Wow. It's hard to believe that even after three years of inactivity, this story is still being read. Words are honestly incapable of expressing how grateful am that to this day people are still interested in my little story about a defective gem learning to love themselves and the gems around them.
Words are also incapable of expressing how sorry I am for leaving you all on a cliffhanger since July 14, 2019. But I would like to apologize. I had no intention of leaving things the way I did, but so much was going on at that time in my life that continuing this series felt damn near impossible. The combination of mental health issues, grief, loss, family issues, and then of course COVID-19 made writing this story feel more like a chore than something I love to do. I know I'm not the best writer in the world, but I genuinely enjoy doing it whenever I get the time. Not only do I enjoy spending my free time daydreaming about stories, characters, and fanfic - I enjoy sharing said stories with people.
In 2019, though, my love for writing just…died. And I knew that I couldn't in good conscious continue this series while in the awful mental state that I was in. I began this series with a love for writing and fanfiction, and I intend to finish it with my love for both still in-tact. I never stopped wanting to write this story. I would spend hours upon hours thinking about it, but could never find the time or motivation to do so as I was trying to juggle pursuing a dual degree in music and psychology, along with tackling mental, personal and covid related issues. Even when I wasn't physically writing this story, I was using it to cope with whatever was going on in my life at the time. Now that I am in a much better place - graduated college, have a job, and am in a better mental health space than ever - I want to finish this story.
I hope you are able to forgive me for my absence and that all of yo uare doing well. Thank you to the thousands of you who read my work, and to those who favorited, commented, and reviewed.
Now that all of that sappy stuff is out of the way, lets get back to the story! I hope you all enjoy this story as much as I enjoy writing it. From now on, I intend on uploading at least once a month. I went back and re-read everything and now have the motivation to finish what I started. I intend on posting at least once a month, if not more, and I hope you are all strapped in and ready because this story isn't ending until we get our happy ending. For anyone interested, I will be actively posting on Tumblr from the blog: freshwaterandpearlblog. There you can also submit any fanart you have to be posted (or if you just want to share it with me without having it posted. I've had people do it and it always brings me joy!), see when I update, or see fanart by both myself and other users that might post. I'm definitely no artist, but I enjoy drawing when I have the time. It makes me happy, as does writing.
You guys are awesome. :)