Can I Blame AI for my Problems?

I’ve been away for quite some time! I do love stating the obvious.

(For those who already saw this post, I decided it was a little too much and deleted it. This is a more refined, fun version.)

The reason I’ve been away: school is kicking my ass. I didn’t remember that the Summer term is half the length of the Fall and Spring semesters. I took four courses, which is the equivalent of eight courses because every week is two weeks’ worth of classwork.

Between school and trying to stay on top of chores, I don’t have time for much else! I do truly miss writing. I’ve been craving it and picking away at a blog post, so here I am.

Blessed Curses is on the back burner indefinitely. When I have time to write, I focus on Fallen Chaos. I’m about a third of the way to a novel, which is super exciting! I really adore how the story is transforming and filling out. This has been such a great experience for me, and as overwhelmed as I feel about trying to finish it, I get absolutely giddy with each new idea.

And just one more week of school and then I will have a short reprieve before Fall semester when I’m back at it, but in a much calmer way. I can give Erin, Harmony, and Aaron some love. 😉

The stress aside, I honestly love being back in school. I love learning. I love advancing in life. I hope it brings me to a more secure place.

Although on that note, work has been… rough. Maybe it’s my fault for taking on a heavy school load, and that’s been burning me out, but I just feel like I work so hard for very little. I’m a woman in a male-dominated company, and as much as I like to think it doesn’t, it wears on me. I’m not taken seriously, and I have to fight insanely hard to be seen as a peer (which I don’t think I ever truly succeed).

That being said…. Desperately seeking external validation while also not being able to handle compliments is just such a fun character flaw.

But maybe it’s in my head. One of the guys I work with read me to filth when he said, “I think you undervalue yourself and you put that on others.” I was like, Oh, okay, excuse you, I’m not ready to be blown to smithereens right now, thanks.

Also, what an odd way to feel seen… ha.

I’m not saying it’s all in my head or it’s all real. It’s somewhere in between in a gooey marsh of gray area. I have trouble with reality sometimes.

Overall, I’m just bummed and exhausted physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

I hope, next month I can start spending a tiny bit more time writing again. Either way, things are progressing well on that front at least.

A bit of an emotional word dump, but I’m honest to a fault, I’m afraid.

All my flaws and negativity aside, my hard work is paying off. I’ve maintained A’s in all my classes despite the work load. And all of this has given me the courage and the push to find a new job.

Screenshot

I’m in a bit of turmoil, but Mercury was in retrograde (literally haha).

My goal to finish the novel draft of Fallen Chaos this year is slipping through my fingers. I’m trying to be okay with that, to stop putting so much pressure on myself. Between time moving quickly along with AI weaseling its way into the writing space, I’m getting a bit anxious about it. I actually pulled Fallen Chaos from Royal Road and Wattpad because I was afraid it would be stolen or used to train AI. Which I feel weird admitting because it makes me sound full of myself. Of course they’d steal my amazing, flawless writing! But in all seriousness, this is my baby, and I’m not taking chances leaving it with the internet.

Honestly, I’m also worried about AI taking over accounting jobs, but I think I’m safe on that front for now. AI just worries me in general for all the economic, humanitarian, and ecological reasons.

Ah, what a world we live in.

I think that’s enough for now. Enjoy my 4th of July looks, I’m pretty proud of them!

New Blessed Curses Chapter + Life Update (?)

Oops, no chapter last weekend. The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. Some amazing things are happening, and some terrible things are happening. C’est la vie, or whatever.

First and foremost, a new chapter of Blessed Curses is published on Royal Road and Wattpad.

The good news is that I will be returning to school in the fall for a BS in Accounting, possibly adding a year to earn my Master’s. I’m not sure what that means for the future of my career, but as always, I’m thinking far too many steps ahead (in this case, 2-3 years ahead). I honestly just need to make it through the next couple of months first.

I’m not good at living in the moment. I’m stuck in the past or the future, and one of my self-improvement goals is to live predominantly in the present. As someone with moderately severe anxiety and ADHD, it’s pretty hard to stay in the here and now when my mind is moving a million miles per minute. Slowing down isn’t really an option at this time. Please check back later.

Honestly, at the current moment, the here and now is challenging. While good things are happening for me, my grandparents’ dementia is getting worse, and we will be moving them into a memory care facility the first week of May.

