First, I want to thank all of you for writing to me. Your emails were amazing and I had no idea you people were out there!! How utterly wild. If nothing else, I have a renewed appreciation for just how amazing this town of blogville is and what an opportunity it is for me to meet so many cool, cool people that I would never otherwise meet even if you lived in my town. Actually, especially if you lived in my town because I don't know anyone who lives in my town because I am a pathological introvert.

But really, thank you. I love that you love the story and I promise to keep you updated on its progress.

Obviously, I have decided to take down the story. Here's why.

On Tuesday I talked with my editor and she was wonderful but also quite frank. She told me if I valued the story and I wanted to see it published the most important thing to do would be to finish the novel and then start shopping it around. She emphasized that posting it as I was doing could easily compromise it and she recommended that I take it down.

Please don't hate me. I wasn't trying to be a book tease. A cock-tease, always. A book tease-- never.

For those of you who have been with me for awhile you know I was having a big struggle this summer. The way I wrestled one demon to the ground was to begin posting the novel. Somehow it made it more real to me. Plus I loved the idea of a weekly deadline which kept the engine purring. And, I thought it would be cool to see if this particular story had any appeal to anyone. So, although I didn't look at it this way before, it was kind of an experiment.

I feel sad about not sharing it further because in the end, stories are to be shared. But I know the full book and I do believe in its value and I guess I don't want to experiment with it if it means putting it at risk for whatever vandalism can occur to online stories. (Can a book get mugged? Spray painted by PETA?)

Or maybe, Dr. Good had me pegged back in high school when he expelled me from his chemistry class. When I asked him why he was kicking me out he said I all I did was flirt and that I had failed every exam. I think that was just a big cover-up. Clearly the real reason Dr. Good gave me the boot was that I didn't have the heart to see an experiment through to the end.

Either way, some of you might be happy to see that comments have been restored. You can thank T for that. Just know I'm really lousy about responding to comments-- sometimes I do-- sometimes I don't.

And, oh yeah-- you guys totally rock.

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