User blog:Cornconic/My 500th Edit

Hey everybody,

So recently, I discovered that I was fast approaching my 500th edit on this site, which I will reach with this blog post. I've been writing pastas for about a year and a half now, and I wanted to do something special for the occasion. So I've decided to do a countdown of all 17 of my pastas in order from oldest to newest. I'll be giving each pasta some insight on stuff like what inspired me to write it, how long it took, etc.

Alright, let's get started.

1: The Wallet (700 words)

After a string of unsuccessful pastas, this was the very first one that managed to earn a place on the site. So far, it's earned a narration by NoTimeCreepy and has undergone a few minor rewrites by myself. I think most authors on this site have a special fondness for their very first pasta, and while it's nowhere near as good as some of the other stories I wrote, I still think I did an alright job with this one.

2: Way of the War (2200 words)

I wrote this pasta after watching an old WW1 documentary. It's somewhat based off true events, as apparently, it was not uncommon for people to take as drastic measures as self-mutilation to avoid being enlisted. History has always been a favourite subject of mine, which is probably why I enjoyed writing this so much. Overall, I felt like this pasta was pretty good for my second ever published work.

3: No Place for the Dead (5700 words)

Yikes, that's a pretty hefty word count. This pasta is actually the longest I've written, though it's definitely one of my least favourites. It comes from a much shorter pasta I wrote from which I was told I needed to 'expand upon', though I think I took the expansion process a bit too far. Even after multiple tweaks and rewrites, I wouldn't bother with reading this one. It's very long and drawn out, and the only reason I haven't requested that it be deleted is because of how much effort I put into it. This was the pasta that made me promise myself only to write pastas at 3000 words or below.

4: A Lonely Machine (1700 words)

A result of two separate, but similar ideas I had for a pasta combined into one. I was surprised at how well this pasta was received. Personally, I didn't think it was very good, and almost considered scrapping the idea completely, if not for the reception it received on the Writer's Workshop. But, if you wanted to read a pasta of mine, I wouldn't recommend this one in particular.

5: The Miracle of Life (1700 words)

At last, I finally attempted to write a pasta in 1st person, and it was a success. This one is adapted from another story that I found on the Writer's Workshop, called 'New Life'. The author of the pasta this one was based from was pleased with it, which I'm quite glad of. It was a nice experience to write in 1st person for a change, and it paid off well. Thanks to Nightwell for giving me my second ever narration on this pasta.

6: Anniversary (2300 words)

Loosely based from a nightmare I had. Plus, who doesn't like a good time loop story? The early drafts of this one were utter garbage, like with most of my pastas, but I eventually got it right. It's also most likely one of the more vaguer pastas I've written, as it leaves a lot to the mind of the reader, but I don't really think that's a bad thing.

7: Eggs and Bacon (600 words)

It's weird to think I've written so many pastas since this one. It feels like I was just finishing this one the other day. But yeah, funnily enough, I got the idea for this pasta from a 4chan greentext. I think user RedNovaTyrant summed up this pasta pretty well by describing it as "Not very creepy, but it is extremely depressing - in a good way.".

8: Vermin (1100 words)

I was very unsure with this one at first. I cycled through different drafts, but as time went on, it seemed as if getting to the point where I satisfied with this pasta was becoming an impossible task. Still, even now I think the final version isn't as good as it could be, but I like the concept of the pasta and still think it deserves to be on the site, so what the heck.

9: Wounded (1500 words)

The third pasta of mine to be narrated, courtesy of Nightwell. Writing this pasta felt similar to writing Vermin. Both pastas I had gotten inspiration to write from a book, both took about the same time to write, and both I feel as if I could have done better on. But still, it's not like I actively dislike either of them. Although I do think Vermin is a slightly better story.

10: Foot and Mouth (800 words)

Possibly my best pasta written. It was very well received, and I'm very satisfied with the way it ended up. It's short, too, so I would advise picking this pasta to read first if you're interested in my account. This pasta was inspired by an old short stories book I read as a kid. I had to write it from memory, however, so it made the process a little more challenging.

11: The Scariest Night of My Life (400 words)

There's not much to say about this one. Because it's so short (my shortest non-poem pasta to date), I wrote, edited, and published it pretty much within a day. It got an unusual amount of attention, most likely because of the title, and is now my fourth and most recent narrated pasta, once again thanks to Nightwell. And that's about it.

12: Little Birdie (300 words)

Hey, a poetry pasta! (hence why it's so short, actually the smallest pasta I've written). This was most likely a one off. I doubt I'll do any more poems. I came up with the idea for this pasta in the middle of the night, wrote a bunch of scattered concepts on the note function on my phone, and pieced it all together the next morning. It turned out relatively ok.

13: Bad Behaviour (800 words)

This one was originally going to be another poem, but I decided it would work better as just a regular pasta. And it did work better. It's another intentionally vague pasta, but it's based off something that I imagine was quite common for most people to experience at least once in childhood, which is getting put in 'time out' or being sent to your room.

14: The Toy (500 words)

Around the time I wrote this, I was having really bad writer's block, but was forcing myself to write something in order to break out of my slump. I was scrolling through some writing prompts and eventually came to something along the lines of this pasta. It's about average, I guess. But I've done much better.

15: The Angelica Incident (2000 words)

I had a blast writing this pasta. It's much different to the normal format in which I write my pastas, and was partly inspired by the kind of formatting you see on the the SCP Foundation website. If you're looking for a slightly longer pasta than the likes of Eggs and Bacon or Foot and Mouth, absolutely read this one.

16: The Almond Tree (2000 words)

For me, this pasta was an exercise in creating good dialogue, though it's still one of my personal favourite pastas that I've wrote. The movies Creep and Creep 2 (which are both very good found footage movies that are on Netflix and you should definitely watch them both) inspired me to write this pasta.

17: The Poison Sky (700 words)

I remember when they said to me: "Cornconic, you can't possibly write four stories in a row that all have a title beginning with the word 'the'." BUT I PROVED THEM WRONG! AHAHAHAHAHAHA!

On a more serious note, this was one of the few stories where my first drafts ended up being longer then the final product, and not the other way around. I was inspired to write this by an eccentric family member, who hopefully will never see this blog.

And that's about it.

Oh yeah, and I'd like to give a special thanks to users DrBobSmith and RedNovaTyrant for helping me out with my pastas on the Writer's Workshop so often.

And now, just because I can, ranked from best to worst:

1: Foot and Mouth

2: The Angelica Incident

3: Eggs and Bacon

4: The Almond Tree

5: Anniversary

6: Way of the War

7: The Miracle of Life

8: Bad Behaviour

9: The Poison Sky

10: Vermin

11: The Wallet

12: The Scariest Night of My Life

13: Wounded

14: The Toy

15: Little Birdie

16: A Lonely Machine

17: No Place for the Dead

Thanks for reading all the way through, maybe I'll make another one of these posts when I have more pastas to talk about.