401Things to discuss before I make the next chapter
Believe me, everyone. I'm sorry to disappoint all of you with another lousy Author's Note instead of an actual story chapter. To be honest, I was just going to do a regular author's note in the next chapter but recent events have led me to take action.
First off, before anyone asks, this is NOT a note saying that I am deleting this story. No, this story is going to be kept and it's going to be updated. Now you all have noticed that I delayed the update for the story again. However, I have a good reason for the delay this time around. I haven't been doing very good in my grades at school this semester because I was too busy writing story ideas and similar stuff down in class instead of paying attention to what I needed to learn. Because of that my grades were low and I had to put more time into my school work to bring them back up. But that wasn't the only problem. My other problem was, and still is, my job at Taco Bell. My boss has given me a lot more work hours during the weeks. Almost always it was me coming home from school and then heading straight to work. Because of that, I barely had hours in the day for studying, let alone working on stories. Aside from occasional one-shot stuff like that one-shot parody about the Dinobots I made. But now the semester is done and my grades are back up. My boss still gives me lots of work hours but hopefully with school out of the way, I can find more time to focus on my stories once again.
But I also need to be honest about why I lost interest in Ten Piece and had gone on a hiatus with Bleach: Ultimate Alien. The main reason was because I had become severely disappointed in the quality of the Ben 10: Ultimate Alien episodes. Everything from plot to characterization was really lacking. Because of the low quality of the episodes, I stopped watching Ben 10 all together. And without Ben 10 episodes to keep the fuel going, my interest in Ben 10 went down the drain. This, combined with the many mistakes of Ten Piece that I had made led me to remove it from the site. And why I had to take so long with Bleach: Ultimate Alien. Although the episodes were still lacking, and it seems Ben 10: Omniverse leaves plenty to be desired, I'm not, I repeat, NOT going to give up on Bleach: Ultimate Alien. It was the first of it, Ten Piece, and Death Plus Vampire, to be on this site and therefore I am going to make every effort I can to continue on with the story and see it through to the end.
Now to talk about why I lost my interest in Death Plus Vampire. The main reason was because I lost interest in Soul Eater and Rosario Vampire as story material. I still read them and look forward to more chapters, but I guess the long amount of time it took for these manga to update new chapters caused me to move my interests to things that were updated faster. Also, I was ashamed at the many mistakes I made in Death Plus Vampire which also contributed to me removing it from the site too.
Now I know I've made plenty of mistakes in Bleach: Ultimate Alien. But like I said, it was the first of the three and therefore I should do everything I can to continue that story.
Of course many of you have been disappointed, and rightfully so, about me taking these other two stories down and not remaking them like I said I would. And you have also noticed that I said I wouldn't be making them for some time. But now, I'm starting to suspect that I myself might never make them. My motivation and inspiration for them has just about dried up and I don't know if I can muster enough to actually go through with it. In fact, yesterday an anonymous reviewer flat out cusses at me for it. Although I am upset by him and I deleted his review, I have to admit that he was right.
Many of you, if not all, are probably thinking "If you're not gonna remake these stories, why did you promise us that you would?" Or "Why do you bother making stories if you're just gonna lost interest and delete them from the site?"
My problem is this: I have a really active mind that is full of ideas. I start something, make some progress, and then something new comes into my mind and I start working on that while leaving my previous work unfinished. It's always been a problem of mine and I'm just now accepting that something needs to be done about it.
As for my promises about remaking the two stories? The thing is, at the time, I really thought I would live up to that promise and make those stories. But now that I have no motivation for actually writing them, I probably won't. Because of this, I'm not making anymore promises because I don't want to bring your guys' hopes up, only to not fulfill my promises and disappoint you guys more than I already have.
Also, I am not gonna post new stories on the site until I have fully completed them, and all their chapters, on my computer first. Then and only then will I post them on the site. However, I will update Bleach: Ultimate Alien the way I have been. But that is the only story that will be updated normally. I may or may not hold off on the one-shots. If I do make occasional one-shots they will be short little snippets of amusement rather than stories.
And so, I think it might be best if I put Ten Piece and Death Plus Vampire up for adoption. I know this site contains writers more competent than I could ever hope to be. In fact, Sallem Cortez and Kamen Rider Chrome are the ones who have given me the ideas for this story's chapters. I have a feeling without them, there wouldn't even be a Volume II to read.
So, if anyone wants to take over for Ten Piece and Death Plus Vampire, they have my full permission as right now, I'm certain they'd do a better job than I did.
On an unrelated note, I might have to discontinue the Great Fanfiction Crossover. It was a good idea at first but it seems a crossover which contains every fictional character is too much for me to handle. Plus, my OC suck! I've noticed it myself over time but one person, Demonssmith, gave me a second opinion and confirmed it. It's bad enough when the author realizes his character sucks but it's another when someone else points it out to him. So, I'm not gonna make any stories where an OC is the main character for a long time, if not forever. I'll have OC supporting characters and villains but no more main characters. Plus, my OC Cameron is not going to appear in anymore stories ever again. He was just a stupid self-insert so that I could live childish fantasies about me hanging out with my favorite characters. He's never starring in my stories ever again. Period.
And so everyone, I apologize for wasting your time by making stories that got your attention, only to lose interest in them and then delete them instead of continuing them. I'm never doing it again and like I said, I'm only gonna post stories that I have completely finished. But Bleach: Ultimate Alien will be updated normally and I will be putting more effort to update faster instead of taking months to finally update.
One last thing related to Bleach: Ultimate Alien. The official pairing is HarribelxBenxNelliel. It just seems to work and it's more convenient for me. I don't have the heart to do a full blown harem and I like Harribel and Nelliel too much to make one of them lose Ben. So that's that.
One again, I'm sorry to everyone for wasting your time with stories that I just delete at a later time and I will not do this ever again. And I AM going to do everything to stick with Bleach: Ultimate Alien. And if I ever show signs of backsliding, you all have my full permission to use any and all means necessary to keep on the right track.
Thank you for your time.
Bigby the Big Bad Wolf