The Future of My Stories

Hello, guys! I know this may be long, but if you're a dedicated reader of mine, this will be worth it. I owe it to you all to tell you what has been going on in my life and why everything has been so incredibly nuts on this website--hence why my writing is not coming as often or why it's not at its regular expectations. Here is my explanation:

This year is my Junior year in high school, which is stressful enough. On top of that, because of my prospective colleges, I am taking an extra honors online course (that all work must be completed at at home since it's online and an extra course), SAT classes that last for hours on end, and I'm preparing to practice tutoring freshmen in Italian since I got nominated to be in the Italian National Honor Society. I am President of the club, so much of my after school activities are devoted to doing charity events to help the natural disasters that happened in Italy a few weeks ago--specifically Liguria and Tuscany. On top of this, my school has decided to change our regular physics course (which I am struggling greatly in) to a self taught one because it's cheaper and we all have laptops. That means that I'm somehow failing every test I take, but have to work double as hard on homework and weekly projects to keep my B in the coursethe only thing keeping me from being on high honor roll. At least every two weeks, I am required to do projects for this course that take up anywhere between 10 and 17 hours of my free time. So, I have to balance the expectations of my Italian Presidency, on top of a full extra courses work at home, on top of two essays a week (one for Journalism and one for English), on top of 17 hour projects, on top of SAT courses, with regular homework, the most excruciating being math, thrown into the mix. To make matters worse, my mother was recently diagnosed with something I'd prefer not to talk about, and everything is stressful.

The point of that long rambling paragraph is that I am stressed out. And it's not just a regular level of stress. It's a level of stress that's making me stay home from school because I'm making myself puke since I'm damaging my body psychologically and physically. And it's a level of stress that's beginning to scare my guidance counselor, my family, and my friends, because at times, I can't even seem to find the strength to get out of my bed and walk to school since I am so mentally exhausted. A few days ago, I fell in front of the school, because my body is beginning to give out on me, specifically my knees. And it's scary. Because my education is important to me and writing is just as important. Everyone's telling me that I need my escape, something to calm me, and my escape always has been and always will be writing. But how can I find the time to write with all that homework when I am so exhausted and so... sick and tired of every little thing? Well, I think I have an idea.

You, my readers, motivate me to do everything that I do on this website. I wouldn't have been capable of the amount of success that I've had as a writer here if it were not for you. And, to be honest, because of you guys, I would continue a story that I fell out of love with a long time ago. Simply because you wanted it, and though I write to free myself, I write for your happiness and praise as well. Every good comment you guys leave me makes me smile, especially those well thought out ones that take a while to write because you genuinely want to make me happy. The people who leave me things like those are probably the single-handed reason as to why I refuse to stop writing, despite everything going on in my life. Because, in all honestly, it's hard as a writer to continue writing when no one is telling you they enjoy what they're reading. It's like there is no motivation to do anything since no one is enjoying it, so why continue when there are other important things to be going on? I hope you guys understand that I'm not throwing anyone under the bus, but I'm trying to explain how I've felt about everything recently. It's hard to write to begin with, and it's even harder to write when I feel like nobody is enjoying it. But that's beside the point. I have to tell you my plan before I bore you all to death.

The plan is this: I am going to put a few stories on a brief hiatus. Brief is the key word. I will not end them. The point is, the stories that I enjoy writing for the most and the stories that you enjoy me writing for the most are going to stay and then when they are done, the others will be continued. It's hard to put my fingers to the keyboard and write a chapter for a story that I know is due by now and it's only exemplified when it's not particularly a story I want to write for at this very moment. Now, I'm going to list what I want to do for my list of stories. If you have any objections because you love a story so much, then please, object. Comment on the story, comment on here, just tell my why you don't want me to let it go. I want you guys to help me make these decisions. Honestly.

So, the future of my stories:

Clearly - This story is so unbelievably close to getting completed that you have no idea. The only reason it takes so long to get a chapter out is because I have to update all the other stories before it that have not been updated before, before I am able to update this one. However, I love this story as if it were a child. The way I try to detail it makes me happy, and I hope that you guys feel the same way. So, this story will be kept since there is so little of it left to complete. Since the beginning of this story, I have also planned a surprise to come after this story.

The Surprise After Clearly - No, I don't want to upset you, but it will not be a sequel. The story, where I plan to end it, will be perfect, as you guys will see. Honestly, I dread writing the ending not because it's sad--I'm highly incapable of writing sad endings--but because I love the characters so much that I don't want to let them go. The surprise is that there will be another new story after Clearly is completed. I don't want to ruin the name or plot for you just yet, but I can promise you that it is entirely unique and much different than my average plot line. The surprise will be staying because it already has two chapters pre-written. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do because it is so unique. I'm a bit nervous about your feedback on it.

Sensations - This story will be completed, as well. I love this story with all my heart. What worries me about this story is that I don't think some of you enjoy it as much as I do. It's as if my readers for it are dwindling or that you guys are losing sight of the plot since I get so many messages asking for sex. Please, just stop. I'm writing this story about emotions and the way I wish a relationship to feel, not for sex. Yes, I understand I'm descriptive, and things will come, as expected in any relationship, but I want to run the plot at my pace because I looked forward to this story for literally years. Please, just bare with me, and if you value my sanity, stop asking for that type of behavior in it just yet. I can't handle it. It makes me feel like a bad writer, almost. And I'm really trying to stop feeling that way, as evidenced in my above, detailed explanation of what's going on in my life, especially with my emotions. To further your happiness: I promise a sequel for this story. It's already highly planned out and I can't wait for that one as well, but I have to have the time to complete the prequel first, eh?

