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Hey gang! I’m going to try and keep this relatively short, but we’ll see how that goes lol… I just want to say a few words about why I was gone for so long and why I was quiet during that time. So, as some of you correctly deduced, I was feeling more than a little burned out on BDH. I had hoped, to distract myself, and entertain you guys while I dealt with those feelings by trying something new. That new thing was the short lived Going Gonzo series which had quite a significant voter turn out on CSL. But, despite that enthusiasm, it was met with, (at least what seemed to me), a very tepid response. See, here is the thing about fanfiction, and in particular, the problem with celebrity fanfiction. I want to quickly add an addendum to this mini rant, which is, that if you are one of the people actually reading this, this rant probably doesn’t apply to you. The thing about fanfiction is that the people who are writing it ARE DOING IT FOR FREE! (sorry for the caps). What I mean by that is that the people who take the time out of their busy, hectic, crazy lives to write shit for the whole universe to see get very few perks for all their hard work. One of those perks for me especially is to see the view count go up, or to interact with you guys as you write all your lovely comments, or, in the case of CSL, to see those likes accumulate. And, the problem is that not everyone feels the need to hit a like button, and even fewer, the need to comment or drop a review. This is especially exacerbated with celebrity fanfiction because, at least for many, there is a taboo around writing fiction about real people. (I personally feel that once you turn someone into a character they cease to be a real person… but that is a whole different argument which would require many many more lines for me to fully explain)… But I digress. With celeb fanfiction many people don’t mind reading it, but they don’t want their handle (username) associated with it, so they might not comment or like for that reason alone. The other problem with celebrity fanfiction stems from the fact that it is inherently easier to write as you already have a real person to base your fictional character off of (and many of the people writing celeb fics omit any sort of character development entirely). This means that the caliber or skill of the people who write it tends to be less. I can maybe name 2 or 3 writers of celeb fiction at best who I would consider to produce quality work. The rest is a giant field of steaming shit. This lack of quality writing also exacerbates the likes and comments problem because people get used to reading sub-par work and thus get used to the idea that they don’t need to offer the writer any support. So here is my problem. I put 40 or so (maybe less, but sometimes a little more) hours of work into a 20 page chapter which I can comfortably produce once a month. Essentially I am adding 1 unpaid work day to my week each and every week during a month to write quality fanfiction. Now, it might be selfish to say this, but I am working, I feel like I should get something out of it. So when I produce a new chapter or whatever the only thing I get out of it is the likes and the comments. But, because (as stated above) readers of celebrity fanfiction tend to be notorious for NOT doing those things and it really gets me down. Going Gonzo, saw a very lackluster response, even on CSL, where dozens of people voted to select a star and a scenario. Add to that, I’m already feeling burned out because of the sheer volume of time invested in Billion Dollar Harem. (Which by last count is over 700 pages and nearing 2000 hours to produce.) And I’m not going to lie, I seriously considered being done with writing all together. I however, being the calm, logical person I am, didn’t want to do anything rash. I decided to think about it. Well… that thought process took months. I would check in here periodically, just to see how the stories were doing and to read your comments. I felt bad about ignoring them I can assure you. But I knew that I just needed to keep my distance while I thought about what I wanted to do. Eventually, the writing bug hit me and I decided to do another chapter of BDH. I’d like to say that I’m going to dive back in with both feet and get to work on finishing the story up, but I seriously doubt I will…. Obviously, this chapter doesn’t finish the story and there are many things still unresolved. To that, I say I AM NOT DONE WRITING! But… I’m also not sure that I’m going to buckle down every month and take time from things, when I feel more like doing something else to work on BDH. The bottom line is that I have every intention of finishing BDH, but I also probably won’t be producing a chapter every month (unless I feel like it ). I’d like to emphasize that if you’re one of the people reading this, and you’ve gotten all the way down to here, you are definitely not part of the problem. I want to thank you guys, the ones who do take the time to comment, the ones who read every chapter even when it doesn’t feature a celeb that your “into,” or that on other sites, hits that like button. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this story would never have gotten to this point without you guys, because honestly you’re the only ones who make it worth the effort. Thanks again everyone! I look forward to hearing from you guys again real soon and seeing your reaction to the new chapter! Till next time, -Mal P.S. I considered taking the time to address all the comments, but its been so long on many of them and in other cases this post answers those questions I chose not to. I would love to address any new comments. So if this post didn’t address your concern, or you have a new question to ask please do so and I will make every effort to answer it.

“Twist My Arm” is now complete! I’ve just posted chapter 5, plus a short epilogue.

The fifth and final chapter of “Twist My Arm” has gone off to beta. I hope to post it by the weekend. I’m also hoping to post chapter 6 of “Wishful” some time next week.