Brony convention has a concert and this one didn’t disappoint! With tons of space to dance and enough seating to take a break, the concert area was well setup. A thank you to all the performers who put on an awesome evening of music! A shout-out to the AV team who put it all together, made sure it worked before the performers got on stage and made transitioning between musicians painless and quick. Not every convention gets the sound or audio balances right - but TrotCon did! Also, not sure who was responsible for this, but, the collection of different animations that evolved through the night was a cool addition!

Unique Events

Conventions have been working hard to create experiences that set them apart from the others.  It’s exciting to have this competition because at the end of the day, you need to attract attendees to make the event happen! With the Fallout Equestria theme, let’s talk about the two most unique events I have ever seen at a convention - Battle for Bottlecap Canyon and Little Pip’s Minefield.

Battle for Bottlecap Canyon was a very cool concept. At it’s basic level it was a Nerf blaster war. Everyone came in, picked up a blaster, was assigned a side and went to war. The backstory to the event which tied it to the theme was well done. The original concept, which was to leave your home base (decided by your faction at registration), enter the middle ground (also known as the wasteland) and attempt to collect things (bags of caps and ammunition) which were hoarded at your base until the end of the round. Sadly, the schedule crunch and high popularity caused this concept to be cast aside for full on war. Getting hit meant you returned to your base, waited for a predetermined amount of time and then continued playing. Although changes were made on the fly, and it was different than advertised, I feel the event was still a success and will hopefully return next year, tweaked and improved!

Little Pip’s Minefield was a real life rendition of the classic computer game Minesweeper. With Minesweeper being one of my personal favourites (sad, I know, but true!) I knew I had to make time for it! In this real life version of the game, a grid of tiles was placed on the ground. Flip a tile to find out how many adjacent tiles had a mine. The twist that tied it to the Fallout Equestria theme was multiple people started at different places. As you progressed, you collected bottle caps, and if you found a mine, you dropped the caps and let the next person carry on solving the grid. The one with the most caps at the end won. I guess I spent far too much time as a kid playing minesweeper - I didn’t hit any mines! However, I think I may have played it too safe - I didn’t recover the most caps either.  Attendance to this event felt light to me, however, I feel this was due to nobody knowing exactly what it was. Ironically the only reason I knew was because I followed the TrotCon Twitter. I enjoyed this event too! Hopefully it will reappear next year bigger and better with the new theme!

Not that I expect or would imagine that anyone who runs TrotCon to ever read this in it’s entirety or beyond the first few lines, I do have ideas with regards to these special events for streamlining the attendee experience and enhancing them in the future! If you want to discuss any of these ideas, come find me on Discord (I am on the TrotCon server) since I have no idea how to find you. I am registered as WhirlwindFlux.

Post-Con Thoughts

When a convention concludes, generally there is sadness and the dreaded post-con depression starts to set in. As I wandered out of closing ceremonies and back to my room I was saddened that the event was over, but as the night progressed, the sadness dissipated leaving a positive happiness in it’s place. Maybe it was the fact that, for my first visit to TrotCon, it was exceptionally positive. Maybe it’s the fact that they just did things right from start to finish. Maybe it was the upfront honesty and integrity. I’m not entirely sure what differentiated this con. I’ve traveled farther distances and met with many different groups of Bronies who have put on their own conventions over the past 4 and half years. Coming back to a comment I made at the very beginning of this review; although I live in Ontario I would, without a doubt, say the Bronies of Ohio and the attendees of TrotCon are my kind of people! If I was only able to go to one convention a year, it would be TrotCon!

TrotCon has a very dedicated staff - they go out of their way to put on a fantastic event! So, to each staff member, organizer and the con-chair, thank you for all of your hard work, dedication, and continued belief in the Brony community! TrotCon was the convention I didn’t know I needed until now. So, if reading this hasn’t convinced you, and not that I wrote this to convince anyone of anything, come to TrotCon - you will not regret it! It surprised me in all the right ways, and with that said, I can’t wait for the next evolution of the event in 2018.

[finishwhatyoustarted-event]

Tools Tuesday - Motivation to Start, and Setting Goals - Sept 3

It’s the first Tuesday of the event, so it’s time for a Tools Tuesday! Tools Tuesday is a weekly part of the Finish What You Started event where I share various resources I have found to help everyone complete their WIP. Have a resource you want to share? Send it in a message and I’ll take a look!

Today is about motivation to start and setting easy goals to keep the momentum going.

Starting a project can be the scariest part. Good news! If you’re participating in this event, you’ve already completed that step! But finishing is daunting, especially for long projects with no end in sight, or ones that you’ve struggling with for a long time.

When you have a big project, especially one that you may have started and put down years ago, it can be intimidating to pick it back up. Give yourself a few minutes to review what you already have done. Read through the last part you wrote, read your notes, check the pattern, etc. If you need to, make notes about what you have, where you remember you wanted to go, and what is inspiring you now. That scene you got stuck on might make sense now, or you see another angle you could draw that tricky pose from. You could even go in a whole new direction.

Be kind to yourself if you feel stuck. You can't intimidate or yell yourself into productivity!

When you’re ready to work, it can help to do some warmup stretches, especially for artists and sewists, but writers, musicians, and others craftspeople benefit from a good warmup stretch too! If you’re on the discord, check the general resources channel for wrist stretches. And stretch during breaks! This is a stretch guide I keep on my phone, to remind me to loosen up. made by @/tizzymcwizzyALT

[basic ID, more in alt: an infographic of a pink figure demonstrating a variety of hand, arm, and upper body stretches. End ID.]

If it’s not distracting, set the mood for your work with an applicable playlist or soundscape. Make sure you won’t be interrupted or distracted during your work time by silencing notifications and minimizing other windows. Let yourself focus on this one thing.

When you do start, set a small goal. It can be word count based or time based, whatever makes sense for your project. Make it very achievable: maybe just five minutes or 100 words. The thrill of reaching that goal can help carry you through another 5 minutes, another 100 words. If you struggle just to get through that goal, congratulate yourself on making your session goal! You can go do something else now. Decreasing the pressure on yourself can help get creative energy flowing. When you make your goal consistently, you can up it, but not too much.

There’s a famous anecdote that whenever author Terry Pratchet sat down to write, he set a goal of 400 words. Whether he wrote more or not, he did his 400. By the time of his death, Terry Pratchet had written and published over 40 novels. For myself, I like to set session/day goals, weekly goals, and monthly goals. That way even if my progress isn’t linear, I can see myself approaching where I want to be. Incremental goals can feel really good! But if holding yourself to a number doesn’t help, find what does.

If you want help from others also working on wips, come join the discord! We have a space for accountability buddies to help keep you on track and a place to write during timed sprints, as well as many resources. This link should not expire!

These all might feel obvious to you, but maybe someone else hasn’t considered them before. What gets you motivated to work on your wip? Do you have any tricks that always work for you? Share them with your fellow participants here!