Progress Report:

10/28/05:

Okay. It's been long enough, and I've made a decision regarding my fics. I will not be abandoning them. I'll be honest, I was a bit depressed after reading HBP (though I think it is possibly the best book so far) and I did strongly consider just giving up on them, but lately I've found myself going back to my files and tweaking the plot here and there. I do not, however, have much done on the next chapter of A Matter of Time. That said, I have quite a bit written for future chapters, and even future stories. A Matter of Honor in particular is coming alongnicely. On top of that, I have a new story in the works. Tentatively titled If Wishes Were Horses, this story builds off of HBP in a way I never expected. It will likely be fairly short - maybe even a long one-shot if I can manage it, though that's still in the air. I won't say anything else on that for now, as it's less than1000 words long at the moment and will likely undergo massive changes by the time I get around to posting it. Other than that, I don't have much to say. Just know that I am not dead (yet) and will post again as soon as I have something worth posting.

7/17/05:

I was afraid of that.

If you've read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, then you know what I'm talking about.

Bah.

7/13/05:

Wow. It's been awhile, hasn't it? Almost two months since I gave so much as a progress report, and almost six since my last update. Well, good news! Chapter four of A Matter of Time is just about done, and it is longer than any of the previous chapters. Unfortunately, it doesn't cover much ground plot-wise, but rather it sets the stage for future chapters. I will have it posted before the release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this Saturday.

Which brings me to another, far less pleasant, topic: What will happen to my stories after JKR goes and shows us all how much better she is at this compared to us? The answer is, unequivocally, I Don't Know. Until I've read HBP, I have no idea if any of my plot ideas will still be feasable. I hope that I can continue with them, but if, for instance, Harry dies in HBP, my fic's pretty much shot to hell. I don't actually think this is going to happen, but I think it gets my point across.

Lets just keep our fingers crossed and hope for the best.

5/18/05:

Finals week is HELL ON EARTH! Doubly so for me, as I agreed last December to work on a production of Grease scheduled for this spring. As it turns out, it just happened to coincide with finals week - something that I didn't know about until the week before. Lucky me. It's all over now, though. My last two finals (history and astronomy, if you're interested) were on Monday, and I am now FREE! Free to sleep until noon every day, free to stay up ridiculously late every night, and more importantly for you readers, free to work on my stories. I hope to have an update ready for public consumption within a few weeks. Until then, sit back and enjoy the freedom. I know I will...

4/24/05:

Okay, as you may have noticed there has been a slight delay in my updates. This is mainly due to the overabundance of work I've been doing for my classes. In the past three weeks I think I've written seven seperate papers, each one between five and ten pages long. I have three more due this week, two of which I haven't even started yet. This is severely limiting the time I can put into writing anything else. I still write a few pages here and there whenever I get the chance, but I have quite a ways to go before I have a complete chapter for either of my fics. That's the bad news. The good news is that I only have three weeks of class left before finals. After that I should have enough time to get back to my fics. Wish me luck!

4/4/05:

I hate my life. There I was on Spring Break - Spring Break! - and what happens? I come down with a bleeping cold, that's what. My week of freedom absolutely sucked. And classes start again tomorrow. Wonderful. On the upside, I did manage to write about four pages of Darkness' Bane. I'll probably edit it down, though, since I doubt readers want to hear about my views on Chaos Theory and how it effects Harry...

3/25/05 :

Spring break is a truly marvelous thing. Nine days with nothing to do but lounge around and bask in a feeling of freedom only brought about by time away from schoolwork. I'll be using this time to do some writing, and I hope to finish up at least one new chapter for each of my stories. No guarantees on when they'll be posted, but I don't think it'll be too long.

2/6/05:

Chapter three of A Matter of Time has now been posted. I've already started chapter four, and I have most of Harry's first class written out, which should be in either chapter five or chapter six. As of right now, this story is looking to be around thirty chapters, but seeing as when I started I was thinking along the lines of twenty, I'll let you draw your own conclusions about the validity of my estimates. Every so often I'll have an epiphany, and add three more chapters to the outline. Hey, that gives me an idea...

1/31/05:

Chapter two of A Matter of Time has now officially been rewriten. The new version is slightly longer, and fixes a plot hole that, if all goes well, you readers will never know existed. So go! Read and enjoy! I hope to have chapter three out in a few weeks. As for Darkness' Bane, chapter two of that is very...weird. Really, I wrote most of it at around two in the morning, and when I re-read it in the morning...well, it's not what I expected. It will probably be a while before I post it, though.

1/6/05:

I just posted the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Darkness' Bane, my new story. I'm still working on A Matter of Time, but as I explained below, I hit a snag with chapter three. Namely, chapter two. So I'm posting this instead. Enjoy!

