My Little Pony story behind the story
Sept 12, 2016 19:38:22 GMT -5
Post by Wes on Sept 12, 2016 19:38:22 GMT -5
Boyd Percy mentioned the other day that it's taken me nine years to get Bullring Days Four: My Little Pony up. He's right, and there's a reason for that.
I originally started My Little Pony as a "Young Adult" novel, just for the sake of writing something different. I had a pretty good idea of where I was going with it, and then I got to Chapter Four, where Telzey meets Mel Austin, Will's grandfather. Originally I'd intended to just have Mel tell a couple of quick stories to make the point that he'd been around racing for a long time, and then get on with Telzey's adventures. But, I got to writing, and writing, and writing some more, and about the time the chapter passed around ten thousand words or so I started to realize that Mel had a pretty good story to tell on his own.
I wound up trimming Mel's yarns to Telzey down a lot, and saved what I'd originally written as notes (and eventually had to trim it down some more to keep him from taking over the book.) I motored on through My Little Pony, and just about as soon as I was done swung around and started in on Mel's story. That involved quite a little research but some of it was easy. I stalled a couple of times, but eventually Bullring Days (as I originally called it) came out close to sixty chapters, and I still think it's a pretty good read.
The original Bullring Days was a little on the long side, and I finally realized I had a natural break point where Mel had his accident and married Arlene, so I separated it into two books, On the Road and Bradford Speedway. About that time I realized that it was a pretty big jump from the late sixties of Bradford Speedway and the early '00s of My Little Pony, so wound up writing Banners Flying to fill the gap. Of course, everything had to be told in proper order, so the first book written had to become the last book of the series.
I've probably dawdled a little in getting My Little Pony posted, partly because other things seemed to cry for attention, but partly because I wanted to trim down some of the "Young Adult" aspects of the book. I think some of them still show through in things like a somewhat simplified vocabulary, but I don't see any harm in that. I still think it's a fun book.
Will there ever be a fifth Bullring Days book? I don't know. I've kicked around a few ideas but nothing has quite gelled, so while I'm not saying there will be another one, I'm not ruling it out, either.
-- Wes
I originally started My Little Pony as a "Young Adult" novel, just for the sake of writing something different. I had a pretty good idea of where I was going with it, and then I got to Chapter Four, where Telzey meets Mel Austin, Will's grandfather. Originally I'd intended to just have Mel tell a couple of quick stories to make the point that he'd been around racing for a long time, and then get on with Telzey's adventures. But, I got to writing, and writing, and writing some more, and about the time the chapter passed around ten thousand words or so I started to realize that Mel had a pretty good story to tell on his own.
I wound up trimming Mel's yarns to Telzey down a lot, and saved what I'd originally written as notes (and eventually had to trim it down some more to keep him from taking over the book.) I motored on through My Little Pony, and just about as soon as I was done swung around and started in on Mel's story. That involved quite a little research but some of it was easy. I stalled a couple of times, but eventually Bullring Days (as I originally called it) came out close to sixty chapters, and I still think it's a pretty good read.
The original Bullring Days was a little on the long side, and I finally realized I had a natural break point where Mel had his accident and married Arlene, so I separated it into two books, On the Road and Bradford Speedway. About that time I realized that it was a pretty big jump from the late sixties of Bradford Speedway and the early '00s of My Little Pony, so wound up writing Banners Flying to fill the gap. Of course, everything had to be told in proper order, so the first book written had to become the last book of the series.
I've probably dawdled a little in getting My Little Pony posted, partly because other things seemed to cry for attention, but partly because I wanted to trim down some of the "Young Adult" aspects of the book. I think some of them still show through in things like a somewhat simplified vocabulary, but I don't see any harm in that. I still think it's a fun book.
Will there ever be a fifth Bullring Days book? I don't know. I've kicked around a few ideas but nothing has quite gelled, so while I'm not saying there will be another one, I'm not ruling it out, either.
-- Wes
