Question I'm biting the bullet

I've tried to contact Diane Castle and got nothing. A few weeks ago, someone said something about contacting her at Twisting the Hellmouth, and some procedure to avoid some kind of filter for the PM. I can't find that mention. So, what's the procedure to get past UNCLE's security and talk directly to Diane?

I believe this is what you were referring to...

Sir Lee in the 'Whatever Happened to the Kimbas' thread wrote:

annachie wrote: Dianne: Burned out it seems. Still talking to some authors here apparently. Known to have Ayla stories part written and plotted, so there's a chance. Writing a lot of Buffy crossover stuff at Twisting the Hellmouth. (Seriously, like 3 million words)

With regard to contacts, my understanding is that she hasn't been answering e-mails or IMs from the other canon authors. Which is a bit puzzling, because when she does mentions Whateley and the other authors, it's in quite positive terms. But then, just another day someone complained that they were having trouble sending something for her to review, and she advised them to post a comment to one of her stories with the "private" flag checked, because stuff gets caught in her spam filters all the time.

As for her partly written stories, just last week she posted this...

My Team Kimba stuff is stuck. My muse will not go near it, because she's still upset about The Year Without Updating, where I basically burned out trying to write, edit other writers' stuff, struggle without hope to get new stuff posted, post chapters of stories in the forums because we could not post where we needed to, run into brick wall after brick wall and never get resolution, and finally flame out. I'm still trying to bribe her with stuff. I've got like six Phase stories lying open and started but not anywhere close to publishable. Plus two Aquerna stories, one Fractious story, and a couple others. Ugh.

So she hasn't written off Whateley, but she's having a hard time writing in it. She also mentioned, a few months ago, that she had a Whateley story that "should be posted this summer" but obviously that hasn't happened. So it's probably like 80% completed but she's stuck at the finishing stage.

Well, the bullet has been bitten; let's see how long it takes before the bullet bites back

Well, after several attempts and a few 'meh, whatever' replies, I finally have real word from Diane Castle.

She's played the 'Burn Out' card. Which is kind of like saying 'I'm on Hiatus'. Theoretically, there's a possibility that she might come back. But let's get real. 'On Hiatus' basically means 'I quit'.

Narf.

No more Diane Castle. Crap. Nobody produced like Diane. She actually wrote Food Porn that a non-foodie could read. She took Ayla from a girl shaped hole in the plot to an actual person with glaring strengths and nagging flaws. Both of them will be missed.

I hope she’s happy with the stories she is writing.