What to say about August? I once more face the daunting task of how to an entirely internal experience.

It’s not hard for me to feel like an entire month has passed, because I’ve had a mountain of experiences that have led to more massive internal developments. And I am no closer to understanding how to convey my experience, other than telling you that it has sure been something.

The easiest thing to talk about is how simple my life has gotten through this process. I moved beyond the more agonizing stages of the healing process, and it’s led to a simpler time. Most of my time and attention is geared toward taking care of myself and my needs on the day to day. I’ve gotten significantly better at that.

I also ended up with a couple kittens this month, and that’s been quite the experience. They’ve mixed up my routine and kept things interesting. We battled some fleas for a minute. We cuddle often. They like to nibble on my neck in the middle of the night, which is really not my favorite. They’ve pushed me to be very clean and on top of things, and since I’ve had them with me, my writing has thrived while my sleeping hasn’t.

I’ve been wondering if they’ve somehow been transferring their youthful energy to me, because I’ve been writing like a mad woman all while keeping on top of everything else. But then, I remembered that I thrive whenever I’m under pressure. It’s been years since I’ve had the right kind of pressure to push me into my get-shit-done mode. Honestly, it feels amazing.

The simplicity and rush of energy have combined to make me feel like I’m propelling forward into my dreams. Dreams I’ve spent years building toward. It feels like I can taste them now.

Writing

Since I’ve been a bit of a writing machine, I propelled through to the end of my second draft of the secret project I’ve been working on. This is the fastest I’ve ever worked through something, and I love it. It feels like everything is coming together in the most beautiful way.

~May fall tip toe in with softness~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human.

I’d written something else for this, but I’ve been encouraged by the universe to be more honest about how I’ve been because you never know when, what, or who will be able to help you.

The truth is that I’ve been struggling for a really long time. I’ve been battling against so many factors, but the biggest ones I’ve been fighting are my feelings of being unworthy, unimportant, and insignificant.

When I first started writing this, I thought I had to prove my worth. I thought I had to prove that my writing was worth reading and that I wasn’t a waste of time for you. I’d thought people would be reading these with pity in their hearts at my feeble attempts to communicate something utterly worthless.

I didn’t think there was anything important I could possibly say that would make the world a better place, put a smile on someone’s face, or create connection between me and someone else. I’d thought I’d been putting these newsletters out there as a shot in the dark that would fade off into some distant reach of the internet. Because I didn’t believe that anyone would want to read anything I wrote.

The reason I didn’t think anyone would want to read what I wrote is because I thought my experiences were too insignificant to have any sort of impact on readers. I thought I was too insignificant.

In my earlier writing years, the biggest thing I struggled with was never writing itself, it was always with the feeling that what I wrote would never matter as much as what someone else wrote, that my voice wasn’t as significant or important as another’s.

I’ve been putting on a brave face. Writing isn’t the part I struggle with, it’s being honest about when I need support.

The last few years have been some of the most brutal years I’ve lived through, and pretty much everything in my life fell apart pretty much all at once. I hadn’t planned or even anticipated getting a divorce (we’d literally bought a house together about 7 months before that), and I certainly hadn’t planned on moving out. On top of that, last year I got laid off from my job.

There’d been a plan. I’d had a plan. A plan multiple years in the making actually. I’d planned my entire life around that marriage, around things working out, and around me being able to quit one of the biggest drains of my life (corporate America) to be able to write full time and go all in on my dream and aspiration of being a novelist. Every single piece had been in place. I’d paid off my loans and we’d brought down our expenses. Next, all I needed to do was write books and take the final leap.

Well, my leap ended up a whole of a hell lot bigger than I anticipated.

Everything fell apart. Then, suddenly, I was on my own after being unemployed for almost a year. But most of that year I’d barely been able to function. My nervous system had been an absolute wreck from the two years prior to that which had been a complete disaster. So, before even a year had passed, I’d barely felt like I’d picked myself up off the pavement before I was suddenly divorced and living in a studio with no external support (other than my friend Gigi, shoutout to her for being the absolute best, and my D&D/writing communities).

There’s the part of me that wants to sit here and tell you that I’m built out of pure steel and absolutely none of this has affected me and I’m 100000% fine and you don’t need to worry about me. But honestly, it’s been a fucking lot. I still have a massive amount of faith and belief in my path and in myself, but that doesn’t mean I’m not constantly struggling. Every other week I’m on my knees wanting to give up, to go back, but every time I get to that point, I realize there is absolutely nothing for me to “go back” to. There is no going back for me. There is only going forward.

I’ve been moving forward, but I’m constantly picking myself up out of a wreck of emotions. And somehow through everything, I’ve made progress, I’ve continued, I’ve marched forward.

I don’t really know what the point of me telling you all of this is, but then what’s the point of anyone telling anyone anything.

Thank you for reading. I truly value your presence more than you’ll ever know.

Writing

I am still working on my secret project, but I am well into the second draft now. It is starting to have a solid flow and structure.

~Wishing you a pleasant August~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human.

I’ve been wondering if it’s possible for anyone to ever truly know you. Even yourself.

My idea of how the self is formed has shifted. Where I’d once imagined a person whole and individual, composed of something solid, I now imagine a person built out of a random assortment of fractured glass, never appearing the exact same—different angles of light and perspective shifting the way you see someone else.

I feel constructed by the fractures of all the different ways people, including myself, have viewed me. All the “good” and “bad” pieces beautiful in their own right because good and bad depends on the viewer. Something dark and dirty to someone is beautiful and real to another. Something clear and pure to one is fake and perverse to another. But when you step back and observe the kaleidoscope of someone, they’re beautiful in their own way.

I’m starting to feel wholly beautiful as all the pieces and collections of me. In the fullness of my imperfections I’ve spent most of my life fighting. In the chaos of my messiest emotions. In the ache of my heart that stays open despite it all. In the pain of all I’ve carried with me.

While I’m beginning to feel the beauty that creates me, I can never see it the way others do. So, I can’t help but feel like even I can never know myself fully. I can’t see the sparkle in my eye when someone says something that lights me up. I can’t observe my strength in a situation the way someone else can. I can’t put my life and experiences in perspective the way someone else can. This doesn’t make any of it less real, but it is something I take for granted within myself.

It is hard to comprehend the fullness of what makes you, you. I have so easily observed the beauty of the world and within others, but I have spent so much of my life belittling or rejecting the beauty within me. I strip down straight to the glimmering soul of someone else’s center, yet I’ve failed to see my own soul shining just as bright.

Sometimes your light shines so bright within that it casts shadows across others. Shadows aren’t bad. They’re natural, but people often don’t like seeing their own shadows. I used to feel like that meant I needed to shine less bright, like I needed to install my own personal dimmer switch. But whether I shine or not doesn’t make someone else’s shadows any less real.

So, I’ve been embracing my kaleidoscopic shine, letting my soul glow through the fractured bits of colored glass and releasing my hold on how those colors fall onto someone else.

Writing

My project is still a secret, but if you like this newsletter, you’ll love it.

I will tell you I completed the draft I’d started in early May. I am now on the second draft.

~Hoping you find some water to splash around in~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

I used to be attached to everything going or being a certain way. I used to be attached to ideas, experiences, memories, people. I used to be terrified of what would happen if I let go.

