At last, after 1(0,000) years, I'm free!  
Righteousness and superior horseword output have triumphed, and Rider on the Storm lies complete at my digital feet!  
And like the titular character, I had a fantastic time writing it.  
Now I'd like to take a minute, so just sit right there,  
And I'll tell you a few little behind-the-scenes diddies about how this story was made.  
Oh, and this should probably go without saying, but I'm going to spoil the everloving shit out of Rider on the Storm, so you'd better have read it first.  

# Limper Than Bizkit
So funny story, I started writing the story in August of 2020, if my file timestamps are to be believed. And the first chapter went pretty well!  
And then I rewrote it. And rewrote it again. And again. And again. I managed to reach chapter 2 once, but that burned down, fell over, and sank into the swamp of rewriting as well. Which got rewritten again after!  
Oh, and there was a bunch of unnecessary garbage I did as well that ate up entirely too much of my time and effort, so there's that!  
Yeah, this story had a _rough_ start, and repeatedly failed to launch for me until one fateful May 19th of 2022. So, in the interest of showing you young'un writers what _not_ to do, here's an itemized, approximately in-order list of all the major screwups I made that led me to this point:  

- Start simple enough: wanting to do something a little different than my usual greentexts.
- Figure I'd give prose a try, since hey, what else am I gonna use my Fimfic account for besides tracking porno fics?
- Start obsessing over the small details right out of the gate, instead of looking at the big picture.
- Being a sweaty tryhard and deciding that I needed to change to third person prose, because _"I'm better than that"_.
- Being a sweaty tryhard and deciding that I needed a "proper outline" and "structure" instead of writing seat-of-the-pants like some _commoner_.
- Being a sweaty tryhard and deciding that I needed to expand on the above and create an entire Zim wiki - used to great effect in my longer in-progress stories - for this _short action-comedy story_.
- Being surprised when I lose interest in writing anymore because of all that.
- Come back after months and figure out that aggressive tryharding kept me spinning my wheels in chapter 1.
- Overcorrect and revert to writing greentext.
- Get surprised when I lose interest _again_.
- Come back after more months.
- Finally just say 'fuck it', and knuckle down one day, writing in my usual style: off the cuff, impulsive, seat-of-the-pants, and with zero notes and forward planning.
- Almost flub it again by re-reading my old attempts for inspiration, and nearly fall prey to the siren song of perfectionism.
- Actually manage to publish something ~2 years later.

If any of you want a story to fail and splutter out, then following the above list is a great way to do it! And this wasn't even the only story that suffered from this problem!  
Fortunately, the strong positive reception the first chapter received gave me a sugar-sweet shot of oxytocin that not only spanked all that ridiculous and infantile second-guessing and imposter syndrome out of my system, but was also super _kino_ and heartwarming and made for fantastic motivational fuel to keep trucking on.  
Big ups especially to the commenters, you guys are cool. Even if I'm not known for replying that often; I'm working on it, I swear!  

# This Is The New Shit
Whenever I write something, I have this _thing_ where I always set out to write something that's at least one of the following:  

- Something that's new and interesting.
- Something that's a fresh spin on something older.
- Something that's weird and experimental.
- Something that's just plain old fun.
- Something that's done just because I can.

You'd think Rider on the Storm would be #4 on that list, but no: it's actually #2! And I'm not talking about how it's an AiE story, either.  
See, Rider on the Storm began life way back in April of 2018 as "A Stormy Ride", a two-part smut greentext I originally wrote for the long-running porn threads of /mlpol/, back when I was both crystallizing my style of writing _and_ having a ton of fun trying out writing lewds in general, as it was the second piece I'd ever done at that point. Hell, my one-offs to this day are _still_ typically smut, as evidenced by my latest one-off over on PonePaste for Aftercase's PasteJam event. Sadly, I can't link any of these due to the NSFW links policy on Fimfic, which is kind of a shame. On an unrelated note, I _do_ have a complete catalogue of my works over [here](https://ponepaste.org/6924).  
But the whole "villain Anon" thing stuck with me long past that point, and when my muse's itch called, it needed to scratch that particular spot.  
Villain protag stories aren't a new thing for me: I've been drawn to them long before I even got into MLP, back when _RP :3_ was a thing I still engaged in during the mid-aughts. But getting my feet wet with writing [Thaumaturgy With Anon](https://ponepaste.org/496) really took my evil villainy writing to the next level, for reasons that are pretty obvious if you're read it before, but I won't spoil if you haven't. I learned a lot there, including a few lessons on when I take it too far and stain the experience. It's a tough balancing act between being believably evil and cartoonishly edgy, you know!  
For Rider on the Storm, I opted to merge the concept of it's progenitor story "A Stormy Ride" with both the lessons I'd learned writing evil bastards _and_ my IRL experiences with crazy fuckers that are an absolute blast to hang around with. Along with my own store brand of general madness and bizarre word and phrasing choices, because hey, all art's an expression of the author's own insanity, isn't it?  
Plus, I just didn't feel like writing smut this time around. (Won't rule it out for future stories though, so adjust your follow expectations accordingly!)  
And my God, did it all pay off in the end! I know it's a common platitude to express how "I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it", but this was literally true for me: there were many times during writing, revising, editing, and even publishing that I couldn't stop laughing at the shit I wound up writing. So for me, it absolutely isn't a platitude, but a genuine expression!  

