User blog:Stormlilly/If only words could actually carry weight.

First, I'd like to start with what I will also be closing with - my sincere, heartfelt thanks.

I don't think it's a big secret that I work pretty much most of the week - so much so that I lose track of time, and what's important, and what I want in the world. Writing is something that I do primarily for myself, even though I get a visceral thrill out of being able to share my work with those I know - and not for pay, but because people are genuinely interested and enthusiastic about it. But because I tend to put my work first, I've gone more then a few times where I simply forget - or can't find the energy - to check in on this place, tired out as I am.

But with such amazing stories in the running, even though I'd put the whole thing out of mind, I'd like to pay tribute before anything else. Bree's amazing story, What You Deserve, is precisely what I look for in stories, and easily one of the most unnerving stories I've read in some time. I would heartily recommend it to any and all, and may just end up recommending it to CPoTM again. Though Metroid: Mother?, by newcomer Urkelbot is not my favorite of his works (that'd definitely be My Buddy Sandman!), but is entrancing with the equally effective use of visual aids. Unearthing a Horror is a classic, and one of those rare trick endings that really gets you right in the back of the mind.

So to hear that I'd won - after some stressful days, indeed - I simply cannot say what it means to me. No, I cannot say like this. I'm not really that affectionate a person, pfft - I'd go so far as to say that I'm pretty damn forgettable in the world of the real! But there aren't words enough in my lexicon of a brain to show you how touched and honored I really am. If you voted - not just for me, but for any of these fantastic stories, or better still left a comment for the authors, I cannot thank you enough. If you wrote one of these stories, I also cannot thank you enough; and if you've ever encouraged someone else, well, that's thrice when I simply cannot tell you how wonderful you are.

Thank you!

You all are why I continue to savor my time here, even as I find I have less and less time I have for the writing I enjoy (and have to divide it up by, ah, genre. Pft, ask me about my other favorite genre some time!). I look forward to reading your works and writing many more for you, for as long as there is still time left with me. Once more, with feeling -

Thank you!