It’s funny how releasing ended up being so freeing.

I struggled to let go of the life I thought I wanted. I struggled to let go of people I thought I needed. I struggled to accept that some experiences have their limits. Most importantly, I struggled to accept that I needed to change everything so completely about how I live, how I think, how I treat myself, how I treat others, how I see the world. All of it. And to change all of that, I also had to release what had been.

I’ve gone through many transformations in my life, but none as profound as the one I’ve been experiencing this year. It has completely dismantled my experience as a person, and my greatest challenge around it has been how difficult it is to communicate this rapid internal change to other people. I know I don’t necessarily need to explain my experience, but writing my newsletter has presented a unique challenge every time: how do I convey my experience while keeping in mind that you are always a month behind where I am.

I’ve never had this kind of challenge before, but there’s a lot of challenges I’ve never had before that I do now.

The simplest way I can think to explain my experience is that I’ve been going through a massive spiritual awakening. Every month ends so wholly different from where it started. Every week passes starts and ends radically different. Sometimes even my days start and end that differently. The effect of this shift has made it to where a month feels like a year has passed. A week feels like a month. And a single day can sometimes feel like an entire week.

With each stage of this transformation, I’ve been stubborn enough to believe that I’ve reached the end, that I’ve fully transformed and am finally flapping around like the beautiful butterfly I always knew I could be. But I am almost always immediately humbled. It’s like I think if I think something hard enough, then it’ll just magically be true. Unfortunately, and fortunately, that’s not how it works.

Ironically, it wasn’t until I fully broke down and stopped forcing myself to believe something that wasn’t true that I realized I was in the chrysalis. All the times I thought for sure I’d transformed and grown my wings feel a bit silly now that I know what it’s actually like—painful and uncomfortable, all the time. And it makes me feel naked, vulnerable. When I think about the chrysalis, I realize that is the most vulnerable state for the future butterfly because it just has to sit there and rest as it forms into something new. If something threatens it, it’s defenseless.

In all my fighting and attachment, I think the thing I was running away from was the feeling of being defenseless. I’ve lived a life that’s demanded defenses. But I’ve set myself up now to where there’s nothing left to defend against. There is just me in my apartment making the choices that align with what I want in life. Nothing to prove. No one to cater to. Just me in my own little chrysalis.

I don’t know what’s next, but I know it’s about to look a whole hell of a lot different than what it was.

Writing Progress

Remembering where I was at the start of May is like trying to remember the first year of life. There were a couple weeks where songs were pouring out of me.

In short, I wrote 40,000 words. Which is a lot. I wrote more than even that, but for once, this project is a secret.

Other Experiences in May

The name of the game this month was living and adventure. I went out in the world as fully and as often as I could. I created a bunch of Instagram reels and had a lot of fun creating them. I explored my park more, flew down a slide, and got as much air as I could on some waterfront swings. I took myself dancing and to the Taste of Cincinnati twice. I ended the month with a fun outdoor roller skating adventure and an astronaut training program at the Cincinnati Observatory.

Basically, I started dating myself. And honestly? It’s been pretty awesome. I’m a great date.

~Happy Pride Month!~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Burgundy, a deep red color reminiscent of fine wine, symbolizes sophistication and ambition. This rich hue is associated with the burgundy color meaning of strength, wealth, and power.

April. What a concept. I’ve completed the fourth month of the year, and it feels like the year is only beginning. It’s hard for me to express how transformative my year has been so far.

It feels like I’ve been reborn. But not as some random version of myself or who I have been before. For the first time ever, I feel like I’m finally living as myself.

So much has changed in the span of only a couple months. I’ve moved into my own place and feel blessed to be in my new apartment. I feel free and alive and happy, yet I feel terrified and unsure all the same. But I think that’s a sign that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be.

They say you’ve reached alignment in your life when you don’t know what’s next. Every day, I wake up and live the day as fully present as I can. I flow with the rhythm of life and my nervous system. I rest when I need to rest. I move when I need to move. I have a gym now, so I’m working out and getting stronger. And I have my own kitchen where I can now cook, so I’ve been eating vegetables and more balanced meals.

I feel stronger and more capable with each passing day even with the hiccups and tough days. I feel everything in my life upgrading. I don’t know where it’s headed anymore, but I trust where I’ve been guided. Even all the moments of my life that felt like living in hell on Earth have put me on a better life path. I feel I’ve learned a lot of lessons, and it’s crazy that I’ve been 30 for less than six months.

I always knew my life would change for the better when I turned 30, but I underestimated the extent of those changes. Despite the gravity of the changes, I’m grateful everyday that things are different for me. I feel revitalized and ready to embrace whatever crosses my path. If you missed the changes I’m referring to, check out last month’s letter.

Writing Updates

This is where things get weird.

With all the changes and healing I’ve been undergoing, I’ve also felt a call to shift where and what I build. I’m still writing, but I’ve been writing songs. They’re pouring out of me. They come to me in these deeply focused flow states where I feel connected to the creative force of the universe. They’ve been deeply healing to write. I bought a keyboard, so I’m getting back into playing piano again. One day soon, I’ll have songs to share.

I might return to my books one day, but for now I feel a stronger pull to creating music. Every day, I eat and breathe music, dancing, and singing. I’m still writing short stories because they’re enjoyable for me.

Another couple rejections came in this month. Three to be exact. The first one was just me not making it to the next round of that contest, but I got overwhelmingly good feedback from one of the judges who felt the need to quote the entire thing because they liked it so much. This story was more an issue that I didn’t fit the genre as well as I could have, but that doesn’t mean the story sucked. I might share it fully for my paid subscribers in May with a preview for everyone else.

The other rejections were for a fantasy workshop and a contest where I’d submitted a short story that actually made me cry when I wrote it. I might share that one in the coming months as well.

Other Experiences in April

My most notable event from April apart from moving is that I went to Disney on Ice with my friend. It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision that we decided a month in advance. So maybe not that much of a spur.

I went once as a kid, but I didn’t remember a single detail about that experience, so I had no idea what to expect as an adult. When we first got there in the middle of the day on a Friday, surrounded by families and small children, I was a bit nervous. Then when it started with a DJ booth session with the Mickey gang, I got even more nervous.

Then the real performance began. Ice skating is already impressive, but then you add in props and aerial work and it’s like going to Broadway. Truly spectacular.

Although, I did need to take a four hour respite in a dark room afterward because the experience was so overstimulating.

~Wishing your a comfortable shift into warmer months~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

P.S. Thank you to those that upgraded to a paid subscription! As thanks, I’ll be sending out a short fiction piece with a little background/insight around it’s creation around mid-month. If you’d like to support me during this major life transition and have the funds, upgrade to a paid subscription <3

I wrote this short story in January of 2025 when I was at one of my lowest lows in life. I’d come out of a very challenging year emotionally, and at the time wasn’t able to walk for more than five minute increments. When I wrote this, I thought it was a silly story—one maybe not worth being born at all. But I was writing it for a contest, so I committed to it and let it come to life how it wanted to.

Now, I see it in a whole new way. Despite my doubt at the time, the contest judges had told me it had nearly been chosen for top 20. The story I wasn’t sure was worth seeing the light of day had almost been my first big win.

