All right. I've been avoiding this actual little news bulletin for quite a while, because I kept assuring myself and kept assuring myself that my feelings would change and time would open up and the muses would inspire me. But that's all negative - a, b, and c. My life is getting insanely hectic right now, and the decisions I'm currently making regarding school and my extra-curriculars are going to determine not only tomorrow and next week and next month, but college and possibly grad school and my future. So they, in the grand hierarchy of importance, have to come first, regardless of whether I want them to or not. Secondly, I've been tossing around ideas for my stories off and on since last Christmas, and nothing noteworthy has ever struck me. The fifth HP book and the changes contained therein did little to help. I think that I've become such a different person from who I was when I first became a part of the fandom - I was a gawky fifteen year old girl who was so in love and passionate about the characters in the books that she just had to get it out somehow - that I really can't go back and pick up where I left off in those stories, because the girl who started each of them off at Chapter one no longer exists. I've experienced joy and love and the sometimes accompanying intense pain and my characters and my depiction of love for those characters now seems stilted and artificial and absolutely meaningless. I'll always hold a fondness in the back of my heart for my stories, but I just can't, on my own conscience, pick them back up and again and ever be truly satisfied with the results. As for starting new stories, I just am no longer that attached to the fanon or canon of Harry Potter. They're great books, and if I ever find the time again, I'm going to re-read them all and be once again bowled over by their sheer simple brilliance and creativity. They were an integral part of my life. They helped me to grow up. But they were an integral part of my past, not necessarily my future, and certainly not to the same extent. Now, they are just books, and just words (though beautiful) printed on paper between two cardboard covers. Maybe the day will come again when Harry Potter will rekindle his magic within me and become this great, all encompassing world again, but that day is a long way off in coming. So this is my official separation from fan fiction and, I suppose, from fandom in general. I'll still keep up my with favorites, and be on the lookout for the masterpieces the rest of you are still sure to be putting out regularly, but that's your thing that I'll be seeing from the outside. I'll no longer have my thing with which to reciprocate in return. And that's all right by me. I've made my peace with it. Life beckons, and I have to answer the call. In the end, I leave this fandom with nothing but fond memories and thanks to all of you for being a beautiful part of the experience.

Love always,
Kelsey