Author's Note (As of May 31st, 2011)

Gasp! Long time no see, eh? I know, I know.

And no, I am not dead and/or missing. Maybe a little crazy, but that's hardly the same thing. Or is it…?

Anyway, before the questions begin, I just want to let you guys know right off bat that I am temporarily taking IMB down from the site. Yep…

Annoyed reader: Explain!

Me: *sweats a little* Um, o-ok.

Well, over the past few months (cough, year) I've been making some major changes/edits to my own hard copy of the story, but it's been a slow-going process, and real life has not be kind in allowing me the time/sanity/drive to go on with it. There were many instances where I would simply throw my hands up in frustration, say that I was done with the whole thing, and storm away from my laptop. At least for a little while - but then I'd always end up coming back to it eventually when I couldn't seem to write anything else. So in the end, the story revision had became more of an off-and-on kind of task which I hadn't been super committed to seeing through. Now though, I'm really going to try and hunker down and stick to my earlier plans of a complete revision/overhaul of the story.

I know that a year's a long time to wait for a work of fiction to pick up again, but for those of you still waiting for the continuation of the story, I hope that you'll be a little more patient with me. The editing is definitely needed – I just noticed recently when I was picking apart chapter one, that the stupid site went and deleted my original page breaks in-between scenes for the first 20 chapters. Ugh! What a nightmare, esp. for you guys reading, right? And that's just one of the many, many faux-pas. – grammar, punctuation, character development, plus some major and minor aspects of the story plot itself need to be fixed and or tweaked… and honestly, all the mistakes are driving me NUTS at this point. My writing style and skills have changed a lot and grown since first posting the story, and I would like those positive changes to reflect in the new version of Il Mio Bello.

As a somewhat-serious author, I do take pride in what I write, so it's a major embarrassment for me to have what I consider a messy conglomerate of prose out there for everyone to see, when it's not up to par with where I know it should be. Make sense?

Editing will probably take me a little while to accomplish, though. This story is f—ing looooong, and heavily detailed, but I'm hoping that by the time I re-post chapters 1-21, readers will have not only a meticulously cleaned up story, but chapter 22 as well.

So until then, take care you guys!

*Hugs* My readers are the best. Thanks for all of your comments, critiques and private messages. I appreciate them all.