I’d been surprised last April when I’d received that feedback. It was the most positive response I’d received in that contest (and others).

Rereading and reworking it now to share it with you, I see the potential the contest judges had.

This short story is more than any random story. It illustrates how easy we can be blind to what’s in front of us by what we want to see, what we want to believe. In 2024, all the illusions I’d been living with began to shatter—and continued shattering in 2025.

When I wrote “Robin Hood and the Rose,” I was still processing the end of illusions I hadn’t realized I’d been projecting onto the life I thought I’d been living. So, when I look at this story now, its meaning far surpasses the surface-level narrative.

I hope you enjoy it <3

…

Robin Hood and the Rose

Lilian Rose ran a hand over the cover of her newest book, The Maiden and the Knight, and propped it upright in her author section of the bookshop.

“Ooo,” Her coworker, Amelia, cooed from behind the bookshop counter, twirling a bit of long dark hair around her finger. “Is that the new book, Lily? You were busy in the off season. Can’t wait to read this one.”

Lilian flinched, both at the idea of Amelia reading her books and being called Lily. Her off season had been productive, but what else did she have to do? Working at Barnes and Noble in the off season while wearing “normal” people clothes would never be as interesting or fun as when she got to work at the renaissance festival. Plus, she had her own featured author section at the ren faire’s bookshop. Barnes and Noble wouldn’t stock even a single copy.

Fortunately, guests pooled into the bookshop and saved Lilian from the meaningless conversation Amelia always supplied.

For her lunch break, Lilian left Amelia and headed to her favorite spot—off the beaten path and generally avoided by others. Past the Oracle’s Corner, Lilian tucked herself into a little alcove in the woods. The sun warmed her and illuminated the dilapidated well at the center. Grass covered misplaced stones scattered around it. Vines and bright moss spread across the well. It wasn’t anything special, but something about the well’s timelessness drew Lilian in. The alcove felt like her own hidden oasis.

On her way back from lunch, Lilian wove through a dense crowd of BO. She kept her head down and held her skirts to save the cream-colored fabric from being stepped on. The crowds were her least favorite part—even if they brought more potential book buyers. She did love the costumes though. Patrons wore everything from streetwear to full Viking outfits.

And when a big bulk of a man knocked her on her ass, she decided she hated the Vikings in the crowd the most. The sea of patrons parted around her. Her perpetrator continued without so much as a backward glance.

Lilian struggled to rise from the trampled mud fresh with summer rains and the stampede of passersby.

A hand reached for her.

She accepted it and flew upward with ease—too much ease—and slammed into the chest of her savior.

“Woah,” his deep voice rumbled against her hand. “Are you okay?”

She nodded, a little too enthusiastically, which scattered her hair and bangs across her face.

“I’m sorry that happened.” His honey brown eyes glared at where her assailant had disappeared. “Some people can be so blind to the reality around them.”

“Yeah,” she breathed.

He smiled down at her—a breathtaking smile that stomped on Lilian’s heart. “We should get out of the way.”

People pushed around them.

“Right.”

The man dressed as Robin Hood in a green cloak and hat with a bow and quiver strapped to his back led them out of the flood of guests. His mahogany skin glowed in the full light of the late summer sun.

When they faced each other once again, Lilian couldn’t help feeling like he’d just stepped out of one of her novels.

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Lilian studied his features as if hoping to memorize them for potential content later.

“I should get going.” Robin Hood gave her an odd look. “Glad you’re okay.”

He disappeared back into the sea of patrons like he’d never existed.

The world sharpened on Lilian’s walk back to the bookstore. Colors brightened. The leaves on trees burned almost neon in the sun’s glow. Birds sang louder. Voices twinkled. The sweet, sharp tang of fried dough overtook the smells of the sweaty people around her.

With each step, Lilian grew lighter and lighter.

Lilian stalked the same path over the next week of lunch breaks but didn’t fall into her Robin Hood again. She decided to leave it to fate. If they were meant to be, she’d see him again.

She’d nearly given up, but a couple weeks after their first encounter, a familiar shade of green bobbed in the crowd. She ditched her lunchtime plans and trailed the bobbing head. He led her away from the main part of the ren faire, past the jousts, food vendors, and beyond the armor and jewelry shops.

Just beyond the climbing wall and kids games, Robin Hood diverged from the main pathway and sauntered down into an area Lilian had never noticed. She picked up her skirts and stepped carefully down into an impressive archery range. In addition to the standard haystacks with targets attached to them, targets also hung from tree limbs and mimicked fake horses and human-shaped sacks.

Before Robin Hood or the attendant noticed her, she ducked beneath a low hanging tree branch and plopped onto a rough stone bench.

She thought she’d gone unnoticed, but Robin Hood spotted her in less than a minute.

Lilian ruffled her bangs and fidgeted with her suddenly too tight corset.

“Did you—Wait,” Robin Hood said, a smile forming on his face, “you’re the one that almost went out like Mufasa.”

Lilian blinked then let out a nervous laugh. “I’m sure it wasn’t that dire.”

His brows raised. “From what I recall, I saved you from certain death.”

“Hardly,” Lilian muttered.

He smirked and leaned against the tree. “Have you come to try archery to fend off any future assailants?”

She wrinkled her nose. “That—I can’t—” She sighed. “I’d only embarrass myself further.”

He chuckled. “Nonsense. Anyone can learn archery.”

Before Lilian stood—or agreed—Robin Hood was already down the hill and grabbing a training bow. He waved her after him.

In any other instance, Lilian would have ran in the opposite direction, but he had this lop-sided grin and eager expression that almost made Lilian believe maybe she could do it.

Her bravery slipped when her fingers wrapped around the stiff wood, and he nodded to the shortest range. “Go ahead.”

He had absolutely no reason to believe in her, but his belief fueled her courage. She plucked an arrow and slotted it like she’d seen in the movies. With the encouragement of his attention and the cool kiss of a breeze across her bare skin, she aimed and released.

The arrow nose-dived about two inches away.

Her cheeks burned in embarrassment. She was exactly as bad as she knew she’d be. There was a reason she kept her nose in a book instead of out in the real world, with real action. She was much better with made-up actions. In fact, she’d written a character that was extremely good at archery. When she’d written it, she’d felt competent in something she’d never tried. But she knew her hand-eye coordination was lacking. Something her very athletic parents had been more than disappointed about.

“It’s okay. Try again.”

She shook off her doubt and tried again.

And again.

And again.

“Here.” He stepped beside her. “I’ll show you how it should feel.” His body wrapped around her as his fingers enclosed hers. His body flush against her backside sent a wave of warmth through her. She became the arrow nestled in his bow. His mustiness—a mix of cinnamon and cedarwood—clouded her senses. Leaning into him, she wondered about the length of his—

The arrow shot out and slammed into the target’s red center.

His warmth disappeared from behind her.

She fell back a step.

“So, there you have it,” he rushed out, now standing several steps away. “Now you know how to shoot. I’ll just—” he cleared his throat “—leave you to it.”

Robin Hood scampered away. Lilian glanced down at the black bow in her hand. When he didn’t return, she picked up another arrow and failed again. Somehow worse this time, and it landed on her foot.

“Ow,” she sighed out before lowering the bow.

Lilian reracked the bow and returned to her bench. While she finished her lunch, she mulled over her disappointment as he now avoided looking in her direction.

