Wherefore art thou, Instant Gratification?

I've decided to update this story with an addendum. You know, like, why have I not updated it in seven years? Why indeed? I take my sweet time in writing, and I have way too many "Yeah one day I'll complete that projects," and I'm always helping out other people with plot bunnies and improvements and what not. But why oh why do I never reopen Instant Gratification? Do I just not care? Do I not want to write out everything I've spent countless hours and free time planning? Do I not want the visions in my head that I have obsessed over at times to take form and shape for you, my readers?

I do, honestly. Okay, well that's good, right? So why am I not doing it? I've had to do a lot of soul-searching as to why every time I pick up this story I can never write more than a few paragraphs before putting it down again. It's not that I no longer am interested, or that I have better things to do, or just don't care. No, when I look over the work as a whole, there are two profound things that stick out for me.

The first is that I am simply not the person that I was when I began writing Instant Gratification. I first began publishing it nearly a decade ago. June 13, 2005 to be exact. About two months shy of a full decade. So as you can imagine, who I was at the age of twenty-five is not who I am at the age of thirty-five.

By all accounts, my life would probably be considered depressing by many people. Now, let me preface by saying that it's not some kind of tragic, wrist-slitting, how do I get up in the morning kind of thing. In general, I'm a rather blessed person. I have a job that brings in a good income. I can afford to buy myself many toys, and treat my family to the things I want them to have. I even fund projects on Kickstarter and give to charity. But as much as this may seem a contradiction to my earlier statement, my life has changed precious little in the last decade.

I am still working for a cable company. It's a far better one than I used to gripe about back in some of my author's notes from ten years ago. And I've done pretty well here, been holding down this job for eight years. But there are still a lot of frustrations and things are beginning to sour. Aside from that professional situation, I'm still doing the same things. I moved out of my parents house, many years ago, but I only live right down the street from them. I spend more time at their home than my own (trust me, it's far nicer) and I even sleep at their place on the weekends.

But my life has become rather routine and empty. When I stopped regularly writing Instant Gratification in 2006, it was due to some health issue with my father. He pulled through just fine and the tumor in his brain is gone. It was a benign tumor however it had grown so large it was pushing his brain out of place. But due to a fantastic surgeon and my father's general good constitution, he survived the surgery just fine and regained the things he had lost, except for his remaining death in his left ear, which is permanent. A small price to pay, overall. However, after this ordeal, I began spending most of my free time with my best friend, and a lot of my writing took a backburner. I did write other things, but I never really got back to IG beyond one chapter. For about eight years, I spent just about every weekend with my best friend enjoying the real world. Sadly, in December of 2013, he moved away and I know only see him about once a year or so. In addition, my honorary brother, the other person I am most close to, got married about ten months prior to my best friend's departure. This put the two people most important to me more outside of my circle. While my bro makes time for me whenever he can and his wife is a great match for him and a woman I have no quarrels with, his priority has to be to her. I'm not selfish, I totally understand and respect that-as it would be the same with me were our roles reversed. Nevertheless, it means I have a little less interaction in my life. And more importantly, it drives some things home for me.

I'm alone. All I really have are my parents and my internet friends. Even my co-workers whom I occasionally spend time with outside of work, one by one they are leaving for parts and places unknown. I have no significant other, and I have no local friends. My days off now often involve sleeping half of the day away. I don't have motivation to get up and do things. Because I have no one around that shares my interests. I'm not saying all these things looking for everyone's pity. I'm putting it out there because, well, this is who I am. I have a job that pays my bills well, but it's not what I want to do with my life. I'm thirty-five years old, I've got no local friends, my parents are rapidly aging, and I haven't really figured out what I'm supposed to be doing with my life yet. This is a vastly different outlook that I had when writing Instant Gratification. Things just haven't happened for me yet. I don't know when they will. I'm not even sure what I should do. Truth be told, if I could hold any job in the world, I would find a way to write for these cartoons I love. Not just in a fanfic capacity, but officially. But I live in Connecticut and I need to find the strength to move away from all I know and head West. At any rate, this is where I'm at in my life currently.

The second reason I haven't updated IG is due to my own constructive criticism. I'm not going to mince words. The story is a mess! It's a lot of different things I have going on cobbled together, but the structure is terrible and in need of some huge editing. While I'm proud of a lot of the material in here, the presentation is not what it could be. I feel like I need a professional editor to hack through it all and make it better. That's a daunting job and it scares the hell out of me. But it's the truth.

So what does all of this mean? Am I officially abandoning the story? Is it up for adoption? Am I taking it down? Am I locking myself in a basement and not coming out until it's completed? The answer to all of those things is no. I still want to finish the story. I just don't know when it will happen and in what capacity. I love IG, I know where I'm going with it, I've played the ending through in my head hundreds of times. It'll make you laugh. It'll make you cry. It will (hopefully) make you glad that you read it.

So this is what I intend to do. I'm going to let you know where the story is going-IF you want to know. I'm not going to post it here at FFN, and ruin it for those that might not want to see it. But, if you want to know what's going on in my head, what was the point of IG, who is Arnold going to be with, and what about all the crossover characters, what's the plan there? I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything that I can. I will answer your questions, comments, compliments, and complaints. In as much detail as I am able. There are a few ways I will do this. The first is that you can send me a PM. I will respond to you within a reasonable time. If you want to have a real discussion about why I made decisions I did with the story or how I decided this character ends up with that character or what not, I'd absolutely love that opportunity. For a more personal look into things, you can Instant Message me. I use one of the oldest messengers, AOL Instant Messenger, also known as AIM. You can download it for most devices for free and it works with many other messenger programs. My screenname there is "Asukaphile26." Send me your IM and I'll be glad to start a conversation. If I am not online, I will still respond when I can. I keep very weird hours. I live in the Eastern Time Zone in the USA. That is GMT- 5:00 to anyone outside the USA. I am generally online between about 1AM and 7AM, seven nights a week most nights in that time zone. I often get on earlier via my phone-but I am usually at work so responding can be more difficult. But summer is coming up so if you want to spend a night talking about HA (or any of my other works, or anything else you might like, I'll be available).

So, this is where Instant Gratification stands. I have some other works in limbo-most notably The Devil You Know. It's been awhile since I updated Seized With Life but I'm picking away at a new chapter on that. Still, I will answer some questions and inquiries on those stories as well to anyone who asks, but I wanted to focus this post on IG for now.

Lastly, I just want to thank any and all of you who read my story-whether it was a decade ago or recently. Instant Gratification still means a lot to me and it's certainly my greatest success as a fanfiction author. It's why I don't just want to write it off completely. It is my hope to be in a place where I can properly write for it again. Your reviews, not just the praise but the proper constructive criticism and compliments, helped me a lot. You all kept me going through some difficult times. And I thank you for it. I owe you more, and I'm trying to find a way to give it to you. I hope that this will suffice for now.

I know I've said that I'll answer all your questions, comments, compliments, and complaints. But if you'd like, you can still send your love letters, death threats, marriage proposals, and ransom demandsas well. I just wouldn't be Lord Malachite without them.

Thanks for being you,

Lord Malachite

4/18/15