On top of that challenge in itself, grief is hitting hard again. Despite everything I’ve accomplished in the past two years, there is a hollowness that they’ll never see or know. It hurts. I feel like I started my journey late in life; they won’t see any of my adult accomplishments and milestones, and that’s extremely hard to come to terms with. They barely know that I finally have a successful job outside of pizza. They won’t see me published. They won’t see me married. They won’t see me get my accounting degree. They won’t (and haven’t) seen a lot of things. I was hoping to finish Fallen Chaos this year because, in the back of my mind, I wanted to finish it before they passed, but it doesn’t even matter. I feel like I never lived up to their expectations, and I somehow have to learn to be okay with that.

I’m very lucky in the sense that I’ve made it to 33 without losing anyone super close to me. This is the first time I’m really conquering deep, unending grief, and with their decline, it’s s l o w and d r a w n out. I’m grateful for all the time I get with them, but it definitely comes with waves of grief on different levels and in different ways. What I’m feeling isn’t even comparable to what my mom is going through taking care of them. I don’t envy her journey, but I do envy her strength.

My grandparents are such incredible people who lived full, beautiful lives. I am so grateful to have known them, loved them, and been loved by them. I admire their strength, tenacity, kindness, intelligence, and love for each other. In the end, I’m so, so lucky.

This post got away from me a bit, but I want to share my feelings in case a reader is going through something similar. It’s vital for us to share our feelings and experiences because they could help someone else. Plus, I’m just an oversharer in general. A little too honest.

All that being said, I hope you enjoy the new chapter or this blog post or just your day (or maybe all three). Thanks, as always, for reading.

My Own Worst Enemy

I apologize, y’all, I got the big sad and had to take a step away from writing. Then I got sick. But I’m back!

A bit of a false start on Blessed Curses, but I have uploaded a revised first chapter, and chapter two will be up tomorrow. You can follow on Royal Road or Wattpad.

I’ve also been working on Fallen Chaos as well. Unfortunately, the revisions and additions won’t be uploaded publicly until it’s (hopefully) published. I’ve been toying with a Patreon idea, but I don’t think I’m ready for that kind of commitment.

Additionally, I want to start working towards getting an accounting degree, which will most likely require a writing hiatus.

Basically, I have a lot of ideas/projects in the works. I’m glad to be writing again, even if it terrifies me.

I had a recent issue with someone happening upon a work in progress (the beginning of Chapter 2 for Blessed Curses). It shook me to my core. I’m talking full-blown panic attack. It is already so hard to share my writing with my rejection sensitivity issues, but to have someone see it when it is as raw as it gets, terrified me. During my spiral, a friend reasonably asked: “Why do you care if someone reads your writing when you’re going to share it anyway? Don’t you want people to read it?”

And my gut reaction was “NO!” Which scared me. It all scares me. Honestly, when anyone tries to talk to me about the stuff I’ve shared, I try to switch the topic. Part of it is that I’m absolutely terrible with compliments, and the other part is that I’m absolutely terrible with criticism. So, that doesn’t leave much room for feedback, does it?

With my social anxiety, I always say that I don’t want to be perceived. Which is hard when I’m so reliant on external validation. I’m basically a walking contradiction, and that’s where a lot of my mental health issues derive from.

Back to the original point, I didn’t want to write anymore after that happened. And you may ask, “Why can’t you just write for yourself?” and the answer is: “Because I’ll lose all motivation.” That’s what always happened up until last year, when I started publishing Fallen Chaos. I felt motivated by my readers to keep writing. It’s too easy to put off when it is just me holding myself accountable.

So, as hard as it is, I’m back to writing and back to sharing. I do enjoy writing (as my friend also had to remind me, I hate how logical he is), and I’m not ready to let go of my dream just yet.

Thank you to all my supporters; you mean the world to me.

Thank you to Nestor for trying to keep me sane.

Thank you to Sindi for telling me that if I write, I’d better share it with her.

Thank you to Misa for telling me to keep her in the know if I publish anything new.

Thank you to Artie for pestering me for the next chapter every weekend when I was publishing Fallen Chaos.

Thank you to Walt for following me and encouraging me.

Thank you to my parents for believing in me.

A New Serialized Fiction?!

