//------------------------------//
// A Message to My Readers... 
// Story: Not as it Seems 
// by DamnToasty 
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Well...it's been awhile, and wow, that's an understatement. I am aware that I have most likely already pissed off a few people who thought this was a new chapter by now, and to them, all I can say is sorry. But not only them, I would like to say sorry to all of you. Now, I am going to spare you a laundry list of excuses pertaining to life and other responsibilities being the cause for my absence, mainly, because those should go without saying. What I am here to tell you is the true cause for my...lengthy...hiatus.

When I first joined this site, I was inexperienced in the art of creative writing, and had little to no understanding of how to put it into practice. All I had were ideas, ideas that I wanted to share with a group of people with interests parallel to my own. So, I typed out a few thousand words, took a deep breath, and clicked publish, and I was happy. Happy, because I was getting to share my work, and put whatever amount of skill I had at the time to good use. And it was enough for me. 

That was over two years ago. 

Huh, it's funny how what in the grand scheme might seem like a short amount of time can feel like so much more within my own mind. In that time, I continued to write, progressively improving as you all critiqued my work. As my quality increased, more and more came to read what I had wrote, and I loved that. I was excited every time time I saw that I got a thumb up, or when someone favourited one of my stories, or when I got a comment of praise. I was excited that people liked what I was making, and that they it as something  more than a random teenager's errant thoughts. But as my popularity grew, so did my desire for more of it. This desire getting so bad to the point where I was no longer writing for the fun of it, but rather, to get that like, comment, favorite, or maybe even a place on the featured bar. I began to get frustrated whenever I wrote, because my self-conscious was constantly nagging in the back of my head with that question, "Will they like this?!". I am afraid to say that it got so bad to the point...where I could no longer write, because I told myself it wasn't worth it...

That is why I have been gone so long, why I haven't written. Think of my situation as you will, be it that it is a cliched reason and poor attempt to quit, or a truthful struggle between happiness and paranoia. You have a right to your own opinion. I know mine's already made up. 

As to the state of this story, and my other stories, concerning my followers. I cannot provide a set date when they will be continued, or even if they will be continued. But, as of now, all my open stories will be placed on hiatus, so that maybe one day, if I can ever learn to love my art the way I did at it's inception,  I will come back, and finish what I started. For now, however, all I can do is ask for your patience, and hope that mine is not fully spent. I will remain active on the site, and on my group, as I still enjoy reading the work that you all create, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. 

I thank you all for your time over these past two years, and I pray that my writing brought at least some of you the slightest bit of happiness, and that if I ever choose to come back, that it will continue to do so. Thank you, and to all of you I wish a Merry Christmas, and a most prosperous New Year. 

-This is RobertBel98, we're done here...