It's a time of bitter cold (if you happen to live in the higher latitudes) and sparse supplies. The harvests are done, and it's time to weather the storm that is winter. It's the time for huddling around fires and reminding each other what's really important. It's the time for family and friends, and for giving and sharing alike. It's the time for love, and the warmth that comes with it, to take the edge off of the season's otherwise unfriendly climate. I hope everyone has a wonderful time and stays nice and toasty. Have a cup of hot chocolate for me.

Whoever was the person who decided how to spell the word "within", please, teach me your mystical ways, because every time... every time I try to type out that stupid, horrible word, it ends up like this: withing! EVERY TIME! The letter g does not belong there! My fingers don't even come to rest on the g key after I type it. It's just my brain being a rebellious asshole! Please, Universe, have mercy.

Also I'm ill and grumpy, so there's that. That aside, however, I feel rather productive. Stuff's on the way, folks, some big stuff.

Hey! I made a SoFurry account! There's nothing up there yet, (soon...) but I thought it would be a reasonable idea to have as many ways as possible for people to contact me in case FA goes down for some reason or another, as they have been wont to do of late, not that I'm casting blame or anything like that. FA will still be my primary site, so no need to panic or anything--as if anyone would. I'm just spreading myself out a little bit.

On a side note, I also made a tumblr account, but I'm not sure how much use I'll be making of it just yet. I'm still trying to figure it out. Maybe I'll post mah stories (The ones I can, at least) once I figure out an easy way to do it, maybe I'll make it an ask-y sort of deal where peeps can ask my characters things I haven't elaborated in any of their pieces, maybe I'll do a little of both... (Heck, I might accept questions for my characters as it is. Maybe I can combine a bunch of questions and their answers into a little anthology-thing for upload. Thoughts for later...) At any rate, I'm still working on it.

In other news: four thousand pageviews and a hundred and twenty-five watchers! Woo! What else... What else... I dunno. I might be out of news at the moment. I've been busy writing, a combination of commissions--well one commission--some requests and a bunch of personal, in-canon work that has slowly queuing up, so I'm staying active, even if it might not always look it. Thanks for giving this, and everything else my verbose ass can crank out, a read, and I'll keep going.

Tumblr (Such as it can be called...): http://skabaard.tumblr.com/
- Be prepared for a bunch of nothing--literally nothing--for a while until I can get it in gear.

SoFurry: https://skabaard.sofurry.com/
- Will be just moving over my gallery for the most part

On that note, why is it that what seems like every site has a better gallery system than FA? I haven't really done much messing around with SoFurry's but it seems good... way better than the absolute bare-bones FA has. What gives? What gives? All I want is a folder system! That's all! Is that so much to ask?!

Anyway... this was just me unloading some plans for the future. Feel free to give me your thoughts if you have them. I always appreciate feedback!

Hey-lo fellows. I just got done drafting a story with lots and lots hermy, dragony goodness, and since I won't have any time to do this in the morning, I figured I'd take advantage of this opportunity.

Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you all have much to be thankful for. I know I do.

That is all. Please enjoy your holiday, and if you aren't 'Murican--or just don't observe--I hope your fourth Thursday of November is equally lovely.

Would you look at that... a hundred watchers and three thousand pageviews at almost the exact same time! How exciting! I know I've done my best to thank and acknowledge you individually, but I'd like to take the opportunity to give you lovely ladies and gentlemen my deepest, heartfelt thanks. It's for you, in part, I write, and while I'm certainly not hungry for praise or recognition, I appreciate immensely every favorite, watch, and comment. It's emotionally moving, and I love you peeps. (In an entirely platonic way, of course.)

That sappyness aside, I've got something in the works for Halloween that I hope you'll enjoy! Don't be too shy to keep in touch alright? I'll keep going.

Hello, my lovely ladies and gentlemen. Just a little bit of news, really. I've (finally) finished catching up on uploading my stories to Weasyl, (mostly to keep myself busy during the FA downtime) so for those of you who prefer that site to this one, know that I'll keep my submissions updated between the two places now. Feel free, if you want, to favorite or follow me there if that's your inclination.

Requests and commissions I receive through FA will still be kept to FA unless the requester or commissioner specifies that I can upload it to other sites, so for now, Weasyl only contains my own, personal work.

That's all for now. Thanks for reading. Back to writing!

After being propositioned, and writing--successfully, I hope--my first real commission, I have to admit, I quite enjoyed the experience of getting paid for my work. With this in mind, I'd like to make the announcement that I am, certainly, open for commissions.

Now, this doesn't mean that I'm not still taking requests, nor does it mean that I expect to be suddenly swamped with commissions. I have, at the time of writing, fifty-eight watchers, which means that only the fifty-eight of you are going to see this journal. I'm hardly that deluded, but it is an option I would like to explore as I get more and more... I'm hesitant to say the word "fans"... people who enjoy my writing enough to want to know when I upload something. Writing is a passion of mine, one I wish I realized before devoting four years of my life getting a degree that, while exciting and interesting, I don't really want to use. Writing is something I would dearly love to spend the rest of my life doing, and I feel that the occasional commission would greatly help me further myself toward that goal.

Please, please don't take this as me pleading for attention or begging for money like a starving college graduate. I appreciate every favorite, every watch. I treasure each comment, even if it's critical--the critical ones sometimes more than others--and I want to thank all fifty-eight of you for giving me the opportunity to write for you.

