I'm still here, I promise!
I've gotten a lot of people sending me messages asking about when I'm going to update and all that. I'm sorry I haven't been around in a couple weeks, but after my computer stole all my files from me, I developed a bit of a writer's block. I was nearly in tears at one point trying to remember what I had written for 'This Isn't Happening'. My husband saw this, and suggested I take a break from writing for a while. So I put myself in a self-induced leave of absence and refused to touch my Word processor for at least two weeks until I felt comfortable writing again.
I know this will sound like whining, but I was writing three stories at once. And after two days of not writing I realize that I was nearly in tears not because I was frustrated with my writer's block, but because I was frustrated with writing in general. I felt like I was updating at a pace that was mentally exhausting to me (at one point I was posting a chapter every 2 days on average, at around 2000-2500 words a chapter). In the beginning I was writing because I loved it and found it fun, but it's not as fun when you're getting e-mails every other day demanding when you're planning on posting your next chapter and telling you how long you've taken between chapters. I wasn't enjoying it, and thus had very little motivation to keep going with it.
That being said, after my exile, I have decided to keep writing. But I am going to do it at my pace. And I'll write the stories where I have ideas to create a good chapter, and not just writing out a chapter for the sake of updating something I haven't in a month or two. That may mean that updates will be slow for some stories. Right now I'm writing a new chapter for 'The Hunter and the Hunted' because that's the story that I have playing most prominently in my mind. I also have the last two chapters of 'Fire and Ice' in the works, and I really want to get those out so I can finally put that 'completed' flag on it. I have not abandoned 'This Isn't Happening', far from it, but right now I'm going through a difficult phase with my daughter, and when I'm spending 12-14 hours a day with a young one who is the very definition of 'terrible two' at times it kind of kills the motivation to want to write about kids. When I do get some precious 'mommy time' to myself I want to escape to the world of those old enough to drive and drink and have a long, well-reasoned conversation that doesn't revolve around furry red monsters. I have my ideas on where I want my next chapter to come from, I just need to motivate myself to think about kids for a couple hours to type things out.
Speaking of stories that I want to write, I've had a story boring itself into my brain for the past two weeks. I know I promised to write a sequel to 'For Their Greater Good' involving the antivenin working, but for now that story is going to have to stay on the shelf. I just don't think what I have planned out is very good, and unless I get a muse for it you may not be seeing it ever. My new story already has a first chapter mostly scribbled out in a notebook, and I have a good idea of where I'm going with it. No vampire Hermione this time, and that's all I'm giving away for now.
As much as I want to start updating again, it may be a while. I'm very involved in my best friends wedding, and in three weeks it'll be over, but until then I'm stuck being treated as an unpaid intern. Scratch that, I have to pay. Which is another story I'll keep off here.
Hopefully you'll be hearing me on FanFiction soon!