The Failure of Chapter 50

I was never pleased with the original Chapter 50 of this story.

I wrote it in something of a rush, over the course of about two days, after being sick and having some deadlines at work. So, I should not have been surprised when I felt that it just wasn't ready. But it got across the points that I "needed" to have made in the story so far. And, after getting a prod about how long the story had left to go and doing some calculations, I was feeling some pressure to get the story completed in an acceptable time frame. (Although, really, what is "acceptable" in fan fiction? These are stories written for ourselves, after all.)

After less than 48 hours, and losing a little bit of sanity over fears about how much the chapter, well, sucked, I decided to take it down. (I had something of the same issue with Chapter 32, "Listening Skills," though I didn't feel bad about that one...just the readers didn't like it.)

This is the first time that I've "missed" a weekly update since I first started posting the story back in March of 2009, and while I feel like I've failed in that part of my mission, I want the story to be able to stand on its own merits. I don't want to have a chapter up that I just plain don't like...and that is causing me problems.

I did want to thank the three folks who bothered to read and review Chapter 50 early, and I let them know the reasons for why I was doing what I did. I also took into account their feedback and a couple of questions that they posed when I started the rewrites (it pays to give thoughtful reviews!).

Hopefully, I'll have Chapter 50 (and maybe even 51) ready to go by this coming Wednesday. Definitely 50, though. The faithful deserve that much.

So, there was a failure this week. But I think there was also something learned. And that's really what this process is about.