She left without saying goodbye.

Read more

I used to hate endings.

The endings of movies, shows, books, parties, friendships, relationships. All of them. I hated living them. I hated writing them.

My biggest flaw in all my early writing was my lack of resolutions and satisfying endings (not even necessarily happy ones, just any type of ending that felt satisfying sitting with the rest of the story). When someone would critique my endings and express the desire for more or a general dissatisfaction, my response was always, “Tough luck, that’s life for you. Nothing ends with a tight little bow.”

A lot of my distaste for endings came from my childhood. Moving around a lot, I was always forced into premature endings that I didn’t want and I was never ready for. While I love all the experiences I’ve been able to have because of this, it made me latch on a little too tight and too intensely with a lot of the wrong kinds of people and situations. I used to have problems with events and parties coming to an end; I’d end up staying later than anyone else (I still tend to do it but not all the time) or pushing people onto the next stage of an otherwise lovely and totally completed night.

In those moments, I was fully alive and aware that I’d never experience that exact situation with those exact people ever again—an understanding and appreciation others tend to overlook—and I wanted to relish in those experiences, absorbing as much of the life happening around me as possible. I hated when things came to an end. And I hated ending things.

Last year, I had a massive ending that closed off a whole host of negative people from my life, and it was the first ending (that I’d noticed) that brought me profound relief. My seas calmed. My anxiety ebbed. I became a little wave lapping across a shoreline.

And then I started writing endings that didn’t suck ass. They were strong, becoming statements on their own. They held impact in their finality and weren’t limp things I had to include to be “done.”

A pattern emerged in my endings from October 2025 to February 2026. My short stories ended with characters moving on from some sort of relationship. A pattern I didn’t recognize until my partner and I decided to end our relationship.

When Patrick and I met almost ten years ago, we both were just shy of turning 21, and within six months of meeting we jumped head first into the longest relationship either of us had had. Throughout my twenties, this relationship had seen many highs and lows, and it allowed me to grow in ways I’m not sure I would have on my own.

In the beginning, we both had hopes of finding a lifelong partner that we’d never want to separate from. But life always has a funny way of pushing you to expect the unexpected.

Divorce was one of those endings I always saw as one of the worst possible outcomes (partially from society’s stigma around it but also because my mom got divorced twice when I was a kid). I was headstrong in my determination that I would not be someone that ever got divorced.

Now, I feel really silly, because I don’t see divorce that way at all anymore.

It can be awful, no doubt, but that depends on the nature of the relationship. My little cousin one time called me and Patrick “best friends,” and his dads corrected him telling him we’re married, but he held firm and said, “Yeah, but they were best friends first.” That kid (only four years old at the time of saying that) might be a psychic. Patrick was my best friend through some of my darkest moments in my life, and he believed in my writing abilities before anyone else. He is the reason I am where I am today, so I will always be thankful for the time we spent together.

Ultimately though, I know we will both live happier and more fulfilled lives apart, but he will always hold a special place in my heart. I want the absolute best for him in life just as much as I want that for myself.

Life had a funny way of forcing me to understand the power of endings, and where I once felt dread and fear in their presence, I now feel peace and serenity. There’s beauty in endings. They can lead you to completely new and unexpected places—places you never dreamed of reaching.

For some this divorce will be shock, others might jump for joy—some for the wrong reasons, and others for the right ones—some might be sad, but for me, I’ve never felt better. I held on so tight to what was expected of me, of what I was supposed to do for so long that it’s a relief to release that pressure. It feels like I’m living again, like life is happening for me and not to me.

My vision has sharpened, my head has cleared, I have a lot more energy, and the world feels brighter. I laugh harder and more fully than I have in a really long time. I dance on my walks. I sing to music I haven’t listened to in ages. I feel alive.

It’s not all sunshine and rainbows though. It’s pretty awkward, and I have a lot to figure out. Separating after spending so long together is a complicated untangling, but fortunately, it is a solvable untangling.

Thank you to everyone supporting me through this emotionally and those that upgraded to a paid subscription. I am deeply grateful to you and am excited to share that I will be sending out a piece of short fiction mid-month for paid subscribers to enjoy as my thanks! This will also include a bit of insight/background on how or why the piece came to be.

Writing Updates

If you couldn’t guess, I’ve had a bit of a weird month. But I did manage to add 12,000 words to my witchy romance thriller. I've also done quite a bit of development for the novel outside of word count. It becomes more potent everyday. Drafting is a strange experience sometimes. In my mind, the entire story is laid out and fully formed, yet when I sit down to write I get a little frustrated when I realize I have to make that exist on paper as well. Writing is funny that way. First drafts are always my biggest confrontation with my limiting beliefs of what I’m capable of, so sometimes they take me a bit longer.

I wrote about 13,000 words in some personal nonfiction that may or may not ever see the light of day, but sometimes I need to spend more time writing and processing what is overwhelming me in life. Outside of that, I wrote a small little piece while I was in Costa Rica for a week (more on that below), and it was nice to relax and write something for fun.

April is going to be a big month for getting more results from some applications and writing contests. I got results back from a microfiction challenge I submitted back in late January—I did not place in the third and final round. I’ve got a good feeling about some of the things I have coming back in April, so I’ll definitely keep you posted on those!

Other Experiences from March

Last year (before I lost my job), I signed up to go on a writing/yoga retreat in Costa Rica for March 2026. At the time, I had no idea how pivotal the timing of this retreat would be, but wow. March had been chaotic and messy and emotional, full of many highs and lows, and a whole lot of stress as I realized how many things I’d need to figure out to be able to move out and live on my own after living with someone for the last seven years.

But having this retreat gave me a complete reset. Not only did it take me out of my environment of stress and chaos, it also gave me an opportunity to take a much needed break. Since I injured my back in December of 2024, I’ve been terrified of picking up my yoga practice again—especially on my own, which has felt like the only accessible option for me. The first couple of days were rough, but after the very first practice, I felt an immediate release and relief. It didn’t break me. My body feels stronger than it has in a long time, and that has helped me feel so much better moving into this new and exciting phase of my life.

Costa Rica was absolutely gorgeous, and I loved meeting locals and hanging out with fellow writers. They also fed me, which was something I’d been struggling to do at home before the trip, so I came back feeling nourished and full. The sun and lush nature revitalized me, and I had time to process many of the feelings I kept telling myself I didn’t have time to feel.

Overall, I’m so glad I decided to go on this trip and would absolutely do it again one day.

Also, if you’re not following me on Instagram, go ahead and check out my page @nicholette.a.guy because I posted for 15 days at the beginning of March with all kinds of juicy tidbits from my witchy romance thriller.

~May you stay dry in the April showers~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

P.S. Thank you to those that upgraded to a paid subscription! As thanks, I’ll be sending out a short fiction piece with a little background/insight around it’s creation around mid-month. If you’d like to support me during this major life transition and have the funds, it would help me a lot if you upgraded to a paid subscription <3

I have a vicious habit of overthinking everything.

