July 24, 2005
To the readers of UMBRAGE:
I apologize for pausing this story. I haven't posted anything new on it since the end of May. I put it aside to write something else, much shorter, that had been on the back burner in my brain for a full year. That story is finished and posted elsewhere on Portkey (and sorry, I won't tell you where, because Umbrage is the last NC-17 fic I am posting under this pen name, and eventually I'm going to take all my R and NC-17 stories down from this pen name and move them to the other one.). Anyway, I should have gone back to writing chapter 11 of Umbrage immediately after posting that story, but then it was only about a week until HBP was to be published, and I was paralyzed by pre-HBP anxiety. As it turned out, my worst fears were realized. Not only did JKR pair up Ron and Hermione, but she also put Harry and Ginny into a silly, contrived romance in which she spent a lot of time TELLING but very little time SHOWING Harry's attraction to Ginny (or how or why she was suddenly (as JKR herself now says) "Harry's ideal woman")
So, now that all that stuff has happened (and don't get me started about JKR's interview with TLC and Mugglenet) I need to suck up my disappointment and get back on my fic-writing horse. My goal is to get the next chapter to you before the end of the summer. Sad, I know, but that's the best I can do, considering I tend to write long chapters and I haven't written anything on this story in over a month. (In fact, I've written less than 500 words since mid-June. Pathetic, I know. Writer's block is a bitch.)
I apologize if it seems like I've been stringing you along. Chapter 11 is in the works, but I haven't finished plotting out the overall story yet and I don't want to post any more until I've got that done. Again, my apologies.
Anne U