Bon Voyage, Jocelyn Torrent!

Well.

Jocelyn Torrent just published her final chapter of Rose Read, and with that is leaving fan-fiction. She's moved on with her life from fan-fiction.

God, I'm going to miss her and her writing.

Can't say I didn't see it coming, however. There were signs along the way, with long periods of silence here and loads of activity elsewhere. She's gone off to college, she's, well, she's put together differently than me: she has her friends and her self-reliance. Who needs little old fan-fiction when there's so much life to live? She didn't say this at all, of course, and she left very high recommendations to me.

Thank you, Jocelyn Torrent, for that long and beautiful run. I'm sure I hear the cries of despair echo across the fan-fiction community. Mine, too.

And in all that, I wish her well. And happiness. And I'm grateful for the tremendous amount of time she invested into her every story, every chapter, and every single review she received ... she responded to every one of them. There is an example of a writer on fan-fiction to follow.

It makes me wonder a little bit for myself. Do I tire of writing? ... Well, yes. At every chapter. Do I see myself calling it quits? No. Did JT ever see that? I don't know, perhaps in her second year (as I am now in mine), she just saw all this stuff to write about and not enough days in her life to write it.

Am I losing a friend? Yes, I think so. That's what happens in life, doesn't it? You get close to somebody, as a friend, and then she moves or gets an entirely new set of interests, and you try to stay connected, but that communication goes from daily, to ... never. Or a few years later, 'hey, how's it going?' and then nothing again.

So I'm grieving my loss. My loss, for JT is going out into that big, huge world of endless possibilities were she's probably learning and discovering and just filled to the brim and then overflowing with friends, happiness and joy. And for that my joy for her is great.

And for me, too. Is there joy and friends and endless possibilities to be found here on the little e-world of ffn? Oh, yes, indeed: there is. It's here for me, it's here for you, and it's here for JT if/when she comes back. Or if this indeed her final hurrah, it's still here for her and for anybody, just as the world outside of ffn has that for her, and for anybody, too.

JT is gone into that great big wild world, she says a sweet goodbye. I'm still here, sweeties. I'm still here, waving to JT's ship pulling out with my (well-used) hanky, and then, turning away from that ocean of the world, having taken it all in with my salty eyes and the smell of salt from the ocean filling my nose, and I walk back to my home, open up my laptop, reflect for a moment at the bittersweetness of goodbyes ... and now work on that next chapter, which is today: chapter 9 of "Our First Time."

kisses, 'phfina