Hi again,
I'm sad to report that "A Flawed Diamond" is going to have to on hiatus for a couple of more weeks. I'm just too busy catching up with other things on the few days I'm home to format the files and get them ready for posting. I apologize profusely. I hate to get a reader involved in a story and then take a long period of time away from it.
One of the commitments I make to the reader when I choose a serial posting format is to be consistent with the chapters. I have received such wonderful support from the SOL community during the 12 years I've been writing fiction that it truly galls me when I have to ask the reader to come back to a plot line after a long break. I know other writers do this frequently and it irks me to no end when I have to re-read six or seven chapters of a story I was enjoying because real-life pushed the updates back five months.
It won't be five months. I will assure you of that. In a couple of weeks, I'll be back at home full-time and I'll resume my normal posting schedule. In the meantime, I hope you can work your way through some of the recent chapters and ignore the odd characters. Again, this is a result of my time-deficiency. I usually take the extra step of running the chapter through a PC before posting it. It's not an arduous process (nor it is especially time consuming). At this point, however, every single second of my day appears to be accounted for from the time I awaken until I managed to put my head on the pillow sometimes 20 hours later.
I hope everyone will understand and I truly hope the fantastic readers who've offered kind words and suggestions on this story and the ones before it will return when I get my professional life back into some sort of order.
Best wishes,
Jay C.