I dou’t know if anyone will see this or not. But I noticed that some of you, bless your hearts – have posted from time to time and I want to write something.
I have wanted to post so many times… started so many times. But without updates it really seemed very pointless. It was hard to see the negative comments about there being no updates, however rare they may have been, and I have felt terrible about the frustration that people have about the story not continuing.
I am frustrated as well. I have rewritten a relaunch to Xylia no less than seven times. Two of the rewrites have more than two chapters! But then I’ d get stuck, or waylaid in the real world, then stop writing, go back to what I had and it was ‘all wrong’.
But honestly the biggest problem isn’t time, real life problems, writer’s block, or insecurity – and those are all there in multitudes. The biggest problem is that I have changed. Profoundly. The person that wrote the previous chapters of Xylia and the romantic story of Talismen doesn’t really exist. My life gave me some further rough lessons on love and relationships that make those stories not ring true for me anymore. I’m not faulting those who DO feel that way, the romantic and hopeful society who I once called myself a member. But sadly, the repeated heartbreaks I have beaten that outlook out of me. The idea that some guy would keep searching for some fairy woman in a block of stone seems absolutely ludicrous to me, when I look at my life as a human woman NOT frozen in stone and I can’t even find a man willing to spend a few years with me, forget about LIFETIMES.
I know that Xyliacs will argue with me because you were drawn to this tale (as I would have been once upon a time) BECAUSE of its sweet almost naive hopefulness. The idea that there is such thing as true love between men and women. And I know that for some that IS true. My parents have been married for 62 years. Many of my friends have been married a long time. And a lot of my friends are in long term relationships or getting married. In fact MOST of them. For twelve years I have been alone. For a time, I thought that loneliness would finally end when I became involved in a long distance relationship which was really just two years of waiting for a hopeful outcome of togetherness with someone that ended up being nothing, and being ultimately rejected and abandoned. But even during that relationship I was still alone here in Iowa. Going to weddings, parties, graduations, everything ALONE. Which I still do now alone- when I go at all. It’s getting really difficult to do that anymore.
I dated a few other times, but each of those ended up being with people who were initially hiding the fact that they were profound substance abusers and that just doesn’t go for me. Ultimately what I’m saying with all this is, when it comes to love or romance, I am profoundly jaded. So… a story like Claudius and Xylia’s, which was once very personal to me as the projection of what I hoped for and believed might actually be true, makes no sense to me now. How can I put my heart into something that means nothing to me?
I guess this is problem with doing that in the first place. It’s better to distance yourself more from your creative outlets. But that just never seemed logical to me. If you aren’t putting yourself into a creative outlet, it’s not really an outlet, is it?
But- all that aside, I still feel very indebted to the Xyliacs and other internet friends. You have been loyal and supportive to a fault. And that’s where my story really lies I think. Not in a love relationship between a man and woman (which is not in my cards, and I’m certain of that) but in friends- not of physically present people, but sort of ether people. I know you all exist, but most of you I have never seen or talked to. I know you are very kind in the things you say, but there is still that distance that the web puts between everyone. But you are still there, you all have said wonderful supportive things, and for that I am very thankful and you are the reason I am trying to figure out how to continue the story.
The only problem. There are no hugs in the internet. (I am a very huggy person- that’s the part that’s hardest to do without) But I’ll figure it out. 
So stay tuned. I have been writing. I know what I want to do- but it will be a bit different somehow. I hope you are all well, and thank you again for reading my story.
E-hugs,
~B
