Ok, so I feel really bad I've left everyone hanging. It started out innocently, but as it dragged I felt worse which made it harder to come back which made me feel worse which made it harder to come back. Classic ugly vicious cycle.

But y'all deserve some explanation.

Last fall I had a number of things happen simultaneously. Job responsibilities spiked, family health stuff drew a lot of attention, and my laptop broke. The laptop was the easiest to deal with, but it was kinda a last straw and it broke my daily writing habit. That's all bad news. The good(ish)(for me) news is that I haven't walked all the way away.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I'm working on major rewrites to book 1, there's a few things that need real attention even if I'm happy with the bones of the story. Pun intended. I'm also starting to shop the story to agents, even though having published here may impact that I haven't gotten the entirely negative responses I'd expected. As an aside, some of the rewrites have already invalidated a lot of what I've written for book 2, which is OK because I wasn't totally happy with it so far anyway.

So the long and short of things is that I'm removing the book 2 chapters and I'll also be marking the story complete.

So, again, thank you everyone for following and reading my little story. You've all been a major help to me in this story, and I'm very happy that you've all come along with me on this ride.