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Something You Should Know

In 1997, an unknown guy with an overactive imagination stepped onto the Usenet newsgroups with a completely unheard of story (at the time), called CAMP . Back then, it didn't even have its addendum title. His name, at the time, was WhiteStar. He'd debated, even then, for several days about releasing the story. Its reception was beyond his wildest dreams, and his name quickly became well-known within a certain circle of the Usenet community.

Over the next two years, this and that plagued WhiteStar, and he was completely absent for over a year of those two years. However, he returned and continued and persevered. In late 1999, this writer, now extremely well-known, especially within the erotic mind-control authors community, changed his name to Net Wolf. Under this name, he completed his first and second novels, and his popularity seemed to grow even further. Despite a sabbatical in 2001, he remained a well-known figure.

In 2002, Net Wolf opened a completely unknown little website, which he called "Electronic Wilderness Publishing." He gave it the laughable purpose of bringing authors and their readers together, and encouraging the authors to improve their skills.

Unfortunately, along with popularity, there often comes a group of people who will find ways to take shots at such a figure. In Net Wolf's life, there were many such people. When some of the people he had considered friends turned out to be such people, it was simply more than he could take, and it was at this point that Net Wolf announced his retirement. This happened in March of 2002.

Since then, almost no one has seen or heard from Net Wolf... or so they think.

You see, Net Wolf never actually left.

How do I know this? Well, because I am Net Wolf. Though you don't call me that right now.

What you call me is "Ice Phoenix."

In March, 2002, I was fighting, not so much with people, but just to keep my emotions together. I was very brittle at the time, and what was happening to me was simply more than I was capable of withstanding. My disappearance became a necessity, to get people "off my back," so to speak.

There of course was a problem with this concept: my writing. I am a storyteller at heart. I spend most of my day thinking about stories or this website. EWP, even back then, was the heart of my daily existence (though it didn't take nearly as much time back then!) So, what was I supposed to do? I could not, for my own mental health, appear in public as Net Wolf. On the other hand, also for my own mental health, I needed to keep writing, to allow myself that release, that "escape" into worlds of my own creation, where friends do not do what 'friends' did to me. To that end, it was necessary for me to develop an alter-ego: Ice Phoenix. In fact, in order to hide who I was, it became necessary to develop more than one alter-ego. At one time or another, you have called me Ice Phoenix, Storm Warning, or "Admin".

Of course, as you might guess if you've read this far, there was a problem with this solution. The problem was this: it required me to lie. I hate lying. I despise the very concept of people who lie. The lie was, at the time, absolutely necessary for my own self-preservation, and the rebuilding of my emotional stability and mental health. Though I have never considered "the permanent solution" to my problems, I can tell you that there were some very dark days in February and March of 2002.

In 2003, for whatever reasons that I cannot readily recall now, I decided to write down a list of rules that I would live by. (This is necessary because, as many of you know, I'm an Agnostic, and do not have a religion telling me what to do.) In doing so, I decided that I would formalize the whole thing, and would develop the basis for a "brotherhood" (Excuse the term, ladies, but I don't know another one that is gender-neutral.) based on the set of rules I espoused. This society I called "The Guardian Society," and I try to live by the rules the Society is governed by.

Recently, I was given to re-read the rules of the Society, and I was struck by the following Commandment #5:

You shall hold your integrity as your most important possession. An untrustworthy person is a useless person. Integrity includes the virtues of honesty, loyalty, and dependability.

As you might imagine, since I have listed "honesty" as an important part of "integrity", and as we have already said that I despise liars, I began to feel a little bad about myself. What , I asked myself, makes you any better than the people who lied to you?

Now, it must be said that, when I did it, it was entirely essential, and my concern about lying was completely overruled by my need for self-preservation. As time has gone on, however, I have become a stronger person, a more mature individual, and more capable of handling the ugliness that life has continued to throw at me. As I have slowly come to realize, if what had happened to me then, happened to me now, I would simply have told certain people off, and walked away from them. What I did would not now be necessary.

Having said that, I had to ask myself if I could continue to live the lie. As you might expect, since you're reading this letter that tells you all this, I cannot. My values are important to me, and it would be hard for me to be a decent supporter of The Guardian Society if I was violating at a basic level one of its Commandments.

