What Do You Do All Day?

Well, after living the adventure-filled life of an exile in the Everfree Forest alongside Nightmare Moon, you'd think that I must be exciting and full of rambling stories about battles with monsters and creatures of the night - er, or day, since... again, Luna and I are considered evil and all - but I'm really not. Most days were... pretty tame, actually. Or pretty stupid. Or worst of all, there was adventure but it was the adventures of married couple who do not understand that they are not children and haven't learned to act their age.

For example. Teaching Luna to make coffee was an adventure. As a thousand years in the past they did not have 'infernal kitchen implements!' getting her to understand that you do not have to set things on fire or blast them with lightning to make them work - I don't think they did in the past either, to be honest, but Luna's... impatient... - took a little work. So did dealing with the problem of teaching a winged unicorn who spent ninety percent of her time eating and drinking in taverns proper manners. I cannot fathom what it must have been like for her when she became a princess in a castle, because she very quickly regressed from faking Canterlot high etiquette to using her hooves like a five year old.

Please don't tell her I said that. She'll beat me. More frequently.

Back to the coffee. Luna loves her coffee. Black, cream and sugar, spiced, flavored, she adores it. It's one of the things we share, to be honest, but Luna likes it even more than I do. So, eventually, I had to show her how a coffee maker worked. Three machines later, due to Luna tampering with one and breaking the other two 'attempting to make the coffee boil faster,' she's now probably better at it than I am. And see that pointless anecdote I just told? That's a lot of what life is like, even our weird life.

Sure, there's doing patrols of the forest every now and then, and skirmishes with enemies... both pony and not. But a lot of days I spend either doing normal(ish) couple things with Luna or writing, usually in the form of transcribing a story of Sleipnir's past that Luna's told me. Or I'm cleaning. Or cooking. Those aren't things Luna's exactly... suited for. She's a warrior at heart, I think... and I admire that. Me? I'm the gloomy poet that just got lucky enough to get to stick by her side through thick and thin. Maybe, though, that's what makes life kind of special... maybe that's why it seems so fantastic sometimes, despite how much of it is monotony despite the way saying 'living in exile' must make us sound like constant adventurers.

So uh. Yeah. That's what I do all day. I live with Luna. And believe me, that's hard enough as it is on a normal day, undead and monsters and getting shot at aside. But I wouldn't change it for the world, for the universe, either.

Definitely Not My Idea

This is all Luna's fault, like pretty much everything that happens to me these days. "Scrivy thou shalt do this" and "Scrivy thou shalt do that" and when I argue I end up with a hoof in my face. But, well. It passes the time and I suppose it's better than nothing. We live as exiles, after all, and it gives me something to do apart from writing morose poetry and getting beaten up by Luna.So let's jump right in. Writing with Scrivener Blooms. It's like a cooking show, except it sucks. And you can't eat it, unless you have a thing for paper. I wouldn't recommend it, though. I've had enough of my own parchment shoved down my throat literally and figuratively to know it's pretty damn tasteless, and poems make for godawful horrible flavoring in most cases.


First of all, a question I'm asked every now and then: "Scrivy, how do you write?" And the answer is pretty simple. I sit down. And I write. No, I'm not being a jerk. Well, okay, I'm being a little bit of a jerk right now but seriously, you get ordered to go and share your thoughts with the apathetic world by your evil wife and see how you feel. Okay, okay, okay. First of all, if you want to write, there's something way more important than having an idea, having a good feeling, even having a good grasp of words and concepts and mechanical nonsense like spelling and grammar. Motivation to write can and will come to essentially anyone who reads, takes a slight interest in it, or even just is sitting around one day, looking for something to do, if a good idea hits. It isn't motivation to start that's important; it's the discipline to carry through and keep writing.


Anyone can write. Anyone can be as good a writer as me... well. Actually. Most people are already better writers than me. Seriously, do you know how I write? It's a process of mumbling words to myself and running them together and literally just hoping for the best. And writing is truly subjective: there are good writers, and bad writers, but to one person all the good writers of the world might be bad and all the bad writers of the world might be good, which leads into another point that's important to remember from the start: write for sake of writing. Not for the sake of people liking you, or liking it, or for flank-pats. Share it if you're comfortable, use the criticism you receive to grow and evolve your writing, and enjoy the good comments that come, but at the end of the day, always write for yourself first, always follow your own ideas, no matter how stupid and crazy they may seem. Believe me. You'll feel a whole lot prouder of the story... and while nice comments and exaltations are a momentary thrill, that thrill wears off really fast, and leaves you way more vulnerable to the sting of nasty words. If you're able to take joy in the very act of writing, in looking at what you've accomplished, then you don't need any of that extra praise to feel good about yourself. Nice as it can be, yeah.


So writing lesson one. Discipline is the key to success, and do your best to write for yourself first and foremost and find the enjoyment and the serenity that comes with that. We'll get back to both these subjects later when I can find the time for another post. For now, I'm going to go and childishly put peanut butter in Luna's helmet.


~Scrivener Blooms

Lame, Right?

Alright, this will be the only out-of-character post I do.
Welcome to my weird, quasi-obsessive, half-baked, stupid idea. I am far too shy to be social myself, therefore I am acting through a proxy. Yes, that proxy is a pony. Okay, yes, this perhaps is beginning to border on unhealthy obsession, but I am a writer. Writers have unhealthy obsessions all the time. At least mine won't kill me... you know, unless I suffocate on one of my pony toys.
That could be taken in so many wrong ways.
Uh. Moving forwards. Essentially, what I'm offering is this. As I can't draw or do anything fun or noticeable, I've decided to do a post every week or so from Scrivy's point of view. Why does he have a computer with internet access in the Everfree Forest? If you're asking this question, you probably should not be on this blog.
This is really just a bit of personal amusement and to help keep me on a writing schedule. Also, Scrivener Blooms is a better and more successful writer than I am, so. This make-believe is profitable for everyone and I can continue to cheerfully hide in a corner. Every now and then Scrivy will say something smart, but mostly it'll be a mix of sarcasm, his ineffable loathing for other poets and writers, writing tips and short poems, and every now and then there may or may not be a guest blog. Let's see how long I can keep this up for.


~BlackRoseRaven