Guess who has something else up her sleeve?

I’m excited to announce I have another serialized fiction project!

I need to set Fallen Chaos aside for a while, and I have another idea to pursue in the meantime. That means another story is coming to Royal Road & Wattpad!

Blessed Curses will be updated every Sunday, just as Fallen Chaos was. Read on Royal Road here and Wattpad here.

SYNOPSIS:

Achlysta is a small village plagued by an evil, vicious man. Elderman’s jealousy over those born with gifts, those considered blessed, has caused curses and fear to saturate the once-happy village. Naveah, blessed to see the future, discovers his plans, but she loses the ability to speak and cannot warn the village.

When everyone’s gifts are stolen from them, Naveah is left standing alone with her gift. The villagers of Achlysta cast her out, blaming her for their misfortune. When wandering through the forest, she finds a group of cast-outs that are forming a resistance to take down Elderman.

Will Naveah and her new group of friends be able to stop the powerful Elderman and save Achlysta from his reign?

Another place to follow me is on Writing.Com. Honestly, it’s a community that is helping me get back into the creative writing space. I have a few other stories there that I submitted to their contests for fun.

The WDC community is a major reason I am where I am today. I found the site back in the 2000’s when simply typing in “writing.com” back when the internet was safer (relatively).

In my late teens/early 20s, I became a huge player in the community. But then I took on too much, became overwhelmed, ghosted, and then deleted my account out of embarrassment. It’s so silly because I know they would have understood; it’s an excellent community. Well, I’m finally back under the username raebeck. (If you found my blog through WDC, my past username was lazymarionette, I made it to Preferred Author, and I’m sorry.)

That being said, I’m so excited to be writing more in the past year than in the past ten years. I’ve won a few contests on WDC that have really shown me that my writing is decent (I wish I didn’t rely so much on external validation, but here we are). The imposter syndrome is still there, but I’m going to write despite that.

Follow Blessed Curses here:

Royal Road Ch.1

Wattpad Ch.1

At the End of Wadsworth

When I was young and dumb, my best friend and I accidentally found the end of Wadsworth Boulevard in Colorado. We meant to go North and ended up South, because what other direction would we go with me at the wheel?

I had (and still have) a reputation for my terrible sense of direction. In high school, the joke was that I always seemed to end up at the airport. It only happened twice, but DIA was so far away, and in the middle of nowhere; in other words, it was ridiculous for me to find myself there. Twice.

And yet, apt for the time. I was literally and metaphorically lost in my senior year of high school. Eventually, the airport brought me to college out of state. It was an omen, how poetic.

Our Wadsworth adventure took hours, and we didn’t even notice. I don’t even remember where we were coming from, just that I was trying to take us home. We were unaware of our surroundings until we pulled up to a security gate and encountered a confused officer. We’d somehow ended up in a high-security clearance aerospace and missile facility.

But when you’re in love and running away from your problems with a girl who will only string you along, you’re bound to end up somewhere explosive.

When I see Cutthroat Kitchen, I think of her.

As a ghost, she floats through my memories, an apparition at best. I killed the memory of her, slashing her into pieces until there was nothing left but the perceived evil. The lies, without their context. Without her emotions, her motives, her hopes, her dreams–without her.

My hurt ran deep, but it was selfish. It consumed every last shred of her, leaving me with nothing but the skins.

Sometimes I wonder if I loved her or just her body. And yet, that can’t possibly be true; that’s not who I am or how I experience attraction, but I’ve villainized her to the point that I don’t remember who she truly was, only her shell. I thought she was always an emotionless, toxic person, but then, my Facebook memories (of all things) showed me a different version of her. It showed me the version of her writing loving messages on my wall (I’m revealing my age here). But then again, I don’t even remember who I was back then.

When I pass Village Inns, I think of her.

Studies show that every time we think about a memory, it changes. It forms to the context of the time it is being remembered. Every time a memory comes to mind, it is changed forever. Every. Single. Time.

People who wrong me become villainous, evil, spiteful individuals without a heart. But I drew them close for a reason. I loved them for a reason. They had to have redeeming qualities… right?

This girl, this woman, this dreamer, this lover, this cheater, this manipulator, is symbolic of how vastly different people become in memory. Whether I’m villainizing or idolizing, none of it is real.

