Author's Note

NOTE: You may safely disregard the 'incomplete' tag if you're the kind of reader who doesn't want to commit to starting a story before it's done being written. The story is complete with all chapters written (they had to be for me to print the book, after all), I'm just releasing them one a day or so over time.

You can skip to the first chapter here: https://www.fimfiction.net/story/568949/3/seashell-print-rewrite/excerpt-i

Foreword (by PaulAsaran)

SEASHELL

Foreword
by PaulAsaran

I can’t recall the first time I visited the Seawall and met Sunburst. What I do remember is falling in love with the place. Much like she did. It takes a certain kind of person to enjoy isolation, and that was why this little pony connected with me so very well. I could see that beach, witness the ruins, stare out at the distant something on the horizon. Would that I could be there with her.

Then I bothered to read the rest of Seashell. As of this writing, I think I’ve read the original three times. Which says a lot if you have any idea who I am. When I learned there was to be a printed copy, I leapt at the opportunity to have it on my physical bookshelves. The new version is different, as are so many things that come from experience.

Ah, experience. What a difference it makes. It allows us to see things we wouldn’t have before, to revisit what we believed we knew and realize we didn’t know it as well as we thought. Here we find Sunburst, a royal guard protecting Princess Twilight Sparkle and who comes to realize – from her experiences – that there’s more to that role than the physical. From the sidelines, being a background pony, she comes to know what plagues her charge. This torments her, for it is something that can’t be stabbed with a spear or intimidated with loud noises. An insidious self-denial, a feeling that what is cannot be changed, that it is not our place to act.

I identified with this too. Back when I first read Seashell, I identified with this so well.

But like Sunburst, we learn from our experiences. Sometimes all that is needed is a bouquet of roses and the right words – or whatever our version of that little push happens to be. We find our strength and our self-confidence, whatever scraps of it there are, and turn them to productive pursuits.

Now I come back after so long and rediscover Sunburst all over again. The story is the same, though a few of the details have been tweaked. Things are better. Winston has learned from his experiences. Here we have the productive results. Now I can watch Sunburst wallow in her inadequacies and go above and beyond the call of duty and smile as I recall my own battles with self-confidence. That battle is never truly won, but I – like Sunburst in the end – find myself in a better place regardless.

Sunburst has grown. Winston has grown. I have grown.

I wonder: How will you grow?

Perhaps – indeed, it is probable – you do not share a love of isolation with Sunburst and myself. Perhaps you are more like Rainbow Dash, keeping eyes off your longing through displays of confidence and command. Or Princess Twilight, adapting her mentor’s mask of perfect political propriety to hide the pain. If you’re lucky, you are like Azure Sky and haven’t succumbed to the heavy weight of adult concerns that adults really shouldn’t be concerning themselves over. Whatever the case may be, I hope you will come visit the Seawall with us. To stare at that uncertain something in the hazy distance and, when you’ve gained the right amount of experience to know what you’re doing, chase after it for all you’re worth. You may not make it to that infinite something, but try hard enough and you may at least make it to those ruins. That’s something to be proud of all on its own.

So come. Read with us. Or read on your own, whatever makes you most comfortable. Read, observe, grow. Experience. Perhaps in ten years you will take from Winston’s example, look back at your old works, and say: now I know how to make it great.

You will have your own Seawall, and it will be beautiful.

– PaulAsaran