At least, not aftert July 9 of last year.
For those who don't remember my posts about it, July 9 is the event I've come to refer to as The Night My PC Almost Died, since that's basically what happened. Long story short: I ran a program to permanently erase deleted files, it somehow wrecked the FAT32 partition table, and my computer was bricked. Every single project I was working on was brought to a screeching, grinding halt---a sort of fanfic equivalent of a 30-car pileup.
Not exactly something you'd associate with "fun in the sun", eh?
Out of all the projects I thought I'd lost, the one that I lamented the most was The V.I.C.I. Diaries. At one point, I thought of writing a story in which Vicki was stricken by an ailment similar to the one that had befallen my PC....but the ending I intended to write would've seen her returning to life (and please don't argue semantics here---"Returning to life" is just a simple way of saying that she would've been restored to her normal existence) felt like cheating. In all fairness, I couldn't simply write Vicki back to life while my computer was languishing in a specialist's workshop waiting to be repaired.
For a few months, The V.I.C.I. Diaries was, for lack of a better term, cancelled.
Then, a funny thing happened....
I had found a CD with the incomplete draft of the fifth story, and I just....started typing. I didn't think I'd ever actually finish it; I was just bored, and I felt like seeing if I could advance the story at all.
Lo and behold, I did.
As the weeks went by, I added a paragraph. Then another paragraph. Then a whole new page.
A month later, I'd added three more pages.
And so on, and so forth...until the story was actually complete. Not only had I finished it, I'd added a new character who'd be a vital part of the V.I.C.I. Diaries mythos in future stories.
Since then, I've finished two more stories (one of which borrows from the work of LongTimeLurker---with his permission) and begun work on the eighth entry in the series. I also found the time to add Vicki's thesis on the history of the ALPA to this area of the forum, and it met with great acclaim---in fact, that particular bit of writing is what led LTL and I to discuss the use of some of his story elements in one of my stories.
Seeing as how I don't want to compete with Thor, Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow for the attention of the forum, I'll start posting the latest entries in The V.I.C.I. Diaries next Monday....and trust me, they'll be worth the wait.
At this point, I'd like to thank everyone who's contributed ideas for this series, whether it be a plot suggestion or permission to base a character on their work. The positive replies I received for "A Brief History of the ALPA" were---and still are---greatly appreciated, and I look forward to seeing the responses to my latest stories.
V.I.C.I. isn't dead---to be honest, she never was.
She was just getting a much-needed upgrade.
