Contents of the Author Note Madness! (It goes on for a while, let me tell you, but I have a lot to say). You can just pick and choose what sections you want to read!

1. SITYWAT Book
2. SITYWAT History
3. Other Fiction

4. Your Support
5. Nara in the Twilight Zone
6. Recommendations of Pants-Splendor
7. Why I didn’t update sooner. (Warning: This may depress some readers so if in doubt, do not read!)


1. SITYWAT BOOK!

I think we all know by now that I plan to release SITYWAT as the first book in the “Wish” quartet by means of Café Press. This is an internet website where potential buyers will need a credit card for internet transactions. Start sucking up to your parents now kids! (Or get a debit card, they’re sooo handy!)
For this book there are many changes I will be making! First of all, the chapters in the beginning of the story are much shorter than the chapters at the end, so I will be lengthening them.
I will look over the story, edit spelling and grammar, try to find things that seem a little weird, out of place or boring and change them. Basically I don’t expect people to pay money for a sub par story they’ve already read. I want them to have an upgraded copy of a story they loved and want to read again.
I will not be posting the edited chapters on FictionPress, and once the book is for sale I will remove SITYWAT entirely.

There will be extra scenes. For a start, I want:

- I want more about Natalya, and through her, Stephanie Kursach.
- Definitely more about Emma, who I shamelessly used as plot rather than a character
- More of Stacey and Phillip
-  Heath and Natalya’s going away party

- Revising Patrick so he doesn’t suddenly turn Gay overnight

- Possibly more “getting it awn”
- More Dan x Shannon

If you are interested in adding your thoughts to read over the whole story, pm/email me.
The upside of helping me edit is you get to see the new changes without having to buy the book. The downside is you will have a lot of reading. I forget how many pages it is in word, but it’s not particularly short!

If you want to be notified when the book is available, either pm me on FictionPress with your email or email me at n_merald@hotmail.com and I shall deliver!
To be honest, I have no idea how long it will take me to format this correctly, to edit it and all that crap. Hopefully not too long… but then again, it could take ages!

I want YOUR feedback. What would you have liked to see included? What annoyed you? What did you love? What should I include? I can’t promise I will do everything everyone suggests but I will seriously consider it.  

2. SITYWAT HISTORY

I began the story rather haphazardly, not expecting to get much out of it. I was sick of crap reviews on FF, which may have had something to do with the fact the category I was writing in was a smaller community, or who knows, the on-going story I had might have just been crap.

All of the names of the characters (from Michael Dedana, to Patrick, the Sarahs, everyone) were taken from people I work with at my part time job of Kmart! Of course, some of the characters have “left” Kmart now, and most of the people would be more than a little disturbed to know I’d stolen their names and used it in this particular situation- only a few know about it. Most of the characters’ personalities are TOTALLY different than their namesakes-
Real life Patrick I never really knew, and Heath is so shy it’s near impossible to strike up a conversation with him!
Sarah and Saral I borrowed a little from- Sarah’s ongoing disgust with Isaac is real (although both have left now) but Isaac (the real one) hates Emos so turning the character into one was a bit of an inside joke for me.
Saral is one of my best friends now in real life- when I started writing the story I’m pretty sure I barely knew her which is weird. She’s one of the only ones to a) know about the existance of this story and b) the only one to have read some/any of it.

You can see my writing has evolved a lot from the beginning, and this time, for my next stories, I have planned the storyline before writing, which no doubt helps continuity!
Trying to write broken families is a new experience for me, because my family is genuinely pretty cool.


3. OTHER FICTION:

I have two other original works about to commence- “Landmines do not come in different favours” and “Vice Station”.
Landmines is the sequel to SITYWAT, with Nick as the main protagonist. He is down to get it awnnnn with SarahH and James. Poor, poor James. I also am including “religious boy” for my own anti-fundamentalist-Christian kicks. All the usual characters make an appearance and I might say that just quietly, Nick is a lot more racy than Patrick! I have not written it yet but have the story planned out down to a chapter guide! Booyah! And let us just say I had to do some rather embarrassing research for it *wink wink* Eh, EH? *elbows you*

Righto, onto the other- Vice Station came about when I had this great idea I dubbed “Sweethouse Space Station Story” -I may or may not have been drunk. I forget, but I thought it sounded really cool. I also may have been under the influence of Gundam Seed… I do wish I was Meyrin Hawke.
Basically it goes like this: Main character sluts around a bit and gets deported to some shithouse space station where all her superiors do is drink, dance and sometimes have scandalous sex. It then kind of evolves into one of those conspiracy/race against time/save the nation as it were. 

On the FanFiction, I am feeling the Naruto scene right now, co-writing a hilarious story called “Itachi of the Caribbean” (pure crack) with my sister. We are hilarious, if a little crude and nonsensical. Oh, yeah, for anyone who didn’t know I started my writing career on FanFiction, so if you like it, there’s a link on my profile. I have a range of shit on there, some being… well, shit, and some being the epitome of greatness.

