May 29th, 2012

Recently, two items of microfiction were removed from my account by Fanfiction.net, as they apparently constitute infractions. Now, no reason was given to me in the e-mails notifying me of these removals as to why the removing is done, but I'm going to assume it relates to the guidelines concerning submission of extremely short content. I suppose I now know just how short the items must be to be considered infractions. Very well. That being said, I do object to the resolution method this website's administrative body has taken up, which is to remove offending items with neither warning nor explanation, and to further impose a temporary closure on submissions through my account. The ban applies until May 31st, 9:50 P.M., which means that in my very first week of my return to fanfiction, I am being prohibited from executing on my update schedule. Rest assured, the writing itself has continued, but unless I can get the ban lifted somehow, the updates will all have to wait until Thursday night to drop.

Best wishes,

Ricky Controversy

The Ricky Controversy Method (As of May 24th, 2012)

So, since I am indeed so rusty at just getting some bloody writing done without a paycheck in mind in the first place, I'm going to adopt a scheduled updating approach that forces me to keep in the habit of regular writing and releasing. The plan is this: I am fairly used to writing short stories and classic novel-length chapters, which range from 5,000 to 8,000 words. In the past, I released blocks of content like this monolothically, and tended to procrastinate on getting them done. I'd considered holding myself to some regular schedule of such major updates, but knowing my current state, I'd likely foul that up. Until I feel comfortable working with blocks like that in a single sitting again, I'm going to do something a little different.

Specifically, I'm going to hold a schedule of episodic writing and releases that covers multiple projects at once. I'll begin with my long-delayed five major projects on the block, and the goal will be to provide small updates to three of these each day, rotating through the list. To ensure promptness of updates, the actual writing will be done the day before. While I hope to get so acclimated to this that I can provide larger and larger updates consistently, I'm going to start off easy with a 500-word episode minimum. Most will likely be longer anyway, as I will continue writing a given episode until it reaches a decent transition point. When the last episode of a chapter is complete, I will let it stay in episodic format until the next update, at which point I will post the next update, remove the individual episodes and re-release them as a single chapter.

So, to give you an example of how that looks in application, let's say I have five fics in progress. We'll call them A, B, C, D and E. Clever, I know. A week would look like this:

Sunday: Write for D, E, A / Update for A, B, C

Monday: Write for B, C, D / Update for D, E, A

Tuesday: Write for E, A, B / Update for B, C, D

Wednesday: Write for C, D, E / Update for E, A, B

Thursday: Write for A, B, C / Update for C, D, E

Friday: Write for D, E, A / Update for A, B, C

Saturday: Write for B, C, D / Update for D, E, A

A gets five updates while B, C, D and E get four updates each. Now, inevitably, projects will end up being different lengths, and thus will conclude at different times. Depending on whether or not I have another project I want to take its place when this happens, either I will add that item into its spot in the rotation, or I will simply let that spot drop, and continue with the same three writings, three updates method.

I will provide and update a calendar of the stories in progress in this profile page.

Project Calendar

1. Fate/Last Forge

Following the events of Unlimited Blade Works True, Last Forge is the tale of the Sixth Heaven's Feel, a Holy Grail That Should Not Be. While Shirou, Rin and the reclaimed Tohsaka Sakura ready themselves to contain the chaos and masters call forth their mighty servants, the new homonculus of Einzbern--Isoviel--and Cloth, a master illusionist and feared magus-killer, also make their way to Japan, both seeking the same thing, neither knowing what it is.

2. Haru

Before he lived in Nishinomiya, before he met a troublesome reality-warper named Suzumiya Haruhi, before everyone knew him as Kyon, he had a different life. Though it lingers on only in fond and confused memories, a piece of him stayed behind in that old town, never to let go. Then, one day, a strange woman is waiting for him on the street astride a humming Vespa. She has come to take him for a ride. An SHnY/FLCL crossover of sorts.

3. Suzumiya Haruhi no Barakeru no Koto

Or "The Unraveling of Haruhi Suzumiya." An alien. A time-traveler. An ESPer. The girl who brought them all together. But their secrets run far deeper and, amid their fantasy lives, one boy must bear the weight of the truth alone.

4. Defragmentation

A novelization of Digimon Adventure 01. On a fateful Summer afternoon, by the side of a lake, a vortex opens up out of the clear blue sky and stirs the placid waters into a monstrous fury, swallowing the seven young children at the lake's shore. They awake only to find they've been swept off to a jungle unlike any they've ever heard or read of, with no trace of civilization to be found. Wandering in the jungle, they come across seven eggs with strange patterns on their shells; each child feels inexplicably drawn to a different egg, and as they approach, they begin to shake and crack. Little do they know that their strange days are just beginning.

5. First String

A novelization of Rockman X. With the discovery and awakening of X, the last creation of the late, legendary Dr. Light, a new phase in the evolution of robotics begins. Brought into a world ever teetering on the brink of chaos, the newly founded 'reploid' race must face many trials to earn its place, including the threat from within posed by 'maverick' reploids. As the number of incidents of maverick crime rises sharply, reploids are regrettably forced to adapt themselves to fight, and the Maverick Hunters are born. X takes his responsibility to the race he sired firmly in hand and joins the Hunters, but not long after he joins, the revered leader of the Maverick Hunters, Sigma, has a chance encounter with an unusual maverick that will set in motion events X could never have imagined, and leave the fate of the world squarely in his hands.