The only reason for this blog is to kinda keep people up to date with me.  It's been over a month since I've really accomplished anything, so I figured I'd let you all know that I haven't been a total slacker this whole time.  I've been working on several little one-shot projects, but finally have settled on one in particular.  It's not a one-shot anymore, rather a collection of seven one-shots that kinda conglomerate into a semi-cohesive story, and I'm working on the sixth of those at the moment.  Shouldn't actually take me too much longer to finish the whole thing and then I can finally throw all my readers a bone!  Once that's done, though, I fully plan on keeping up my work with Study Buddies and Grimoire's Sequel, but for now I've decided to work on something a little more simple and relaxed before the end of my semester!  It's starting to get wild now, especially since I just started a job, so I can't promise any kind of consistency (as if I ever have) but I can promise that I haven't abandoned y'all!  Thanks, everyone, for sticking with me, and I hope that you'll enjoy some of the things that ought to be getting published in the near future.

I have to admit, I was a little skeptical at first, but the extra $19.99 US for FimFiction Gold® Membership has been absolutely worth it.  I must say, my favorite feature of the service has got to be the 24/7 live webcam stream of Knighty's bedroom.  That is one unbelievably active space, I tell ya.  Anyway, if you don't have one yet, I very much recommend going out of your way to purchase an upgrade to your account; you can do so by sending an IM to any of the website's administrators requesting an audience with Knighty so that your worthiness can be determined.  This will be done in live webcam chat, this is normal.  If you don't have access to a webcam, you'll need to get one before sending any requests for Gold Membership, I recommend This One, once purchased and installed, send your IM to the respective administrator of your choice, but here's the trick: Not everyone gets in, only those who prove their patience.  Patience is, after all, a virtue, so you must send three, and exactly three IMs to your administrator.  If they don't respond or if they ban you, this is normal, just track down their email addresses (this can be done by visiting the site without logging in and clicking on the contact information) and send them three more emails.  Be sure to caption each one "Shut Up and Take My Money".

Before you know it you'll have a FimFiction Gold® Membership just like me.  Your stories come to life within just a few short months as the top team of FimFiction Gold® Animators create flash versions of each story written by a Gold user, and are only visible to other Gold users.  The top corner of the website becomes a view into Knighty's private life, and his tax information is for your own private viewing via a live feed in the bottom right corner.  On top of that, you'll be given the option of a free and legal keylogger to send to any person within this website of your choosing, which will then retrieve all of that person's information for you.  I hope you all enjoy  FimFiction Gold® as much as I have, and I sincerely look forward to seeing you at the bi-weekly shrimp cocktail and caviar social!

Well folks, those of you who followed Grimoire, be it from the very beginning or from some time in between, will notice that it's come to an end!  It took me 4 days shy of a year to write that thing!  33 chapters, 143,026 words in total, and a cast and crew of literally just me writing and editing it (though I certainly did give a few people sneak peaks to preread chapters before they came out on occasion, special thanks to all of you!  You know who you are).  I know there were plenty of mistakes and errors abound, I know it wasn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but I had a blast writing it and it is, to this date, the longest running project I've ever followed through to the end in my life!  It feels good, really good, and I really hope you all enjoyed the ride.  

There will be a sequel, but before I get to work on that I have to live up to a promise I made a very long time ago.

To all of you fans of Study Buddies, I can happily announce that starting very soon I'll begin editing and subsequently continuing that story!  I need a small break, before I get started, though, as I do have this college semester to keep up with, but I look forward to making better the story that really put me on this site as someone with even the tiniest bit of reputation.

Thank you to everyone who follows anything I've ever written for supporting me, for criticizing me when I needed it, and for helping me develop and learn how to be a better author.  I look forward to whatever the future holds!

Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Kwanza, Yule, Wintersday, whatever you celebrate I wish you a happy one of.  Times like this are meant to be spent with friends and family, so for all of you who are reading this I hope you had a wonderful and safe Holiday and continue to do so throughout the New Year.  For those of you who can't spend time with your families (and believe me, I had a few in my own family this year) just know that they're thinking about you and that no matter where you are the light and fire of family love should always keep you warm.

Happy Holidays ~Samsara

So I was just curious tonight and decided to see, as far as page count goes, just how much I've written...  Well it was actually a little surprising.  

Thus far: Study Buddies itself sits within the range of 150 to 180 pages in length...  I've recently read books shorter than that.

Grimoire is about the same, only a tiny bit longer (the page length depends entirely on how much dialogue is in them vs. summary paragraph)

My one-shots are only between 15 and 22 pages or so, but altogether on this site over the 54 weeks I've been online I've written somewhere between 315 and 382 pages of stories that I was more or less proud enough of to publish and share with you all.  

