This post has been in the works for a long time.

I just finished my first draft of ch12. It's very rough and I still need to do my own revision pass on it before it's ready to send to Team Awesome, but the legwork is done. Ch12 is the last chapter of Part 2. And I promised myself that I would not post about this until after I had finished Part 2. Clever people might guess where I'm going.

TEF—More Than Human—is the last fic I will publish for the PpG fandom.

I reached this conclusion two years ago. Probably more, actually. It's been a long time coming, but I wanted to make sure I got through enough of this big, epically long, stupid thing before I put it out there for everyone to know. It was kind of a disciplinary measure against myself, to ensure I would finish it. As long as I could get through Parts 1 and 2, then writing Part 3 was a foregone conclusion. After getting this far, I can't not do it.

So. While I have the floor, I do want to say a few things.

• I do have a few more short stories left in me for the fandom, which will probably get written/posted between now and when the final chapter of TEF actually goes up.
• Reminder: There are 17 planned chapters for TEF, including at least 2 bonus chapters. Ch9 was posted last month. There's still a ways to go before the end. (Five chapters, to be exact.)
• TEF is my swan song, my farewell, my love letter not just to the PpG/RrB pairing, but to the fandom as a whole. It is a fifteen-year-long relationship coming to its inevitable end. Once that last chapter goes up, I'm gone, baby, gone.
• My writing will not stay up forever. It's not because I want to deprive anybody of it! It is simply an inevitability of moving towards what any writer's ultimate end goal is: publication. The fanfic can't stay up forever, and won't stay up forever. So... if one day, years after the final chapter of TEF has gone up, if this space disappears, you'll know. I made it.
• The end of TEF is not the end of me; the eleven years I spent writing for the fandom have been my training grounds and schooling, the environment within which I honed my craft. TEF in particular has shown me that I have the discipline to at least bust my ass working towards some semblance of publication. The writing itself isn't stopping anytime soon. I will not stop writing. I cannot stop writing.

It's funny. I've written this post over and over in my head and now that the time is actually here, I can't help but find it rather anticlimactic. Not that I didn't see that coming, of course. The transition from head to paper never quite works out the way you want it to.

What's left for me now is to go through this first draft of ch12 and get it beta-ready. In the past when workflow has been better, I've simply sent it off immediately to my betas upon completion, but given the stop-and-start nature of this one, I need to take more time with it. Then, when it's with my betas, it'll be time to flesh out my outline for the final part. There's bits and pieces of it, and some of it's even written, including several of my favorite written scenes yet—I can't wait to share them with you guys!

And you guys. Those of you who have stayed with me, commented, reviewed, drawn fanart and started fanblogs and asked questions and sent gifts, those of you who became friends, with whom I exchanged e-mails and messages about writing and fandom and sometimes boring old real life itself, you guys especially, more than anybody. You guys. You ladies. You wonderful, glorious people, you.

I can't wait to share it all with you. Thank you for sticking around.