So, at this time, I am reclaiming my name. I will return to being Net Wolf, ruler of the electronic wilderness. :) To eliminate immediately anyone's worries, all Ice Phoenix projects are Net Wolf projects. None of my stories is going to be abandoned. And a couple of Net Wolf stories that have been abandoned up until now, may in fact be rejuvenated and finished... such as A Mother's Slavery. There might even, at some point in the future, be an Artifacts 2. I hope this helps explain to some people why it seems like I had times when I wasn't writing very much, yet still claimed to be busy: Often I was still writing, it just wasn't on something I could tell you about. The completion of Warmth of a Touch, for example.

I know that this revelation is going to cost me someone. Somewhere out there, at least one of you is going to read this and say, "He betrayed me; I can't trust him," and walk away from me. I'm sorry that has to happen. I hope the numbers are few. Some of you might be downright angry about being lied to and misled. I can both understand and sympathize with that concept. I can only ask your forgiveness, and hope that we can move on. Some might even read this, and simply be happy I'm back to being me. To you, I say, thank you for your continued support and encouragement. It is good to have friends, and it is a relief to stop hiding from those of you that actually like me.

Ten years from now, chances are the name "Ice Phoenix" will scarcely be remembered in the history of Internet erotica. It is my sincere hope that the name "Net Wolf" isn't 'remembered', but is actually still around. I hope that you will stick by me through whatever may happen to come in the future, and let us all hope that nothing anywhere near as drastic as this step ever needs to be taken again.

The following portion of this message goes out to my detractors:

A final word about Electronic Wilderness Publishing:

In the past, certain people have bridled at what they have considered my "abrasive" attitude toward negative comments delivered in our forum. As such, let me clear something up for them: EWP is my baby. These authors, I consider to be my authors, in that they have given me the honor of hosting them here. As such, if you disrespect one of them, I'm going to rip your guarddamned motherfucking head off, and I'm not going to apologize for doing so. I built this website to nurture authors, and to help them grow. If you try to bash them, flame them, or tear them down in any way, I will regard you as an enemy, and treat you likewise. Anything that does not lead toward the goal I am trying to achieve will be dealt with severely, and if you don't like that attitude, that's your problem, not mine. I will not willingly let you do to another author what happened to me. EVER .

I will deal with everyone with respect, first and foremost. Only at such time as you show yourself not to be worthy of that respect will I resort to something more unpleasant. We've had only a few people who really didn't "get it," and had to be slapped down hard. I don't actually like doing that: screaming at people doesn't usually build community, as someone pointed out on the forum recently. However, if I feel that you are no longer capable of being part of our community, I will shut you up, one way or the other. I've banned people from our forum before; I can do it again.

This is not to say that you can't criticize. This is to say that you'd better do it with respect for the effort and work that went into what you are tearing apart. So long as your words are delivered with respect and a desire to help, you and I won't have a problem at all. Although at times it may seem that I am upset that you are questioning something I, or someone else has done, it is merely because I want to be very clear and specific about what you're saying. You will also find that I am most abrupt when you criticize without giving any suggestions for how to fix what you are criticizing. Take this as a hint. ;)

In closing, I would like to say that it has been, and I expect that it will continue to be, an honor and a privilege to work with these authors, and to be able to provide this website for our readers. I get up each and every morning, and look forward to looking on our forum for new posts, to checking my email for comments, to posting new material presented to me by our wonderful authors. Hell, I even enjoy handling the occasional problem that crops up. EWP is important to me, and always has been. Whether you support me or not, I will continue to be here, keeping the site in one piece as best I can.

If you want to contact me, my new email address is netwolf@ewpub.org. I will keep my Ice Phoenix email open for now, so that those who aren't yet aware of this change will still be able to reach me. You will find that all Ice Phoenix stories have been moved to the Net Wolf section already. I don't anticipate any other changes happening because of this... event.

Since I have the feeling that some discussion will be in order, we've established an area in General Chat... "Net Wolf's return", for talking about this. I will answer questions as best I can, with the exception that I am not going to respond to queries about "what happened" that caused me to leave. That's... none of your business. Sorry, but that's the way I feel about it. Anything else you want to know, I'll try to answer as best I can.

I'd like to thank you for sticking with this letter this far. (If you don't get this thank you note, it's because you didn't read this far, and you don't deserve it! :-P ) I hope that you all will continue to give me the support and encouragement you have shown so often over the last twenty months. I think it's time, though, that I get back to doing what I do best; telling stories. I'll talk to you later.

May the Watchers keep their vigil over you,

May the Guardians protect you, and

May the Judges treat you fairly.

Net Wolf

January 1, 2004

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