4. YOUR SUPPORT

Well guys, nice to see you’ve stuck around! This has been my most successful story so far and for the most part, I’ve had a lot of fun writing it. I love your tales of “I was sitting in the library and accidentally snorted my wizz fizz laughing at your story and let me tell you, it burns…” Ok, slight exaggeration there, but I did love every similar review. Let’s face it, apart from my own beloved drunken adventures, I do live vicariously through this story.

Some of you I will be contacting to ask permission to quote your reviews on the book cover!

I think I already Review Replied half of you, but anyway…

To the lovely reviewer Beth, who read my profile and sent me a message, you really, really were a shining light in a period of darkness for me. I appreciated that more than you can know. In fact, I dedicated the last chapter to you! (Non-reviewing is forgiven).
To Famirka… I think there is a fairly good chance you were in fact drunk. But never let that discourage you!
hpfreakout, I know you wish you were Channing Tatum, and as Channing Tatum the third, GET IN LINE! You can be number 4 if you want? And ha, school band. I play the air triangle. I am rather talented, if I do say so myself. Your mind-bent fork stabbing ways have scared me into writing this chapter.
To “Grrr”, here’s a big “fuck you!”, douche.
iTsukiko,  “>>” is not really a review.

Roka, I totally never knew what PA stood for. Thankyou! 
Catseye*Rose, glad to see you hung around! Yes, Kmart is still in business over here. It’s less than exciting, but I get to reject people at the refund counter! YEAH!
Cobecat, I laugh at your situation. The pokémon theme song is possibly the most meaningful song in the universe, apart from the One Piece theme and “GayBar” by Electric Six.
Gleepia, you SHOULD become a Lion Trainer.
The Shellakou: I have always wondered about your name. It’s good to see you stuck with me!
Magalina: One of the original reviewers! Not exactly a fairytale ending… but then this isn’t the real ending!
Synthetic Ecstasy: I think everyone can relate this story!  We all want a bit of insanity to come and brighten up our lives!
Evelei: Ah I can sympathise with staying up wayyyy too late to try and finish reading a story. In fact, I was on a fanfiction binge and did that 3 days in a row and then I got sick :( Awww.
Riseile LOL. PA = Piece of Ass? That is hilarity. Roka tells me it stands for Public Announcement (System). I too wish for you to buy my book. It really works for both of us!

Lilylupin7, if ever a song was to be stuck in your head, it is fitting it was the Pokémon theme song.

Narcissistic, Halo Sora, Natasha5, Casey and the Sunshine Bear, Annwyl, Kilian, MisterScotty, Instant-Soup, Lucifer’s Retarded Twin Sister, Liviania, Manduh, Christina, Shampain86, K.T.Wood, NoTsOsWeEtHaRt, thankyou for your reviews!

5. NARA IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE

So my life has turned into the twilight zone lately! I went to this party and first of all some guy practically declared love poetry to me…
(ok it was more like:
him: “I think you’re really pretty”
me: *suspicious* “Are you joking?”
him: “No, but you’re slimmer now than last time I saw you…”
me: “So last time I was fat?”
him: “NO! I just mean… you were very striking then but you’re even more beautiful now…”
me: “Oh… well, um. Thankyou?” )

…then the day after this guy with a kid wanted to “get to know me better”. Now if you know me, you’ll know why that’s a distinctly bad idea. Me + Kid = Awkward Disaster/Traumatised Child. He rang me that very night and made me talk to the kid!
THEN I ended up agreeing to teach this Swiss guy English- which turned out surprisingly ok because he’s really nice. How random! And then I got sick at the start of the ToySale (On the first day, I was in the toilets using my tea break to chuck up, unpleasant, no?) Anyhow, I was pleased not only to get a free tshirt, but also a sexy hat from Nick’s namesake (Nick)! Yeah!

Previously, I turned 21 in May (had the party the Sat before I started Prac, the timing sucked a bit but there wasn’t much choice.) It was dress up, and I went as American McGee’s Alice. My sister, at the end of her speech where she told this story she tells EVERYTIME about how I was horrible to her as a little kid, in front of my friends, co-workers and relatives, is dressed as an “Army Commander” and begins to sing the pokémon song. It was possibly the best tribute I could have asked for. 

If anyone is wondering, at about 3am, we were playing “California Kings” (only the BEST drinking game ever) and I had to take about 10 shots in a row. At 3:30-4:00am the last people left (I was scandelised, you leave a party at 6:00am, not before!) and myself, my friend Sarah and Jesse stayed in my room (I live in my shed) and shortly after that apparently I got up, decided I needed to go out of the room for some reason, went to the OPPOSITE side of the door from the door handle, scrabbled around in the dark trying to find it, then knelt down and pawed at the bottom of the door trying to find the door handle until Sarah, laughing, let me out. I’m pretty sure I then forgot what I wanted, and just went back inside to sleep! Random, eh? I am a very glamerous drunk.

