Dear Readers:

I suppose I’m vain enough to expect that there will be some of you who charge angrily to my profile when you discover that over half of my stories are suddenly missing.

Yes, I’ve taken down Matters of Instinct, Dogs Don’t Cry, Kitten and the Wolf, Golden, The Lord and His Miko,Alice, and Complex Anatomical Issues, as well as several one-shots and inter-connected one-shot collections.

Before you decide to bring down a rain of fire upon my head, please understand just a few things.

I know this was abrupt and horrible of me, and I’m sorry. I know how cruel it was to take away some of these stories before they’re even finished- especially Matters of Instinct. Twelve chapters and five hundred reviews in and I quit? It’s not unacceptable, but it’s pretty close. I’m sorry, really I am, to all of you who enjoyed that story and wanted to see how it would end.

For me, who has grown so much as a writer since my very first fanfiction, continuing to work on that story in particular was impossible. It was too old, too bad. No matter how much you liked the concept, the fact remains that the writing was entirely subpar. Unacceptable, indeed. So much of the work I had on my profile was so many years old that every time I so much as glanced over it, it felt like I was sitting down to an awkward, embarrassing tea with a much younger me.

Maybe someday I’ll be able to fully overhaul those stories I took down. For now, however, rehashing old fanfictions is simply not important to me.

Why this is no longer one of my most important things is very, very simple.

Fanfiction is killing my writing.

I have long noticed an unsettling trend in fanfiction. The lure of reliance upon an established character persona is a hard one to ignore. Both writer and reader go into the story with a great deal of familiarity, knowing who and what each character will be before hand with little real variation on the subject. It’s a simpler way to get started, a way to explore plot development without needing to worry about the often difficult task of defining an intriguing and emotionally committing character from scratch.

This particular form of writing gives the writer a great deal of practice in developing plot and storyline, but does very little for the writer’s ability to create and personalize an individual character.

For me, it’s been over a year since I felt true, lasting inspiration for a character of my own. I think it’s time for me to take a step away from the ease of “in-character” fanfiction and return to my true passion, which is the original work I should be focusing on anyway.

This doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll stop writing fanfiction entirely. I’ve still got A Tale of Christmas Circumstance and In the Care of Demons up, mostly because they’ree newer and I feel that they display a more up-to-date writing ability. I’ll go to them whenever I need something entertaining and easy to waste a few hours on. They will not, however, be my first priority ever again.

So, I apologize for taking away stories you might have been right in the middle of reading. I know how annoying it is not to know how something ends.

In the end, though, fanfiction registers very low on my importance ranking system.

With far less dedication than I once professed,

Sable M.