I don't expect anybody to actually care about any of this, it was just something interesting I found out as a child of boredom.  Personally I'd be interested to see how much any of the more established and popular authors on this site have written over their careers (this was extremely informal by the way, I copy and pasted a single chapter and found out that 10,000 words or so leads into a little over 17 pages, so I just pulled a range out of my ass that I think would encompass the margin for change and did these rudimentary calculations)

So yeah...  That's an average of around 6 pages of writing per week, so one a day with sundays off or somethin' like that.  Not that I like this hobby or anything like that.

Maybe if I got to writing a novel or something I'd be gettin' paid by now x3 or frustrated with the amount of rejections I've gotten (probably the latter)

So here I am, at 2:00 in the morning where I'm from just staring out my window and watching it snow.  It's really coming down, by the way, probably a good three inches so far.  There's something absolutely pretty about the snow, just a pure white blanket that falls down from the sky and sticks to absolutely everything, making it sparkle and shine and look as fresh as a bleached sheet right out of the laundry.

Then I remember that I live in Colorado...  I've seen it snow in July, it always snows in the spring, and when it snows in winter we're lucky to get more than 4 inches tops that will just melt the next day, freeze into death-trap black ice on the street overnight, and then make everything really really cold.  The wind always picks up this time of year so you get sharp little crystals blowing in your face while you walk to wherever it is you need to go, the chilly air stings almost as hard as getting the filthy slush from the ground crawling up your jeans and chilling you to the bone.  Not to mention the fact that it makes anybody who's driving around extremely stupid (my friend almost T-boned some dipshit that ran a stop sign at a major cross street while speeding, and it's only been snowing for about a day and a half now).

Snow's really pretty, but it also sucks, so while I have the chance I'm just going to sit here, warm and cozy in my bed with my fresh and clean sheets and stare out the window.  I'm going to watch the snow fall down in those big fluffy stereotype flakes that we all see in those pretty little movie scenes, waiting for it to pile up and melt on the still-warm ground until it finally sticks, and then I'm going to pretend like that prettiness doesn't come with a price.  That way maybe, just maybe, I can deal with the fact that I haven't had time to write anything in nearly a week and have been kept away from most of my hobbies by school, work, and just general relaxation time with my friends on the weekend...  It's no wonder so many writers back in the day were alcoholics (Bukowski anyone?), but it's a damn good thing I don't drink or I might be dead by now.

Complaint #6,938,287 over, thanks for reading!

Finally this fucking week is over...  Three Exams and a slightly embarrassingly unprepared presentation behind me as well as a forced short-story that I get to have workshopped on Tuesday x.x  On top of the three stories I get to read and workshop for everyone else... yay.  Guess who doesn't feel like writing jack shit tonight?

Moral of this blog post is: My motivation's shot, sorry to everyone but don't expect any new chapters in anything for a little while...  Gotta recuperate from this flood of stress.

So tonight I had a very philosophically relevant experience.  After an entire day of absolutely nothing going right, what with internet refusing to work, computers acting like someone had tinkered with them, alarm clocks mysteriously un-setting themselves (or at least ignoring the fact that they'd been set) and roommates having vomited all over their bathroom floor so they all needed to use mine, I decided to make something for "dinner" that was absolutely nothing but shameless self-indulgence that I should never do again: a Bacon Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  I don't wanna bore you with the details, (though this IS a blog, so therefore it's explicitly for boring you with insignificant details) but it involves making bacon, cooking a grilled cheese sandwich in the bacon grease, then putting the bacon on the grilled cheese and eating it as one divine entity.  But I digress.

I was standing there in front of the stove after having thoroughly cleaned the kitchen since I'm the only one who can be arsed to do it, enjoying the smell of cooking bacon when suddenly POP.  

The cooking bacon crackled as it normally does, but spat a bit of hot grease out of the frying pan and into my EYE!

Of all the places that bacon grease could have hit me (and all the other places that it did) why the hell did it have to be my eye?

That has thoroughly convinced me that this entire day was specifically tailored to frustrate me and break down my will until I'm just a sobbing mass of author.  However, when the most delicious and revered thing on the internet attacks and attempts to blind you, it really puts things into perspective.

It can always get worse.  If you all stop getting updates to your favorite stories or just stop seeing me online, I'll say that luck had dictated it was time for the water heater to explode or at least release a potent cloud of carbon monoxide into my room.  

Starting tomorrow at 9:00 in the morning and through at least the next 3 or 4 days I'll be periodically moving into my new home.  As such, I won't be writing at all, so my usually slow progress will be further hindered by absolutely no progress for a limited time. x3 I sincerely apologize, but at least I've got a chapter out right before, that ought to tide you over while I continue to work on Grimoire.  Thank you all again for sticking with me!  I know I've got a frustrating pattern of updates, but I'm trying.

Anyone else (preferably those of you across the pond) get those 502 and 504 errors every so often on this site?  Or is it just the dirty 'Mericans like me?  I'm wondering if we should pester Knighty to upgrade his server a little or if it's just the crossing of international lines that brings out this problem. xP