Hello fellow fan fic dwellers, it has been a mighty long time. I apologise in advance, this is a little rambly and a lotta personal, but it felt like the right place to put it out to the world  

It is so incredibly heartwarming to see many of the members I remember so dearly still on these forums and writing and the new members that have popped up. 

For those who may not remember me, or who don't even know me, I am Grace, aka BLONDEbehaviour (oh to be 14 again when I created THAT username), aka bowandarrows, aka mostly known nowadays as serendipity or seren across most non-professional profiles. Back in HPFF days I would validate from time to time, loved the forums, and moved over here with the plan to re-build and complete my major stories when the other site shut down.

But if I'm honest, I haven't given as much time to these forums and archives as I could have after the closing down of HPFF. The transition between the two came at a time when I was at a major life, writing and fan fiction crossroads. The collective change of so much was quite a shock to the system, so I took a step back.

I didn't expect the step back to take so long. Or be so all-encompassing to my writing and creativity.

2017 was the last time I wrote anything that wasn't related to work or my business. No stories, or poems, even blogposts of the like. Gosh, even writing creative stuff for work or goal-setting felt like too much sometimes. I couldn't even look at what I had created, and couldn't even open the writing apps. It was like someone had poured all my writing motivation into the dirt. I would still have creative moments or ideas where my mind would spark with new plots, but I could not push through the barrier of moving ideas to tangible words.

Since then, and it feels almost silly to say (in fact, it feels completely ridiculous to say, but here I am) I've felt hollow. I could not get the words and stories out of my head, so they rang inside me like an echo and made everything else louder.
Events, issues, and fears that I would usually have used my creative side, particularly my writing, to process weren't getting the attention they needed. And, getting a little deep and probably a little cliche , not processing them in writing has eroded me in some ways. 

In the last 6-12 months I've grown a lot around my apprehension on writing, so much so that the draw to get it out of my head, to create again is louder than the voice telling me not to. I'm going back, in a way to the very beginning of my writing journey and starting from scratch. To rebuild the muscle memory. To find some peace, fun, and pleasure in the creative process again. To remember what it means to write with freedom. For me, that initial creative pull has always been quality stories full stop, but my initial writing pull I have always attributed to fan fiction. When I found my first fanfic at 11, I had pages and pages of notebooks full of stories.

So to take one step in the right direction, I am jumping back onto the forums, chatting again, reading & reviewing again. The first step beyond that is to get my fics back (I had to do some digging for a few of them, some will remain hidden forever ) and read what I have done - an important move. Then I'm going to rewrite what I have, updating what needs to be updated, and continuing with the stories that still have so much left to include (I'm looking at you, Memory Book), and hopefully, eventually, I will create new stories both fan fiction and non-fan fiction. Watch this space!

Anyway, if you made it this far, thank you for reading  If you'd like to reconnect, or just connect - especially if you have felt similar to the above, please reach out! If you have any tips on how to reignite the spark, let me know. And keep an eye out for some new Dramione content on Fanfic talk hopefully soon!

Much love to you all,

Grace