It's possible that you saw that chapter 45 of Being Christina Chase was posted today. This was a mistake. If you read the story, I apologize. It should have never gone up. It is not ready for public consumption.

If you read the story, I really can't ask you to unread it. If you downloaded it, considering you like the story enough to archive copies of it on your local computer, making an appeal to delete your local copy will likely not get me anywhere. If you should have a copy of it, I ask that you do not share it with anyone. If you do this, you are essentially forking the story.

While I don't expect major changes to that chapter, it's not impossible that whole parts of it could be thrown out or rewritten. That was why it should have never been posted; not because of typos, but rather the details of the story are still being tweaked. Even if there are only small changes made, I would rather that people not read an alternate version, because when you're planning things out 50,000 words in advance, little changes have large ripple effects.

So please, delete any copy you may have, and if you can't do that, please don't share it.

I'm not opposed to people forking the story, but please wait until I've finished it. After the story is done, anyone can do anything they want with it. Seriously. If you want to rewrite chapters 11 through 14 and publish it as a different take on the story, I say go for it. If you want to break out find and replace, and make Steph and Christina lesbians, and have them start a hot air balloon service in Tokyo, more power to you. I'd be thrilled that anyone cared that much. Please, just let me get my version of the story out and finished first.

I have no hard feelings towards Sephrena. How can you be mad at someone for being enthusiastic about a story you wrote? That said, the story is not unpublished. I have deleted it. Any links to the story will no longer work under any circumstances. Any comments that may have been left have been deleted. I have not read them. I did not stop to read anything, I deleted the story three seconds after I became aware that it was published.

If you did take the time to comment, I really appreciate it. Under normal circumstances, I would have taken the time to reread them three or four hundred times. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate comments. But under the circumstances, I wanted to get the story down as fast as possible.

Another reason I wish Chapter 45 had not been posted, is because it's not going to be posted anytime soon. I wish things were different. If I had all the time in the world, I would get it to you tomorrow. But, it's not going to be up this week, next week; probably not this month.

I am writing the remaining chapters in their entirety before any will be posted. The reason for this is I want to do the best job possible wrapping the story up. And while I've known from the first word of the first page how the story was going to end, I never quite know the fine details until they are typed. I am going to go over the story with Holly and Sephrena to make sure that everything wraps up as nicely as possible. And that means having the ability to tweak things anywhere in these last series of chapters. This is how the story has always been written. Even when the story was being posted on a weekly basis, I usually had a pool of finished chapters ready to go. And it was not unusual to be making changes up until the last minute.

For whatever reason, some of my three fans have become invested in the story, and I feel obligated to give them a quality ending. And it is for that reason chapter 45 will not be back anytime soon. I certainly did not want to get anyone's expectations up for no pay off. I also wish that people had not become aware of the fact that the chapter had been posted and pulled, but that ship sailed too.

So, please, be patient and I will reward you with a crappy ending befitting of the low quality of the published work to date.

And, while I have the attention of my three fans, and I assume that two of them have stopped reading this far because nothing should ever be more than 500 words, I need to give special thanks to Holly Logan.

I am grateful for everyone who has helped me with my story, and though I don't make as big a deal of it as I probably should, the bottom of every chapter gives thanks to these people.

That said, I have to formally thank Holly. It has come to my attention that some people had not been aware that Holly Logan has been editing my story since day one. It's not just that she has been editing for the long haul, she's a much better editor than I deserve.

The great thing about the Internet, is that anyone can publish anything they want. The downside is it's the amateur night that never ends. I say this as a hack myself. When a professional editor donates their time to edit your amateur work, that demands recognition.

When I first met Holly, my pitch went something like this: "So, I've been working on a story. I got about 100,000 words so far. I've never written a story before. Also, I don't read fiction. And, did I mention that I write like ass?”

For reasons I will never comprehend, she agreed to help me. She even agreed to meet my original unreasonable schedule of posting a new chapter every week.

Now, I don't want to discount the efforts of all the amateur editors to help all of us amateur writers. Editing is hard work. But anyone who has worked with Holly will surely tell you that she is working on a different level.

I hope it is not obvious from reading Christina Chase, but let me fill you in on little secret. When I wrote chapters one through nine, they weren't exactly chapters. The entire thing was a single stream of consciousness contained in a single document. There weren't even transitions between scenes. In many cases, there were a series of dashes between paragraphs which was a note to myself to maybe come back and write something clever there someday. While I did carve it into rough chapters before dumping it in Holly's lap, she took what was essentially a train wreck and helps me shape it into what I hope is an eighth grade reading level fiction extravaganza.

Not only did Holly help me with simple things like grammar and punctuation, but on more than one occasion she has sent me entire English lessons to address failures in my writing. I am ashamed to tell you that she had to e-mail me a lesson on the proper usage of the word lay versus lie. I think she spent 20 minutes schooling me on the proper use of ellipses.

When Holly sends back a corrected story, it's not simply a series of corrections or re-wordings, there's also endless comments. This is the part I dread the most. On a good day, a comment might say something along the lines of "that was clever." On another day, the comment might contain a detailed explanation of the meanings and roots of a particular English word, and how I clearly had no idea how to use it. As much as I dread the latter style of notes, it is precisely these sorts of notes that has improved the quality of my writing.

You have to understand, I started writing this story out of boredom. I really didn't care if it was good or bad. But, once Holly was involved, I had to shape up. When you have someone of Holly's caliber helping you out, for free no less, you have an obligation to improve yourself, or let her move on to more promising writers. To that end, since I'm not a fiction reader, I invested in books on writing. I got a copy of Strunk and White. I read some books from the Gotham Writer's Workshop. When you have access to someone like Holly's time, there's no excuse to waste it.

Bear in mind, you should not blame Holly for my shoddy writing. To say that I've improved, means I went from being a clueless talentless amateur to a simply talentless amateur. Even so, I'm grateful for all the help.

Again, I want to reiterate that I am grateful for everyone who has read my story and helps me with my story. By highlighting Holly, it is not my intention to diminish anyone else. I just could not let it stand that anyone might not know the magnitude of the contribution she has made.

And again, to those three fans who have been holding on for me to finish my stupid little story, a promise it will be done before peace comes to Israel/Palestine.

Seriously, not this Gaza thing. That eventually has to end. Probably next week. I'm talking about that real peace. The one that Jimmy Carter wanted. Sometime in 2045. So sit tight.