# Sweet Child O' Mine
But all good things have to end eventually, even if only to lead to a new beginning!  
Listen, I'm no stranger to cliffhangers: ask anyone who kept up-to-date with the Magicless Anon threads back when I actively updated Thaumaturgy With Anon. But this time around, the cliffhanging wasn't so much to blueball you fuckers (okay, it absolutely was, but only as a secondary reason this time, I swear!) as much as it was because the shit I'd dreamt up and started planning out for its future would have put a serious drag onto the fairly tight experience I'd accidentally stumbled into and was working hard to maintain.  
Put simply, there just wasn't a good way I could make _The A-Non©_ getting defeated and eventually returned to life flow well within an uninterrupted single story, especially not one I'd already committed to making fairly short already. That made it necessary to make a sequel story instead, where I could not only put those ideas to the test, but make it a much longer experience as well from the outset!  
With limits, of course: I'm already nursing the framework of another story that I fully expect to cross the 500K word mark in due time, I don't need another soaking up my writefag child support!  
More on that framework later.  
Fury of the Storm, without spoiling _too_ too much, will by necessity sport a couple of OC toons as accessories to _The A-Non©'s_ reign of destruction, doom, and more doom. I wanted to use comic characters more, I really did, but they fucking suck dick and not even Andy Price's artwork can save the abortion that is the Godforsaken "Season 10" comics, which I suffered through to try and see if there was anything salvageable there. Silly me, thinking IDW's writing would be less shit than Haber, Vogel, and Dubuc's writing.  
That said, I _do_ plan to pull in a few characters from the comics that don't suck gorilla dongs, as well as jump forward to a certain season of the show to use their characters as well. And of course, we'll have some returning cast members. After all, Tempest is _far_ from done with _The A-Non©..._  
Oh, and it also won't be smut either, though there'll be plenty of innuendo and allusion to go around instead!  
But don't expect the new story anytime soon. My free time is both limited _and_ split between fondling grass, not to mention my other hobbies.  

# YO IS THAT A-
I honestly can't keep track of the references I make, since they just come unbidden during writing and I think nothing more of them after that. So because of that, coupled with the fact that I'm a really lazy son of a bitch, I'm not gonna bother picking through the 100K-ish words I've written like I'm trying to cite a research paper, and instead just cover some of the general things I've made reference to, in no particular order:  

- JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
- Elden Ring
- 4chan
- Final Fantasy
- The Bastard Operator From Hell
- Ethan Ralph
- The Chronicles Of Riddick
- Metal Gear
- Marilyn Manson
- Morrowind
- Mister Metokur
- Things XCOM Operatives Are No Longer Allowed To Do
- Dark Souls
- Futurama
- Spongebob Squarepants
- California's police codes
- Starship Troopers
- Megamind
- The DOOM Comic

And I am absolutely positive I've missed a multitude of other things, and probably hallucinated one or two in. What can 'ya do?  

I've also made a concerted effort after the first chapter to make the titles of each chapter reference something as well. At first, I just referenced whatever came to mind that fit the most, but after the fourth chapter I decided to go full JoJo Stando Powah and make them explicit references to music, something I plan to fully commit to when Fury of the Storm gets written.  
Each chapter's reference, in order, goes like so:  

- 1 - Just Like Old Times
	+ No reference, just an appropriate quip.
- 2 - V Has Come To
	+ References the game Metal Gear Solid V.
- 3 - Stone Temple Pilots
	+ References the band of the same name.
- 4 - Super Smash Bros
	+ References the game series of the same name.
- 5 - Vulgar Display Of Power
	+ References the Pantera album of the same name.
- 6 - Klendathu Drop
	+ References the 1997 Starship Troopers movie song of the same name.
- 7 - Use Your Fist And Not Your Mouth
	+ References the Marilyn Manson song of the same name, from the album "The Golden Age Of Grotesque".
- 8 - Significant Other
	+ References the Limp Bizkit album of the same name.
- 9 - Avalon
	+ References the song of the same name from the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime OST for Battle Tendency.
- 10 - Mean Green Mother From Outer Space
	+ References the song of the same name from Little Shop Of Horrors: the 1986 film adaptation in particular.
- 11 - Sudden Death
	+ References the song of the same name by Megadeth that initially debuted in Guitar Hero VI: Warriors Of Rock before being included in their album "TH1RT3EN".
- 12 - Beast And The Harlot
	+ References the Avenged Sevenfold song of the same name, from the album "City of Evil".

