I hope you don't get too upset by what I'm about to tell you.
I'm not going to continue the Rhiannon cycle. Despite the fact that I have only told one small part of the long, interconnected story I had planned out, and despite the constant support that you have shown for series, I just can't continue with it.
My reasons may sound like selfish whining, but here goes.
I'm finding it impossible for me to work with the Star Trek universe any longer. It has gotten so convoluted, and my view of it has become so jaded from one disappointment after another, first from the shows and then from other sci-fi fans, that I feel like I'm trying to revive a man that is not only dead, but is starting to decompose. I guess I just can't write good fan fiction if the source material, currently Deep Space Nine and Voyager, is so bad that I can't sit through an episode without wanting to smash the television. The well has been poisoned. Someone accused me of throwing the baby out with the wash. Well, that's true, I am. I think it's understandable, since the bath water has turned into toxic sludge, and the baby has died.
I have also been pulled (yes, pulled) into fan politics, which is an ugly arena, by anyone's standards. I won't begin to describe it. Just trust me when I say it's ugly. I wish that both Trek series would go off the air, immediately, and that all movie projects be scrapped. Put the place out of its misery. But, that probably won't happen.
I've been ready to bail out of Trek fan fiction for a few months, but I've stuck with it because Rhiannon had a following. Recent events forced me to start writing a major character out of the series. I sat down with my grand outline to do just that, all the while asking myself "what do I want to do with the story now?" Well, after a while I found an answer. I didn't want to do anything with the story. I wanted to stop writing it and move on to something else. I am not enjoying this any more. I want nothing more than to leave the Star Trek universe behind, and try working in other genres. If I were being paid to write this, then I would continue. But this is only fan fiction. No matter how I look at it, I come up with the same thing. My writing is a hobby, and probably always will be. When a hobby, or in this case part of a hobby, starts to become a chore, then it's time to move on to something else. In my case, that something else is other genres, and other unrelated hobbies. With an attitude like that, if I continue writing the Rhiannon cycle, the work will deteriorate, and you will ultimately end up with poor reading material, and I don't want to do that to you. I would rather be remembered as someone who burned out and threw in the towel, as opposed to someone who fizzled out by writing bad stuff. I'm doing what I feel I have to do.
I'm telling you all of this because you've been an appreciative and loyal audience. I feel that you deserve an explanation, because I am, in a sense, abandoning you. That fact has been, and will continue to trouble me. Once again, I'm sorry. I'm bracing myself for a possible onslaught of hate mail. If it's my writing you actually like, then feel free to check my web page. I'm going back to the realms of high fantasy and swashbucklers, which is where I originally came from. You'll find me there.
But for the rest of you devoted Star Trek fans, this is my solemn farewell.
Sincerely, and with heart felt regrets,