Only two facts remain:

She was a liar, but so am I.

Tireless at Best

The month of September was chaotic at best, overwhelming at worst. Yes, I managed to finish my serialized fiction project (or at least the rough draft), but I spent the first week on a road trip from Colorado to New Jersey to visit my grandparents, and the second half of the month moving. The road trip to New Jersey was an emotionally taxing trip for many reasons. Then, the second I got back, I moved to an apartment about 45 minutes from my old place. This meant that for almost every day for two weeks straight, I was going back and forth while also going to work, which was about 30 minutes from the old place and 45 minutes from the new. Just… a lot.

I’ve struggled to slow down after that (or before that — since birth, if we’re keeping track). My lease ended at the end of September, so thankfully, the cleaning/moving-out process is finished. But I still have so much to do in the new apartment. I am a fast-paced person, motivated by an internal sense of constant urgency. This year, I’ve been working on s l o w i n g down, enjoying things, properly processing things, etc. I have not been the most successful. This move has broken my body, and I am not good at sitting still to mend it.

All that being said, I’ve been focusing this weekend on writing and learning Tarot. Partially to distract myself from more cleaning/moving furniture/hanging heavy rods on the walls, but also to get back on track. I want to remember my two most significant goals of writing and self-discovery.

I wrote half a blog post detailing the trip in September, but it didn’t focus on the essential parts; I’m not ready to process those. I meant to take a zillion pictures because I’m so bad at capturing events. I mean, yes, it is great—I’m living in the moment instead of focusing on capturing it —but that leaves me with little to look back on. Of course, once again, I did not succeed beyond some surface-level events photographed on the drive there. To be fair, I was insanely exhausted after the fact and never quite caught up on sleep for the entirety of the trip. Additionally, most of the things that happened while I was in New Jersey were emotionally taxing and things I don’t need or want to commit to the internet forever.

All the same, it was important, and I do want to share the moments I captured. The moments that were fulfilling rather than draining. Overall, I am grateful I took the trip and that, at some point, I will find it in myself to finish that post.

Anyway, now that I’ve essentially said a lot of vague words about nothing, back to my sense of urgency. It’s why my blog posts are short, and why I struggle with long-form fiction. It is why my project was rushed and, at best, cardboard. It is why I lose people in my life because I rush into conflict. I’m not good at waiting. I just want things done and over with. I even move fast, focusing on point A to B. This weekend, on top of focusing on writing, I’m focusing on s l o w i n g down. I’m not fast pacing around my apartment, but walking slowly and intentionally. I’m breathing through stress. I’m not responding immediately to triggering situations. I’m allowing my mind and body to heal.

For the record, I do have another story idea in the works that I’m excited for. As I think about it, it is probably another way to tame my inner demons. The story of the goddess of chaos was partially written through my bipolar depressive episode as a way to work through it. This new story will be another way to work through my mental health issues, I suppose. It is one of those situations where a literature professor would find symbols and themes, and the author is just like, “Oh, yeah, totally intentional.” That’s the thing, I don’t see the symbols I unintentionally include as I write until I go back to edit with a critical eye, and then they’re clear as day.

Another goal I’m working on this weekend is learning Tarot. I didn’t believe in that kind of thing for the longest time, but I recently started learning more about it and understanding that it isn’t about fortune-telling. I’m a highly empathetic and intuitive person, and have been struggling with where to direct that energy instead of feeling such intense emotions all the time. When I learned that Tarot was more about tapping into energies and allowing the cards to provide understanding rather than to tell the future, I figured, what do I have to lose? Either way, it is fun to learn, even if it is just a party trick.

My first reading today was extremely poetic and spiritual. It also helped me slow down to be attuned to my inner self. I know a few readers’ eyes just glazed over as they stopped reading, but this blog is about being open and honest. I hope to continue along this journey to find a sense of spirituality. I’m not religious, but I do believe there may be something out in the universe, and this is helping me channel it personally.

At some point, I will write a blog post about Tarot as I continue learning and understanding. I look forward to it!

This is yet another rushed blog entry, but I hope to delve into everything mentioned more thoroughly on another day. At this point, I just wanted to share some thoughts. Thank you for continuing with me on my writing journey as I also discover myself in the process. I hope you all are having a wonderful October!

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