Save Me - This story will be completed because of the lovely motivation and understanding from my amazing co-writer, Lauren. Sometimes, I don't even possess the time to get on this site to write for myself, but I would still get on this website just to read her stories real quick. She knows that I'm struggling and she is patient with my problems. I haven't updated in months, but it will be updated soon, without a doubt. That's a promise, it's next on my list. This story, too, is coming to an end.

Denial - This story will be continued because of my co-writer, Twoony. I cannot stop any story that I am sharing with someone else. To be honest, my motivation for this story left me a while ago, for some reason unbeknownst to me. Because of this, Twoony and I decided to speed up the original plot a tiny bit, but it will be completed none-the-less. There will be no sequel to this story. I wouldn't be able to write it. I enjoy the story, but it's time has come to be over.

I'm Lost Without You - As many of you know, this is the sequel to I'm The One In Charge. As shown in ITOIC, even if I temporarily fall out of love with a story, I'll temporarily struggle through it, even if my writing expectations dwindle a bit, for you guys. But this story got off to a bad start. It was reported before I could even put the first chapter up. And as it makes me smile that many of you wished there were more than one chapter up currently, I don't have the motivation to continue Nate and Rain's story because of the foot that this story jumped off on. I am choosing to put this story on a brief hiatus because I not only want to fix up the plot, but I, as a writer, need a temporary break from my boys. Not only did I make their journey hard, but a lot of you guys made writing their journey hard for me because of how many times I was reported or yelled at. I just need a temporary break from them. This story is on my mind to just cancel since it's not necessary, but we'll cross that bridge when it comes. I want to give it one last shot in the future, for you guys, but I have too much stuff on my plate and some things have to be cleared off--this being one of them. A brief hiatus simply means that this will be put back on and updated regularly once I clear a few of the other things off my plate.

Living In Fear - I truly loved this story when it was started and to this day, I love my co-writer. But I hope you understand when I say that my co-writer and I have fallen out of contact because she's in college and I have my Junior year to worry about. I'm leaving it up if she ever wants to come back for it, but for now, I guess, it's on a hiatus, too. This is not official, as I have not talked to her about it and will whenever I catch her online, but for now, it hasn't been updated in a while since she can't get to it and I don't have the time to update her character once more. I'm sorry for those who loved this story, but with the lack of updates, it's almost as if I've fallen out of love with it and moved on to falling in love with some of my newer boys.

Short Stories - I am always writing short stories and any that I write will be continued to be posted, if I think they're worth posting. I've written quite a few recently, so maybe I'll fix them up and post a couple. I have one in my head that I'm considering turning into a full out story. Who knows, maybe you guys will have a new set of characters to meet, once more. To make sure that my account is still active, I want to write more short stories. So, if any of you have any plot line ideas, you may send them to me and if I can figure a good short story out, I'll write it and post it and give you credit for the plot line. I want to make you guys happy and continue writing for you, so that's one of my ideas to continue writing.

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With all of that out of the way, I want to know your opinions on anything mentioned above. If you disagree with a story that I've cancelled or put on hiatus, explain why. I want to know what you guys are thinking. In fact, I also want you guys to submit me plot lines, too. If one's good enough, I'll write it for you. Honestly. I want my account active. I need to write to stay sane.

I'd also like to cover one more topic. A lot of you are a bit upset that I am not accepting your friends requests. To put it simply, I've met some not-so-nice people on this website that will remained unnamed. But they've ruined a lot of things for me, whether it be respect or trust. And yes, there have been several people like this. I love you guys, as my readers, and will communicate with you through private messages always and comments on my stories. I want to get to know you, but I just can't go through the emotional pain again over people on the internet. For those of you who wanted to add me because you're new to mibba and you don't want to lose my profile, just copy and paste my profile link into a draft, or subscribe to my stories, or put me under a favorite author. Or you can simply send me a PM, that will inevitably be replied too, and you'll always have my link in your PM box.

The last item on this agenda is that everyone is asking me for stories to be recommended. As I mentioned above, if I am on here, it's to continue reading stories that I've enjoyed. So, I'll give you a list of the stories that I am currently reading to get me back on here. They've been making me sign on more. So, here are my current obsessions that are motivating me to continue to write, as well:

Seeking Samuel - This story is amazing and entirely unique and the writer is absolutely genius. I love Lisa with all my heart and although we don't talk as much as we used to, she is still a huge source of my motivation on this website. Also by the same author, Horizon Lines and it's sequel that is still being worked on, Wonder Years. Both are amazing reads. Anything written by this girl is an amazing read. She inspires me to write and I look up to her as a writer.

Just Come Running is a sequel to another story written by the lovely Lauren. I'd recommend reading the prequel before reading this one, but it's updated regularly and almost complete.

Plaything and The Light Keeper's Assistant are both written by the same author, who is a real inspiration. Her account is currently on an indefinite hiatus, but her stories are wonderful. I've read both the above completed stories several times and they never get old. If you are in need of any other stories to read, Peter Pan Loves Me and it's sequel, Finding Neverland, are great as well.

I think that marks the end to a disastrously long journal entry. Please, give me your input guys. It will be much appreciated. I want you to be as much of a part of this decision as I am.