I've debated on whether I shouldn't just delete this story. It doesn't seem that many are reading it and, it's pretty far outside my normal style of writing. (The whole thing started as an experiment and an attempt to stretch my creative muscles.) I'm told authors who wish to be successful need to develop a brand and, though this story is deeply personal and important to me, it's pretty far outside my "brand" of stories.

As a compromise, I decided to just mark the rest private so that those who are following me and may have been reading can finish it. If you wish to read the rest, you'll have to follow me. If, for some reason you cannot access it, let me know.

The most common comment I've received is that the story is both too short and too long. It's too short in that, to fit all the story in, I had to skip over some events and characters that should have been included in more detail--especially Junko and Jack's parents. It's too long in that at 117,000+ words it's freaking huge for anything considered a romance. (It should be nearly half that size.)

So, what I'm thinking about doing is going full circle. This story was largely a deconstruction of various shoujo manga with a little shounen romantic comedy manga thrown in. Most of my favorite manga of those sort were in turn  based on light novels, often a series of light novels. So what I thought I'd do is go back and fill in the gaps, write Junko's story, write about Jack's parents and how they felt about all this and add them to the story. Then like the light novels that inspired it, break it up into a series of four shorter novellas. I'll probably publish them all under a pen name--most likely Jack Patrick (because of the whole brand thing) so it looks like Jack will finally listen to Miko and write his story after all.

As of right now the tentative titles are:

A Tanabata Story
vol 1 Confessions
vol 2 Confrontations
vol 3 Sacrifices
vol 4 Choices

If you have any ideas or opinions, feel free to share them.