(Feb 25th, 2014) - Hello. Well, when I started this story, I think you should know a few things.

a) I'd never written fiction before.

b) I didn't know how to write, what to write, or the mechanics of writing. It's debatable as to how much I've learned, but it is a certainty that I knew nothing at all in the beginning.

c) I didn't have a story or a plot. The experiment I conducted was "I wonder how long I can fake this." I really thought it would be five or six chapters, and I'd just kind of chalk it up to experience and move on to just reading the fics I love.

Eventually, this story became a thing. And thank you, readers, for that. A lot of lovely reviews (and a few not-so-lovely, but some of those made good points) fueled me to keep going, and really kept me inspired to go forward. Until very, very suddenly, that completely went away. I hit a roadblock, mentally, that was so abrupt that as I submitted chapter 52 I was completely confident things were going well. I've never written before, as I said, so I've also never encountered...whatever this was.

Coincidentally, I had a health issue arise, the kind that makes one's mortality a Real Thing as opposed to an Other People thing. It was for the best. I took better care of myself, took up a new activity, lost about 60 lbs, and I'm pleased with myself for that. But, still, the writing. Dead and abandoned.

Over the next ten (!!!) months, I've written chapter 53 about ten times. I must have 30 to 40k of material that I created and discarded. It's a bit like writing a hundred songs and being absolutely unable to put together an album that doesn't suck. I was profoundly unhappy with everything I'd done, and I eventually wandered away from it, entirely disheartened.

Over the last two months, or so, it started crawling back - perhaps it was because it was the dead of winter and my working out tapered off, a bit. Also, I'll give some credit to fellow author and pal JacksAreWild for reviewing what I had and encouraging me that it might not be the beyond-hope slop that I thought it was. Slowly, with lots of additional editing and tweaking, we shaped it into something. Perhaps it'll be a launching point for chapters that go forth. I now know I can't be sure. But I'm still around, and hopefully most of my regular readers and reviewers are, as well.

Jay