1/3/05:

Okay, here's the deal. I don't like chapter two of A Matter of Time. I know I already said this in my A/N, but it's constantly bugging me while I try to write chapter three. I do have a good bit of chapter three written, but whenever I try to finish it off I inevitably end up editing chapter two. So, here's my plan: I am going to finish the chapter two rewrite before I post anything else. Hopefully chapter three will come a week or two after that.

...just a minute...

...CRAP! I'm supposed to be in class!

No, wait.Wrong day.Phew. Still have time to fall asleep reading and wake up in time to be late for class...

Anyway, I'm in college (University), hence my hectic schedule. I like college, really. Loads of fun. I don't know if I'd leave campus if I didn't have to. Good thing, too, since I'd have to spend most of my time there even if I didn't like it.Unfortunately, this means that I have hardly any free time. This is bad for you, dear reader, because I can only work on my stories in my free time. Because of this, my updates can't be on any kind of regular schedule. Sorry about that.

About me: I am an 19 year old college student, and despite what some of my writing may suggest, I am not an alcoholic. My academic interests include Astronomy, Archaeology, Geography, Medieval Weaponry, Computer Science, Theater, and Physics.

Needless to say, I haven't got a clue what I want to do after I graduate.

My hobbies, besides Fan Fiction, include Archery, Stargazing, building and fixing computers, chopping down vicious weeds with swords, confusing my relatives with fun factoids about String Theory, and occasionally pulling flys (its a theater thing). Oh, and Chain Mail. The armor, not the annoying letters. I like to make it in my spare time...which explains why I haven't made any since last August.

My main story right now is called A Matter of Time. It is part three of a (as of now) four part trilogy (think Douglas Adams). Parts one and two are tentatively called A Matter of Trust and A Matter of Truth, and they follow Harry's sixth and seventh years, respectively. Part four's working title is A Matter of Honor, and will take place near the very end of Harry's lifetime (100-150 years after the end of A Matter of Time). It will be my first fic not told from Harry's POV, and will follow a young OC Auror who has yet to be named.

Also posted now is Harry Potter and the Darkness' Bane. It is a sixth year story that I was writing before I started A Matter of Time, and for a while it was going to be part of A Matter of Trust, before I decided I wanted to take it in another direction entirely. Just to be clear, the two are now very different stories.

A note on Harry's love life: Romance will not be a major plot point in any of my stories. In Darkness' Bane Harry will be much too busy for any kind of serious relationship, and in A Matter of Time my only choice would be an OC, and I'd rather not get into that. A peripheral OC I'll do, but for a love interest I'd need to develop a character that was a healthy mixture of likeable and believable, with a smidgen of disagreeability and a pinch of immaturity thrown in for kicks. I don't want to put that much effort into a disposable character (which is what they'd have to be, for reasons I can't get into without revealing future plot points). As of now, I only have one major OC planned. He will be the focus of A Matter of Honor, and I have spent quite some time writing up a background and creating what I hope is a believable personality (even if he doesn't have a name yet). And no, before anyone asks, it won't be a slash fic. Actually, none of my fics will be slash. I have nothing against homosexuality, but it's just not my cup of tea. I think Michael Shanks said it best: "Whatever floats your boat, whatever stirs your coffee."

I have quite a few fics in the works, and I'm curious to know if you all would rather I post them as I write them, or that I focus on those I've already posted and save the new ones until those are finished.

That's about all for right now. Check back here for update news, and feel free to email me with any questions/comments/suggestions, or if you just feel like it.

And before I leave you, I shall attempt to provide some amusement in the form of my favorite quotes.

"He hoped and prayed that there wasn't an afterlife. Then he realized there was a contradiction involved here and merely hoped that there wasn't an afterlife." - Douglas Adams

“My doctor says that I have a malformed public-duty gland and a natural deficiency in moral fiber, and that I am therefore excused from saving Universes.” – Douglas Adams

“On the way back, they sang a number of tuneful and reflective songs on the subjects of peace, justice, morality, culture, sport, family life, and the obliteration of all other life forms.” – Douglas Adams

"Among life's perpetually charming questions is whether the truly evil do more harm than the self-righteous and wrong." - Jon Margolis

"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'" - Isaac Asimov

"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong." - Voltaire

And finally, irrefutable proof that J.K. Rowling is a literary genuis:

"WHY ARE YOU WORRYING ABOUT
YOU-KNOW-WHO?
YOU SHOULD BE WORRYING ABOUT
U-NO-POO--
THE CONSTIPATION SENSATION
THAT'S GRIPPING THE NATION!"
- J.K. Rowling

-D.S.