So hit me up! Want me to write something: A description, a transformation, something significantly naughtier? Feel free to send me a note, and if it's not something too ridiculous, I'll try my hand at it. I think the way I want to work it is having a single "slot" open at a time, meaning that I'll only work on one request at a time--In the event that I get multiple requests--since I find it easier to focus on a single project than to spread myself too thinly over several stories. It's just the way my brain functions. There will however be a queue that will form behind it, and I'll try to get each request in turn.

I'm posting this journal--despite my submissions obviously receiving more views--because i'd like to prioritize the potential requests of my watchers over random passers-by, because I love you guys and gals for sticking with me and trusting my quality enough to keep an eye on all of my submissions. It means a lot to me. (At the risk of sounding sappy.)

And with that, I say again. Hit me with your best shot! (But don't be afraid to pull your punches, I have delicate sensibilities, after all.)

Don't know where that year went, but here I am, twenty-three at last. I'm feeling rather well, all things considered, and I've been making good progress on my writing. I hope to have more out for you guys soon, very soon.

I really did intent to have my next story uploaded by now, but what I'm currently working on has grown well, well beyond the bounds of what I had planned for it. It might end up being my longest single consecutive sex scene, with some unexpected growth thrown in for good measure. It's just much more than I had intended to write. The good news, however, is that I am nearly done drafting it, in all its sex-filled glory, and I can get to writing what comes after.

I blame fey and their fickle tempers, Salixia's in particular. (It was just supposed to be a short, little sex scene, maybe eight, nine pages; I swear!)

I'm planning a story for Valorie and Dawn; it's going to be a long one, with more emphasis on story than sex (for once). I'm going to start it off with with a little prelude story that will, of course, have some sex in it. My question is this. Is it still called vaginal penetration if it's the vagina that is actually doing the penetration?

Hey! For those of you who are interested, I've begun to upload the stories that I've already written to my account on Weasyl for those of you who prefer that site to this one. :https://www.weasyl.com/~skabaard

FA will still be my primary site, I just though it would be wise to spread my work around a bit to make it more accessible.

I finally finished writing it! It's significantly longer than I expected, which is, incidentally, what she said, but I enjoyed writing it immensely. I should have it edited and posted by week's end, perhaps even tomorrow if I feel particularly motivated.

Well, I've done it! Four years of grueling work, and I've finally gotten my degree! I've got one last story for the Archmage and friends before I move the story on, and I desperately wanted to finish it before I graduated so I could post it on the same day, but final exams kind of got in the way of that little plan.

This past week was hectic as all hell, but things are finally beginning to slow back down. Now begins the hunt for a job that hopefully my experience over the past four years will help me with. It's kind of terrifying, having your entire future suddenly splayed out before you, but I'm far to excited to be anxious.

For everyone who has read what I've written, I cannot thank you enough. To know that people are reading the trials and tribulations of the characters that have become such an important part of my life over the past year or so is a tremendous source of inspiration for me, and continues to drive me to write more. It certainly all started as a feeble attempt to write porn, but it only took Valorie a few thousand words to break free of the prison of my own imagination and develop a personality of her own. She got a little out of hand, and the others just followed her lead.

Nothing that I've written, short of the first few chapters, follows at all along with what I had originally planned. After establishing the characters personalities, the story sort of evolved organically from there, and I was just swept along for the ride. Now that this saga is drawing to a close, my brain is bursting with new ideas, and I could no longer stop myself from writing even if I had the desire to. I owe it to the people that I have created to tell their stories, even if it takes me to places I had never anticipated. Every story is a new experience, and every person that reads what I have written shares that experience with me. I greatly appreciate every single view each of my stories gets.

It was never really my intent to write what now amounts to a book. I'm just an avid reader who wanted to try his hand at doing some writing of his own. And I like sex, so I wrote what I liked. But then, it just took hold of me, and would not, under any circumstances, let me go. I had never really known what fulfillment was until I posted Valorie's first chapter. I saw the first few favorites, people who liked what I had made enough to put their public stamp of approval on it, and I thought I was going to cry. It was like a religious experience. I just felt complete; and as cheesy as that may sound, I know of no other way to describe it.

And for what it's worth, I would like to thank profusely every single person who reads my work, though I hesitate to call it "work." Every comment, favorite, watch, and even simple view fills me with a happiness that I hadn't known existed until recently. It's not many, I've only got a couple dozen watchers, I might get a comment every few stories, but that's not the point. I hardly write for popularity's sake. I write because I can't imagine not writing. Which makes knowing that some people take the time out of their undoubtedly busy lives to read a few thousand words of my heart and soul that much more enriching for me. And so, one last time, thank you. Thank you all so much for being with me through this, and I can't wait to give you more.

Alright then. Now that Daryn rebirth is complete, a task which I found daunting, but enjoyable, I can finally start to edit my way through some more backlog. I've got nearly a half dozen stories already written, waiting to be combed through. I'm going on a trip this week, so nothing more will be uploaded until next weekend, but I hope to have much more for you all to read!

Stay tuned!

Alright, that's the last of the little three part bit following Valorie. Now we're going to do some character development for a couple more people, and then hopefully get them all together under one roof so that ADVENTURE might occur.

Or at the very least some sexings. We'll have to wait and see.

I apologize to everyone who favorited my previous stories, something went wrong and I had to re-upload them. That's my bad. The next chapter in the narrative should be uploaded by week's end.

Here I am, in all my shining glory. I have been writing up a storm, and now I have begun the mind numbing process of editing through my massive backlog. I should be able to start to posting more often. I've run into more free time than I've had in the past and I plan on utilizing it to great effect.