And naturally, the title of the story references the song "Riders on the Storm" by The Doors, from their album "L.A. Woman". Similarly, the sequel's title references the song "Fury of the Storm" by DragonForce, from their album "Sonic Firestorm".  

# Processing Windows Updates
Remember how I said I'd get back to the framework? Well here we go!  
My processes for writing have improved significantly since I've started publishing Rider on the Storm. Remember that list from before where I did nothing but tryhard around with proper outline and structure? Well, my methods for that have actually crystallized into something useful, as opposed to a waste of time and effort, and I've already been putting them to good use in both the sequel, *and* that aforementioned planned 500k+ story!  
One of those methods is using a spreadsheet to chart out each individual scene and stitch them together into chapters, and then stitch those together into entire acts. It sounds weird using a spreadsheet to write with, but it's actually been one of the most useful things I've implemented to make solid progress without actually needing to write notes in Zim or punch out words proper.  
Which is another thing I do as well: making full use of the wonderful Zim personal Wiki software. Yes, that's right: _a personal Wiki,_ complete with links, image embeds, flowcharts, HTML export, built-in HTTP server for said exports, and all kinds of plugin functions I never actually use but are available nonetheless! I actually use this very extensively outside of writefagging: my technical notes and howtos for my work and other hobbies are all maintained in a massive Zim notebook, and it's pretty easy to create separate Zim notebooks to encompass all the notes and planning that can't fit into a spreadsheet: character details, powers, worldbuilding stuff, even quick jot-notes!  
I should warn you right now, however: it is _very_ easy to be seduced by the note-taking process, and spend more time writing lovely full-prose notes than writing lovely full-prose _horse words!_ Ask me how I know that. If you want to restrict that kind of ADHD rabbit holing, make a rule of doing bullet-point notes only. Trust me, it will wrangle that authorial 'tism very effectively.  
But I repeat myself.  
Another major difference in my methodology I developed during the writing of Rider on the Storm is that I actually save the things I normally delete wholesale during my rewriting and editing passes. Now, I actually didn't do this because I wanted to preserve my off-cuts: I did it because deleting big chunks of text from my documents fucked up the word tracking in FocusWriter, and my daily wordcount tracker kept routinely pushing into negative percentages during editing! Cut-and-pasting them into a separate document alongside the main one kept my progress intact. However, the off-cut file would later prove to be _extremely_ helpful during the multiple times I've had to rewrite sections and even entire chapters, since I could now directly reference things and reimplement them instead of outright memory-holing them, which helped a lot for saving good jokes and the odd plot detail.  
Which leads us nicely into the next part.  

# Forefathers One And All, Bear Witness
And finally, we come to the part that's guaranteed to make archivists and fanboys cream their short-shorts.  
You know all of those fuckups, multiple revisions, and off-cuts I've been mentioning? Well, I'm taking a page out of the imitable [htpot's](https://ponerpics.org/search?q=artist%3Ahtpot) book, and I'm gonna let you see them all for yourself!  
I've always been a very free-culture, open-source, and laissez-faire kinda guy when it comes to my works, and I'd always planned for Rider on the Storm to be the debut of a little tradition going forward: postmortem behind-the-scenes blogposts like this, _and_ a complete copy of the story's source documents!  
**Archive Link Go Here**  
**Checksum Go Here**  
Think of it as the collector's edition DVD box set with a bonus disc or two, all there in a nice 7-Zip archive and released under the [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode). (Except for any (future) source code: that's under [3-Clause BSD instead](https://opensource.org/licenses/BSD-3-Clause))  
Of course, if you don't trust random 7-Zip files from strange assassination droids on the Internet, I understand completely. A shame, though: you'd be missing out on ~60K words worth of cut snippets, rewritten chapters and all those old revisions, plus detailed breakdowns on the programs I use, and even a few details on one of the OC's I intended to use at first that I eventually cut, but will make a return in Fury of the Storm! Oh, and there may or may not be a little preview of what I've got coming down the pipe next. Assuming my free time will allow me to push it down the pipe, anyways.  
Should you decide to grab the archive, I'd suggest sorting the files by date and time, so you can see the chronology behind all the old attempts.  

# That's All, Folks
Now get the fuck off my lawn before I call the ponice.  