As I write this, I’m sitting in my pjs (it’s almost 3pm) and I do not plan to get dressed… rather just pj through until the night time. My sickness (a nasty throat infection) has me on antibiotics and unable to get up to my usual drunken mischief, which saddens me.

And I thought I’d share with you what I consider to be a great accomplishment! My friend’s ex boyfriend works the same position as I sometimes do and was telling me this great story about how he said to a customer “Sorry, there’ll be no refunds today” and I thought it was the most arrogant, indirectly offensive thing I’d ever heard (you’ve got to imagine a superior, slightly mocking tone of voice) and LOVED IT. Since that time, I have waited my chance to use that phrase myself (far from customer service, you often have to be rude to customers at the Desk because you get shit all the time from retard customers)  and then, my chance came!
A few weeks ago on a Thursday night, a lady refused to accept that we would not refund her shitty table & chairs set (which she claimed she fell off of and said it was faulty, the truth was, the seat was small and her ass was… very large). Anyhow, as I had prayed (I LOVE denying crazy people. If the customer is cool, refund away. But if they’re crazy, there’s nothing I love more than saying “Sorry, no can do,”), my store manager said we wouldn’t refund it (she looked a bit disconcerted at my enthusiasm upon hearing that response) so I passed it on to the customer. Now this lady was short, portly-fat and old, and also quite furious.
Old lady: “I don’t think you understand, I WANT a refund.”
Me: “I don’t think YOU understand, we’re not GIVING you a refund.”
Old Lady: “I want a refund!”
Me: “There’ll be no refund tonight.”
Old Lady: “I’m not taking it home!”
Me: “Fine you can leave it here, but we’re not giving you any money for it!”
Old Lady: *hisses* “I’ll remember your face!” *Storms out*

Meanwhile my Store Manager is within hearing distance snickering. It was truly my moment of triumph! (Which I shall probably write about as a guest author on my friend’s fic “Confessions of a Teenage Apparel Supervisor” – it’s in my favourites list if your interest is picqued. I’m Nariko).

I think that sums my life up lately.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS OF PANTS-SPLENDOR

Book: Daughter of the Blood
So if there is ever a book I would recommend, it is “Daughter of the Blood” by Anne Bishop. Do not be discouraged by the slightly emo title, the word “blood” refers not literally to blood but to a society where a race of people are called “The Blood”. This book is my favourite book ever. EVER. It is the first in the Black Jewels trilogy (mistakenly referred to on fanfiction as the “Dark Jewels Trilogy), and I like it not only for what I consider to be relatively groundbreaking fantasy story (a new take on some very over copied themes) but for the valuable insights into society.
It can be very full on at times, but was a true roller coaster ride of emotion. Reading it made me both laugh and cry.

Anime: Gundam Seed (Destiny), Claymore
My favourite two series’ of all time are Gundam Seed and its sequel, Gundam Seed Destiny. Some people love it, some hate it, and I happen to adore it. Seed has a slow start, but some truly fantastic moments, and Destiny has some really stupid characters, but some characters who really come through and shine. Why do I like it? I’m not really a space-action lover but I do like a good “shooting things that move” moment and not only are the characters physically attractive, there is a lot of character development and some romance. Again, on the surface it is a simple space anime, but they bring up a lot of questions (especially regarding racism) and make some interesting reflections on society and the possibilities the future holds. Towards the end of Gundam Seed, there’a s really great feel to it where you just think “YESSSSSS, now lets go KICK SOME ASS!”
One of my friends was dead-set against any Gundam Series until I forced him to watch Seed, not only did he finish the series but voluntarily wanted to watch Gundam Seed Destiny. I proudly consider him a convert to the cause!
As for Claymore, I just finished watching it and it is sitting in my number two ranking at the moment. (I lump Seed and Destiny in together when I rank) It is not romantic at all. Well, it is, but the love interest is worse than pathetic. (I hate Raki). However, for me, the storyline really makes it. When I heard about it I was extremely sceptical that I would like it (I love sexual tension in any story, and couldn’t see this happening in Claymore. I was right, it doesn’t happen, but I found myself enjoying it nonetheless).
The characters are intriguing, the action is good and possibly most importantly, there is NO FILLER! Each episode has a purpose. It is a series you will either love or dislike.

Music:
“Bendera” by the Indonesian Idol Finalists (possibly season 4? I forget). It IS in Indonesian though!  But it’s wayyyy catchy!

Youtube:
Potter Puppet Pals: The Mysterious Ticking Noise. Insanely catchy, and somewhat amusing. (Harry) Potter Puppet Pals can be a bit hit and miss- some are hilarious and others are simply depressing at how unfunny they are. “Bothering Snape” and “Trouble at Hogwarts” are also pretty good.