So, as many of you long time fans and followers might've noticed, I'm back -- once again -- from an extended break on the forums here.

"Where have I been," you ask?

The simple answer is the same place I've always been: at home. I haven't died. I haven't went to Timbuktu or anyplace exotic. I've been sitting at home, honestly doing nothing more than twiddling my thumbs a whole lot for the last several months.

"So why the heck haven't you been updating your stories?!"

I just know several folks are going to want to know the reason for this, and the simple answer there is "technical difficulties". First my computer died and the folks at Geek Squad took a look at it to fix it. A week later, I brough it home, plugged it in -- after giving them a nice chunk of cash -- and turned it on... Where it promply failed once again right on the VERY FIRST startup!

GAHHH!!

So, a new appointment was made so they could fix the problem, and several days later the machine was back over at Best Buy/Geek Squad. And, once again, it was over a week before I got it back.. This time, MISSING the screws which hold the expansion cards such as the graphic cards and sound cards!

WTF Geek Squad!! For the prices you guys charge, how the hell can you be so damn worthless!!

Needless to say, I didn't trust their repair at all this time, but I plugged it back up and turned the machine on -- and simply let it set for a few days to see if it'd go back into its endless restart cycle. (I suspected that the issue was the power supply not always generating enough power for all the peripherals and thus shutting down as it spiked. Geek Squad claimed it was a bad video card and charged me to install a new card.)

At first, everything seemed to be working as it should -- but then, when the 30-day repair warrenty ran out, the damn thing began to shut itself down once again randomly! I honestly think this is just a case of the damnable power supply acting up as it gets hot or has to generate peak power, such as when a hard drive resumes from standby mode, but I haven't had it back in the shop to have it tested. The reason it lasted about a month is just from where it was using less power to support a single video card than what it used to use to support the nice dual graphics cards which I had in there...

So, needless to say, all this just annoyed the hell out of me and took away whatever desire I had to sit down and be creative and write, so I just took a nice long break from things until my stress/annoyance levels went back down...

So, I haven't written anything for the past several months, but now I've gotten where I really miss indulging the creative side of myself once again, and I wanted to start back up and just let my mind wander once more.

At first, I was going to start on my existing works here, but then I realized something rather shocking for me: I forgot my characters, settings, and what the hell I had going on with every story!! I need to take time to sit down and reread my own work, refresh my memories of the stories and where I was going with them, and THEN pick them back up from there.

BUT... That takes time, and I found myself with the desire to CREATE something, rather than just spend several weeks revisiting something I'd already created, so with very liittle arguing with myself, I decided on the following plan:

1) Start something NEW, which will hopefully be a single, stand-alone story, without expanding it into the usual series which I seem inclined to do. Give it a start/middle/end, and use it as an opportunity to get back into the habit of writing on a regular basis. Fate's Fortune ( http://royalroadl.com/fiction/14441/fates-fortune ) is going to be that story.

2) Once Fate's Fortune is finished, and I take a small break it edit, proof, and format it properly, I'm going to choose one of my exisitng works and take a week or two and catch up on rereading it and refamilarizing myself with all the little intricies of the story world, and then I'm going to restart it with a rather slow release schedule. (Probably only a chapter a week or so.)

3) While releasing new chapters in whichever work I pick up first, I'm also going to spend a little time catching back up with my other works and slowly restarting them until I get everything back into a normal writing rotation like I used to do.

Now, I don't have a clue what I'm going to catch up to and work on first once I finish up Fate's Fortune. I suppose it'll depend on what mood I'm in when I finish FF. For now though, don't expect to see any real updates for any of my other works, until Fate's Fortune is wrapped up and completed.

I'm *NOT* dropping any of my stories which I've been working on and sharing; but I am leaving the rest of them n hiatus for now, until I get back into a nice writing routine and get caught back up with where and what was going on in with all the rest of our beloved characters and their respective worlds which they exist in.

I hope everyone can understand and bear with me as I move ever forward with writing at my own pace and enjoyment. If not: "PBBBBBBBTTTTTTTTBBBTTTTT!!! Tough titty!"

Darkbringer