Not just overthinking my future or my past or what I’ll do tomorrow. Everything. I overthink the way someone did or did not look at me. I overthink why someone says what they say. I overthink what I say and why I say what I say. I overthink what time I do or do not get out of bed and what time I go to bed. I overthink the words I write and don’t write. I overthink what to share on the internet and what not to share, because I’m overthinking the importance of what I contribute to all discussions. I overthink my own self-worth and self-importance. I overthink about how others feel about me based on what kind of day I was having when I met them or whether they decide to ignore me forever after without me being able to understand why no matter how much I try to overthink about every possible situation and scenario and face I made or didn’t make and words I said or didn’t say and didn’t mean. I overthink the fact that I’m a walking contradiction, half a step away from doing the exact thing I condemn others for doing.

Above all, I overthink who I am.

In the last couple months, I’ve added in the dreaded attempt to social media fully enough that I show others who I am and what I do.

And I’ve had a complete breakdown of my sense of self.

Where I once was confident and sure, I now wither and question.

Why?

Because I’m exposing myself and thus feeling more seen, but most significantly, I’m seeing myself more clearly. Not many things in life force us to grapple with our egos, but creating something raw that holds pieces of you and sharing those pieces is only one element in being a writer. Now, I’ve added in the horror of recording myself and having to see the full display of imperfection and inadequacy live.

I get to hide behind words normally. Words that are usually rewritten and edited, but it’s hard to edit yourself in a video—you can, I’m sure, but I’m not interested in trying to perfect the rough edges and to judge myself into a dark pit of despair just to post a video a handful of people like. In my videos, I can see more clearly how I show up in real life (which horrifies me, but might be a universal human experience? like hearing your voice recorded).

So, I’ve been feeling exposed. For the last couple years, this newsletter has been my sense of exposure. What you all don’t see is the day after I send out this newsletter, my heart flutters and my ears hurt because I’ve worked hard to expose myself, to share bits of my life and experiences. I guess I grew up afraid to be exposed, to be seen, to be heard.

I’ve often felt largely misunderstood, which makes sharing myself in any capacity feel dangerous in a way. But the one thing I’ve learned most in the years sharing within this space and sending out my writing is that my fears are often unfounded. In fact, instead of being condemned I’m usually more accepted than I could’ve anticipated. So, now I’m working through the fear of sharing myself on social media because honestly sharing my finished novels will likely be far scarier than anything I’ve done so far, and I want to be as prepared for that experience as I possibly can.

My life is teetering on the precipice of a large change. My proof lies in the giant leaps of change I’ve experienced over the last year, and I know these changes aren’t finished, the last year set up the groundwork of what’s to come. I’m stronger in my body, I moved to a city where I’ve been able to find community, my writing has upgraded, and I’ve been figuring out how to allow myself to take up space and be who I am without fear of being reprimanded or bullied.

I’ve been overthinking who I am, because I’ve had to spend a decent portion of my life feeling like I needed to prove who I was to others. Sometimes I still wait for someone to call me out because they disagree with how I express myself. But that feels like a silly thing to be afraid of, and it’s not going to change who I am just because I’m scared of someone else having an issue with it.

So, thank you for being here during my growing pains. Now for some writing news.

Writing Updates

I received a big rejection this month. Back in December, I spent the month writing a witch story that I submitted to be considered for a witch anthology that would be published in September 2026. They got back to me and rejected it, but they told me my story was a finalist and one that sits with them. They told me that they could see it becoming a novel or novella, and at first, I was pissed. They had all these nice things to say about it and encouraged me to try and get it published, but all I could think was: I did try! With you!

After that initial frustration ebbed, my mind turned the story over. Without much effort I started tasting the novel that could be.

The week I received the rejection, I’d been at a stand still with the fourth draft of my fantasy novel—and not in a way of needing to push through, in a way of needing to rest the story. So, I’d been taking the week off, not putting too much pressure on myself to force my way through to some feeling of progress.

Now, I feel like I’d been waiting for this rejection. My dual POV witch romance thriller unfolded a red carpet of progress for me to stride across with ease and flow. I’m about 13,000 words into the draft with the character sheets completed, and it’ll still probably change, but right now it tastes like a cross between The Housemaid, Daisy Jones & the Six, and Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil but with witches.

A couple more contest rejections came in this month: one for the Space Farce I wrote in January and the other for round 2 of a scary story challenge I wrote in January. I made it to the second round of a microfiction challenge (400-word stories) and entered a submission with a ghost story genre I feel really good about (results come at the end of March to see if I made it to the third and final round).

Other Experiences from February

I decided to omit my review section of things I consumed over the last month, because honestly, I’ve been consuming a lot less. I’ve been stepping into a wave of creation with this new novel and on my Instagram. These two things are taking my focus, and I’ve been struggling to read anything that’s not nonfiction. I’ve all but stopped watching TV and movies.

Although, I did watch Hamnet over the last month (on VDay, which if you’ve seen it is a big oof lol), and the raw emotion on screen had me bawling multiple times—something that happens very rarely for me. I strongly recommend this movie. It’s very intense, but the end message is so powerful. The ending shows a beautiful level of human connection that I feel we’re lacking in America. It really showed me what is needed for us to come together instead of constantly being ripped apart. Plus, Paul Mescal is in it (he plays Shakespeare) and I love him.

~Wishing you a warm March~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

P.S. I’m going through something personally (not ready to share any details about this right now), but if you would like to support me during this time and have the funds, it would help me a lot if you upgraded to a paid subscription <3

It’s hard not to compare my life to where I was a year ago.

Winter of 2025 was one of the most challenging times of my life (and I’ve had a lot of those). Losing the ability to stand and walk from extreme nerve damage shifted my entire understanding and appreciation for what it means to have fully functioning legs. It also taught me patience and to celebrate the most incremental of wins (I cried tears of joy when I could stand for the full length of a shower again).

Everything felt like a struggle last January. I think I’d managed about 2,000 words for the entire month (I regularly write around 1,000 a day now). Somehow I read 4 books last January (I barely manage one in a month these days). My sleeping had been even more erratic. I went to bed late and woke up too early—often the pain made it impossible to lay down for long.

Nothing felt good those days, and then things managed to get even worse after the inauguration. While on short-term disability, I watched from the sidelines as government workers and government contracts went under scrutiny, prejudice, and fear mongering.

My husband, who works for the USPTO, still gets updates that make his already noncompetitive salary and stress-inducing job even more of a hostile and degrading workplace, including more responsibility with no additional pay. And that all happened while I was a government contractor on medical leave.

In the months of my recovery, every day forward felt like a step toward the chopping block.

We lost Pat’s grandmother last January, and the January before that I lost my grandfather.

January and I don’t have the best track record.

This January went differently, fortunately, but it still felt like a challenging month. January is the great in between phase between two years. 2025 wasn’t quite finished fizzling out and 2026 wasn’t quite ready to start. So, it felt slow and sticky. I’ve felt like I’ve been waiting for a half a month for February to start and bring in the beginning of my new life.

Some of you might be like, “Woah, chill out, you’re still the same person. New life? Little dramatic don’t you think.”

But no, I don’t think.

Because in this weird transition phase of January, I also feel like I’ve been transitioning from my past to my future. January felt like the closeout of an identity and narrative I’ve spent the last year outgrowing.

My life has changed, my writing has changed, my sense of self has changed.

I connect far less with what has come before today, and I connect far more with what is coming in my future.

