As of the writing of this blog, my story Dear John officially has twelve dozen votes! YIPPEE!

In all seriousness, though, I'm very happy about this. While there are several authors on Topshelf who can consistently garner insane vote counts for their stories (insane in my eyes being triple-digits) I've only got the one that's reached that number, and even though I posted it, what, six months ago now? It's still getting a vote or two every week, and it always makes me feel good to see that people enjoy my work.

I'm happy with pretty much everything I've posted here, whether it gets ten votes or one hundred and ten -- not everything I write is going to hit a broad enough spectrum of the site's audience's preferences to garner massive hits and votes, or even that many comments; but so far, everything I've written has been well received, and I wanted to thank all the readers who continually send me support and read my stories. They might not be the best, but they're a learning experience for me, and I feel that every one I write helps make me a better author the next time around.

Welp, back to the writing, I guess! I've got SO MANY stories in the pipeline right now, not just my incomplete serials but also several other longer stories that while I hate to admit it will probably be finished before I get back to work on something like Echoes or Boys of Summer -- both of which ARE receiving attention, just not as much as I'd like to give them, mostly because the former is hard for me to write (given that it was my first story, and it's hard for me to get in the right mindset for it any more) and the latter is undergoing some heavy revision, which means I'm spending most of my time I work on it thinking things through thoroughly before committing anything to the draft. As soon as I have enough Echoes finished, I'll get it up and available, but for Boys of Summer you'll just have to wait until the revision is finished, and read it all in one chunk.

Again, thank you everybody who has read my stories and voted for them or left comments! It means a lot to me to see them, and I can never thank you enough.

Melanie E.