Hello, all.
This is MKD, and after years of deliberation and worry, I've made my final decision to go ahead and stop updating this story, and leave it unfinished. It was a very difficult decision, and I'm terribly sorry for leaving you all hanging about it for so long. Here are my reasons:
I'm not at all convinced of this pairing anymore. I don't like the direction Diane Duane is taking the story, and I particularly do NOT like the response she gave to the amount of fanfiction of her story. She made a very flippant comment about fanfiction, and doesn't approve of it at all apparently, and I just don't like her attitude about it. Please don't get me wrong, Ms. Duane is still one of my favourite authors, because of her personality, writing ability, and creativity. Her world is fantastic, and I love the premise of the magic system, the Speech, all of it. But I can't bring myself to read her newer books, because I just feel the series has taken a wrong turn and it doesn't ring true to me anymore, not because of events, but because I don't really recognize the Nita and Kit I fell in love with. I also hate Dairine unbearably, and can't really abide by the switch of focus onto her. I'm sure Diane knows her much better than I do, and perhaps there is something to Dairine I am missing, but I don't like her. Plain and simple. I don't respect her at all as a character. I respect characters with flaws, but it is the author's job to make me either like or strongly dislike the characters but still want to read. Well, I don't like Dairine, but I'm still not hooked like I would be to certain characters people "love to hate." I'm just not interested in her. I don't care to read about her. She's uninteresting, annoying, and I can't bring myself to give one wit about her welfare, good or bad. Kit and Nita are two different characters, and I'm not sure where the change happened, but what convinced me so much of these characters as passionate and engaging was their pairing, and they aren't really paired anymore. Kit has Ponch, Nita has her own demons and friends, and it's all very lukewarm—too much tension without any purpose behind the tension.
I don't like the series anymore. I don't. I see some of myself in Diane Duane, in her interests, in her portrayals of humanity. But I don't see any magic in her writing anymore, and it isn't because I'm growing out of it. If Patricia Wrede wrote something new, I'd snatch it up in a heartbeat, even though the story of Princess Cimorene is somewhat over. I want to see what Wrede will do. I'm not interested to see what Diane will do, because frankly, she has made me fall out of love with her stories and character. I'm sorry to be so brutally honest, but this is just what happened.
Now, why wouldn't I want to continue my fic and write it the way I would want it? Because that's not what fanfiction is for me. Fanfiction is a way for me to use my enchantment with someone else's characters and story to develop my OWN characters and stories with helpful guidelines that really allow me to expand my own creativity in neat ways. I'm disenchanted with Young Wizards. They aren't young anymore, they aren't interesting to me, and I've moved on, in the last year or so. There are other books that continue to amaze me that I'd rather be reading and thinking about. In addition, I spent this last year working on my novel for NaNoWriMo. So that was a nice exercise, and I'm working on developing my own writing so I can eventually give the gift to people that was given to me by Diane Duane, Patricia Wrede, Roald Dahl and the like, growing up. My goal is to be an author, and in the meantime I've got Anthropology and Biology majors and minors to worry about. smile
I will not be abandoning fanfiction by any means. I think it's a good outlet for me, to dream about characters I feel like I know, but who are not of my own creation. I will be continuing to write, I just will not be writing any Young Wizards fiction. It was a good start, but I lost touch with the characters when Diane left the path I was comfortable with. And that's Diane's right—they are first and foremost HERS. She needs to continue to grow and experiment, even as a published author. But I need to write about what I love, also. I do apologize for abandoning the story. I don't like doing that, ever, especially with the support you all have given me, over all these years. I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the comments and help you all have given me. You all are really stellar, and you made my decision so hard! But I trust it, because you made me really think about what I wanted. Thanks, again.
I will be continuing my Harry Potter fic, Recalled to Life—I've done a lot of character development on it, mentally, and am ready to start focusing on it. I may or may not do something with Pirates of the Caribbean. I'd love to do an Inuyasha fic, but I feel as though I don't know enough about the most recent episodes of the manga to know what I'm doing. That's the problem when you stop reading graphic novels, I guess, but I can't afford them anymore! smile I will also be working on my novel, which is definitely more than PG-13, and which I may or may not post it somewhere—if you'd like to know about it, go ahead and drop me a line at my email address or on AIM (should all be in my profile). If you like my writing style, take a look at Recalled to Life, and trust me, my name will be a household one, soon.
Thank you, and please take care!
- McKenzie Duff