January has been the last chapter on what I’d likely consider my origin story as a writer. It feels weird to be at the stage between what has been and what will be, but I know that it’s true. Sure, there will be ripples of my past that invade my mind and try to push me back, but they could never push me back far enough that I’d sink into those old patterns and thoughts again.

I’ve always believed that you have the power to change your life, to change your circumstances, to change your experiences, but actually feeling the full force of all the effort I’ve put in on my journey to do that has been a lot less crazy than I would’ve thought. All those ups and downs, all that doubt, all the imposter syndrome that followed me over the years had made where I’m at today and where I will be tomorrow feel like forever away.

So, I thought when I crossed over the threshold I’d feel relief or a wave of euphoria or some other significant emotion that let me know I’d made it. I’d done it. The past didn’t dictate who I was anymore.

But instead, I feel calm, peaceful, at ease. I feel unshakeable. I feel a tremendous amount of assurance about the direction of my life.

Some of you already saw this in me along the way. I could feel that you believed in me and believed in what I’ve been doing. Some of you are new and have only ever seen me as I am now. But I feel like you, no matter what stage you entered in, are part of the reason why I’ve made it as far as I have. So, thank you for your attention, your support, and your patience.

There are others along my journey that I have only felt resistance and disapproval from. Their presence in my life has been a collection of antagonistic forces fighting me, making me feel like I’ve needed to shrink, like I’ve needed to hide myself, and like it wasn’t safe for me to grow and speak.

But their presence and hold over my life has been lessening over the last year. I stopped shrinking for the scraps of their approval. I stopped listening to the voices in my head that told me to fit in, to try to be normal, to stop kidding myself. So, part of the peace and ease and calm is coming from the fact that I’ve stopped hiding myself.

For too long, my narrative has been centered around the people in my life that don’t support me. But they’re outnumbered now (thanks to you all) and I think the people that are truly deserving of my attention are those that do support me. Because so many of you have shown up for me in some way that has lightened my heart and made me feel like all the pain was really worth it.

Thank you for being here. I can’t wait to see all that 2026 brings us.

What’s rules or narratives are you disowning in 2026?

Something Accomplished in January

It was another heavy short story month. I had 4 contests this month, which is A LOT. One of them was for a scary story challenge I’d placed into the second round of. I had a new challenge I joined called Writers Battle, where I wrote my first Space Farce and had a great time creating that.

I’ll get some results back at the end of February. Other than that, it’s been quiet. I’ve got a handful of submissions out. I’ll keep you updated when I hear back about those.

These last three months away from novel writing is now making it impossible for me to focus. My skin is crawling for me to get back into novel development (which is honestly kind of a nice change of pace from some of the dread I had before finishing my third draft). So, I’m starting my fourth draft this next month after doing a read through and getting some feedback.

Some Things Enjoyed in January

Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett

My first Terry Pratchett novel. It was written excellently, and thus enjoyable, just because I can read any well-written novel and find things to enjoy about it. I don’t see myself reading any more Pratchett novels moving forward. It’s not really my cup of tea, but I appreciated the lack of seriousness and humor woven through the book. I laughed out loud many times, but by the end, it felt a little too corny for me.

Alchemised by SenLinYu

I had no idea this novel was developed from Manacles, which is a Hermione Granger and Draco Malfoy fanfic. I could see elements of the idea of that in this novel, but true fanfic and something inspired by something else become two wholly different things. Alchemised was a thoroughly built world with necromancers and paladins. It was very dark and grim, and I loved it. I devoured this 1,000 page book, but I wouldn’t recommend to just anyone. You have to actually like dark fantasy (and please DON’T expect a wholesome romance).

The Sound of Story by Jordan Rosenfield

I’d received an early copy of this craft book before its release at the end of the month. I recommend to anyone perplexed about what voice really is and how to use it effectively to have strong narrative and character voices. Voice and style go hand-in-hand in being regularly elusive subjects in writing craft. For me, I think of them both as vibes, but developing an ear for hearing character’s voices takes a lot of patience and reading. This book does an excellent job of distilling information about what influences voice and even includes examples and exercises to practice along with.

People We Meet on Vacation on Netflix

I haven’t read this Emily Henry book, but I read one of her others and loved it. And I loved this movie. It was so fun and cute. Henry really has a way with creating believable characters and romantic situations. Also, she went to my high school (before me), so that’s still pretty cool. She’s also local to Cincinnati.

100 Nights of Hero for rent/buy on Apple TV

This was a fun and relatively short movie. It was weird and unexpected. I liked the world and how the narrative built out a patriarchal society and misogynistic stories to highlight some of the most ridiculous aspects our culture has faced throughout history. It did a great job making these bigger concepts easy to follow and understand, so it’s a great movie if anyone feels like they need to see how patriarchs and misogyny have shaped our culture and the results of that shaping (or at least helps you begin to think about it).

The Mighty Nein on Amazon Prime

I’m still not using Amazon (almost been a year now). We got Prime for just this month, so we could watch Fallout, which we haven’t seen yet since all the episodes aren’t out yet. But if you’ve seen Vox Machina, then you have to watch The Mighty Nein. And if you haven’t seen Vox Machina, then you should watch The Mighty Nein. The characters are amazing. And I have a new favorite character because of this show (hint: she’s blue).

~Sending love and joy~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Before I get into talking about December (and why I’ve decided life has no real rules), I thought I’d share that I’ve been published this month, not once, but twice!

My first publication was with Canid Press. Back in May of 2023, I submitted a short story for a contest run by the leader of Drexel University’s service dogs (which is a really cool thing I had no idea universities did). One of the dogs, named Mocha Latte, had a condition that led to her two front legs needing pink casts (the pink probably wasn’t needed) from paw to shoulder. The contest was to write a story about how she got those casts. I won first place, but it didn’t come with a publication (although, I did do an interview).

I’m so glad that story ended up finding a home! You can read “The Dragon Casts” today. (Also, Patrick, my partner, gets a shoutout here for providing the direction of this story: a dog facing down a fire-breathing dragon.)

Read The Dragon Casts

That story is likely my most wholesome story. For a clearer taste of what my stories usually feel like, I’m excited to share Ten Years of Service, which won sixth place in a fantasy contest about werewolves and vampires (I focused on vampires because I love them).

What feels so great about this vampire story being a winner is that I’ve been obsessed with vampire everything since I was six. I always thought they were the coolest growing up, and this being my first vampire story feels like fate. The day the results came out was really funny because for once I wasn’t refreshing the results page, waiting for the lineup to drop. I’d actually stayed in bed, staring at my night-sky-esque ceiling, thoroughly convinced there was no point in checking because I never placed with these people (can’t say that anymore).

Finding my name in the top 10 out of 1,100 writers 30 minutes after the results had dropped sent me into a state of shock. My heart dropped into my stomach, and dread filled every inch of my insides (a completely unexpected physiological response). Eventually, the fear of being found out (only way I can think to describe it?) subsided, and then I sent it to anyone I felt like wouldn’t find it through socials or this Substack.

Read Ten Years of Service

So, within one month, I had two pieces published, and now, of course, I’ve completely moved onto the next story, because what else am I supposed to do? But it was fun to win a contest after doing them for six years. Who knows? Maybe I’ll win a couple more?

I’ve been realizing I live by a bunch of unofficial, yet mentally official, rules. Not rules set by others or some other entity, but the ones I unconsciously live my life by. The rules that tell me I have to accomplish these things to feel good about myself, or I have to not post or write about this or that subject for this or that reason, or I can’t do this because I’m already doing that. Just weird rules I have trouble identifying because they’re so elusive, yet they dictate my life.

Some of them are valid, like the one where I don’t eat sugary foods at the start of my day and reserve them for the end of the day instead. That rule makes sense for me because when I break it, my head is too foggy for me to think the rest of the day, my stomach turns on itself, and I feel ill. So, breaking that rule makes me miserable.

Another valid rule is around drinking. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve consistently been drinking less and less. Partially because a hangover is at least a three-day event (and seriously, who has time for that?). But now, I can only stomach wine and a drink or two, and anything else/more leads to me being in excruciating pain and feeling like I might pass out. So, that’s another set of rules for the best.

But I’ve been discovering rules that are much more… self-limiting.

Like the ones that told me to keep my head down and stay “focused” on this or that. My focus on writing has helped immensely over the years, but in this full-time-jobless territory, my rules feel like restraints. So, this last month I did something I hadn’t done in six years: I picked up a paintbrush.

If you’ve followed along so far, I technically already have picked up a paintbrush since we moved here with my work on my behemoth canvas that’s been following me across the country (which I wrote about in October a little).

But that plus painting my house opened up my creative juices and desire to paint even more (it’s become a bit of an obsession). So, after six years of not doing watercolor painting, I began again with an idea for making something for a couple friends (I wanted to give people something special this Christmas that would make them smile).

Allowing myself the time and space to paint has helped me unchain myself from more rules, and that has helped my creativity on multiple fronts. Painting with watercolors is all about releasing control, letting the paint and water take over to create something unplanned.

My writing, painting, and creating has been released from any control I think I have, which has been so freeing. I’ve entered the plains of uncertainty these past seven months, and instead of feeling like I’m falling to certain death (something I felt during my unemployed time in 2019), I feel like I’m floating, like the wind is carrying me along.

This kind of freedom is often romanticized, by writers and nonwriters. It sounds nice in theory, but it is really uncomfortable being this untethered. I don’t have any guaranteed or regular money, which I planned for, but I have to be stricter on what I do and don’t do (like not getting the gym membership I feel like I can’t afford).

Adjusting to this uncertainty has been really challenging. It has its rewards—like more energy and creative time I can dedicate to my goals—but sometimes, the stress of not knowing when, or if, I’ll make money from all this, makes me feel like I’m choking. As you can imagine, that’s not the easiest feeling to get past, let alone work through.

But I believe in myself, in my vision, and in my writing. I believe there’s another side to all this and that it’s worth the momentary sacrifice of comfortability.

In 2025, I made $155 from my fiction writing and my paid subscriber (thank you so much, Elaine!). I’ll be going through 2026 without money from employment or unemployment, and that’s as terrifying as it is exhilarating.

If you like my writing and want to support me, it would mean the world to me (and maybe a gym membership?) for you to pledge your support.

I’m in the works for how to give paid subscribers a special experience, and I want to make sure it’s something you’d actually want. Feel free to leave a comment, reply to this email, or vote in the poll below about what what you’d want your experience to be as a paid subscriber. I’m always open to suggestions.

Otherwise, I have a million stories that have yet to see the light of day, so I’m thinking about sharing those more over the next year. And I love painting—recently, I’ve come across “snail mail” clubs that artists do that I’m thinking about repackaging into a virtual format (with potential for physical one day).

I’m excited to see where 2026 takes us. If you’ve recently joined, welcome! And I’m endlessly grateful for those of you that have been here with me over the last two years. Cheers to the new year!

Something Accomplished in December

Two new publications: “The Dragon Casts” with Canid Press and “Ten Years of Service” with Forest and Fawn.

I slowed down some for December to give space for the holidays and to create other fun things. So, my main writing focus was on a witch story for an anthology that will be published next September. I’ll let you know if I hear from them over the next few months. I also got a rejection from the big short story I’d been working on in November. I’m going to rework it some then resubmit it somewhere else.

My writing friends are still beta reading my fantasy novel’s third draft. In the meantime, I’ve been line editing a friend’s novel, and that’s been both enjoyable (because the story is great) and challenging (because editing is strenuous and time consuming).

Some Things Enjoyed in December

First You Write a Sentence by Joe Moran

This is one of the most unconventional craft books I’ve read. It was more philosophical than instructional. Yet it was very effective at getting me to mull over sentences and syntax, which freed my writing from more of those made up rules. Overall, I’d recommend this to either nonwriters (because it’s just a weird book to read and kind of fun) or writers more established in their craft (because thinking about messing with sentences is late game writing).

The Housemaid in theaters

I’m really glad the world has finally turned on Sydney Sweeny (I’ve never much liked her, sorry), but not watching this movie because of her would’ve been a disservice to Amanda Seyfried (who deserves better because she did amazing) and the author of this book to movie, Freida McFadden. It was very…interesting. Minus Sydney, the rest of the cast did a phenomenal job, and I actually enjoyed watching this movie.

Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Movie on Netflix

Another movie I liked more than I thought I would. This is controversial, but I didn’t like Glass Onion. The first movie was so strong, and I felt like the second one really flopped. I liked the direction they took for this third one though. Plus, I like the main actor (he was in The Challengers with Zendaya).

Killing Eve (seasons 1-4) on Netflix

I had no idea what to expect from this show, other than that my parents have told me for years that I would like it. So, naturally, I wanted to dislike it (if you know me, I have a bit of a thing where I want to do the opposite of what someone tells me to do, lol). But I loved it all the way to the last episode and was very very sad when it was over. Villanelle is one of my favorite characters of all time (love silly serious), and she had a huge influence on the main character of my witch story (more like a taste of all that Villanelle can be).

~Happy New Year!!~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

November ended my twenties, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

My twenties were dominated by depression, loneliness, and the search for purpose. Life threw every curveball it could, and when I entered my twenties, I struggled against all the noise.

Isolation and rejection demanded my attention, until I finally told them no. I battled against the narrative that I needed to shrink, to conform, and that I was the problem.

People act like your twenties are a magical time, but they’re a bottomless pool of self-doubt and uncertainty. Every move forward feels haphazard and like it might ruin your life.

Entering into my thirties fills me with hope and excitement. Every day I feel so much closer to the woman I want to be, living the life I want to live. And the main reason is because of all the effort, pain, and failure I experienced over the last ten years. In the transition between two decades, I’m overwhelmed by how beautiful life can be in its messiness. My darkest moments are what push me forward.

At 22, I planned out my suicide, noted who would find me and how long it would take for someone to notice I was gone. I wrote a poem about it then and another one years later, which I included in my poetry collection, Dramatic Irony. Since then, I’ve been holding on (and will continue to) not because of the people who don’t care, but because of the people that do now and those I have yet to meet.

Since the darkest years of my life, I’ve experienced so much of the world’s beauty and kindness. 2025 has been especially difficult. Old wounds opened and swallowed me whole with a massive wave of depression. Entering into 2025 immobile, losing my job, and countless other changes had me drowning in thoughts. All cycling around the idea that there’s no point to any of life.

Leaving my twenties behind feels like a blessing. Some of my heaviest chapters are finally drawing to a close. I’ve been on more of an upward spiral recently, which feels like a nice boost for entering my thirties.

In the next decade, I’ll publish multiple books. Knowing that fills me with a revitalizing confidence. Over the years, I’ve been writing with the understanding I wouldn’t reach publication until my thirties, so being 30 now feels like its own reward.

Thank you for being on this journey with me. Your readership and presence means the world to me. You being on the other side is the hope I live for.

Something Accomplished in November

I had a piece accepted this month! I’ll have the link to share with you soon. I wrote this piece years ago for another contest, and I’m so glad it’ll have a home.

Not having a working novel draft has been strange (I’m waiting for a couple writing friends to read what I have now). I’ve been focused on shorter fiction to submit. I wrote my second longest short story in November.

Some Things Enjoyed in November

Katabasis by RF Kuang

A dense yet enjoyable novel full of math and philosophy during an academic’s trip to hell to bring her advisor back to life. Kuang explored the concept of hell being shaped by the explorer’s personal experiences and created her strongest, most aligned, novel yet. Her specialties and interests sparkled in this book. I recommend if you’re okay with narrative and lecture mixing to create a compelling journey.

Wicked For Good in theaters

I’m glad I rewatched the first one before seeing the second one, because it helped me remember why I liked the movies so much. Unfortunately for the second movie, it was really just resolution for the first, which I felt had been a much stronger, engaging, and emotionally compelling movie.

Die My Love in theaters

A fiesty movie featuring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson living as a couple out in the countryside. On the same theme of isolation I talked about for myself, Lawrence’s character navigates isolation in early motherhood, living in a place without her own community or support structure in a town Pattinson’s character grew up in. The movie hits hard, and I loved its chaotic narrative. Lawrence did a phenomenal job.

Bugonia in theaters

This movie is not for me. I found it very predictable, and thus, boring. Emma Stone did great though.

Physical Asia on Netflix

Physical 100 is my favorite show. They brought together eight Asian countries to compete in Physical Asia, and it was awesome to watch some of my favorites from the original show compete again.

Wayward on Netflix

A strange show about a town built on a cult High School designed to reform teenagers. It was interesting and entertaining. Probably more of if you’re looking for something and less of a must see.

Squid Game the Challenge season 2 on Netflix

Not as good as the actual show, but still full of entertaining characters.

~Wishing you a warm and peaceful holiday season~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

I felt in tune this month, like I’d finally reached the right frequency of existing.

For most of this year, I’m not sure if I was fighting life or if life was fighting me, but I finally feel like I’m emerging from the mayhem of everything. Maybe that’s not very specific of me, but I don’t know how to be specific about something that truly flowed under the surface of every interaction, every choice, and every experience.

I’m waking up to the world and finding the ways I fit in with the flow of life. For the last few years, I’ve only been able to see the fall as a time when the world begins to die. My seasonal depression begins to sink its claws in me and instills this deep rooted fear of being engulfed in darkness throughout the winter months.

But darkness has been my greatest friend and asset this year. At night, my creativity flows the easiest. Words pour out of me, so unlike the deep dives I have to force myself into during the day. There’s something off about baring your soul on the page during the day. It leaves me feeling far too bare, far too seen. I’ve been communing more with my shadow self. Looking her right in the eyes and telling her not to cower or hide.

“Come out,” I tell her. “It’s safe,” I say.

Because my shadow self is every part of me that society tells me to reject. Every part of me that society tells me shouldn’t exist. Tells me is wrong and perverse. And why? Because she possesses such a deep connection with truth and honesty? Because she can’t help but see through the lies of the world?

2025 has forced me into seeing the darker sides of human nature, both in myself and others. I resisted it for most of the year, not wanting to understand the full impact of how awful people can really be. How awful we all have the potential to be. But recently, I’ve been diving headfirst into it all, swimming in the Styx in the pits of hell, seeping in the stew of humanities shortcomings.

So for once, fall isn’t carrying the weight of impending death. Leaves are changing colors and becoming vibrant new shades, transforming into something new while maintaining the same form. Trees light up in fiery displays of orange and red with blue skies as their backdrop, making them feel even more alive. And winter lingers on the horizon with the promise of cleansing the earth and clearing out the muck built up over the year. I feel it in each breath as I take in the crisper air. I feel my insides being cleansed. I always feel like breathing is easier in the cooler months.

I welcome the change of season and look forward to the slower months. I like the idea that maybe things will be a little quieter, a little stiller, and a little more peaceful.

Something Accomplished in October

The biggest bit of news from this month is that I finished my third draft(!!!), which is very exciting for me. Every new draft I complete comes with a whole new set of experiences. For this draft, I really dove into my characters and settings. And I even figured out (kind of) what my story is about, and for this book, titled Rey of Sun, figuring what it’s about has been a near constant battle since the onset of my ideas for it.

Writing a novel and going through each new draft experience teaches me a lot about myself and how I interact with the world. At some point during this draft, I realized a huge part about my writing, which feels really obvious now but wasn’t before: I write about adventures! Either physical adventures or psychological ones. To me, life is one giant adventure, where every new experience or life lesson pulls you along for a new ride.

My main character, Rey, starts off in a small town that she grows too big for, so she embarks on a journey of self-discovery. Her journey takes her to cities bigger than she could possibly have imagined.

Travel has been such a magical experience in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to go to some incredible places in the world that have taken my breath away. And there’s still so much of the world I’ve yet to see.

In my adventure fantasy book, I explore wholly new places through my character’s eyes, and it feels like I get to experience some incredible places without leaving my house. Which I guess isn’t all that dissimilar from reading a book, but it feels visceral in a whole new way when you’re immersed in a world in your mind and you’re trying to figure out how to do the world you’re imagining justice through words.

Not only did I journey to the end of my draft, but I also visited a lot of places and people. My travels filled my heart. I feel so much more alive.

Apart from adding 16,000 words to my third draft and rounding it out to a total 88,000 words, I also submitted to a handful of contests. I’ve been upping my submissions over the last month now that I have more time and energy. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share a publication with you soon.

I received word back on a couple previous contests this month (I did not place) and submissions. I’m keeping my head up though despite the consistent fielding of rejections (which is rough sometimes, I won’t lie), but I feel so close to finding a home for some of my writing.

Some Things Enjoyed in October

Rehoming Breanna Huxley by Keli O’Connor

My friend wrote this book, and she did such a fantastic job with it. This book is perfect for dog lovers. The author, herself, is a huge dog lover, and she incorporated dogs into this book in such a cute and lovable way (and I say this as a cat person). It doesn’t go the direction you expect it to, and it’s so much the better for that.

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

The idea of this book scared me more than it actually scared me. But I did have to exclusively read it during the day. My setting for reading this book was stormy Atlantic waves at Daytona Beach. The cloudy sky matched the seaweed-infested sea and somehow became the perfect ambiance for this book. I really enjoyed this book and loved how crazy it made me feel to read it. Maybe that’s a strange thing to love, but I love anything that’s able to alter my consciousness to the point where I see the world in a whole new light. I live for those experiences.

The Handbook of Short Story Writing (an article anthology) published by Writer’s Digest (back in 1970)

I’m not sure if I’d recommend this book or not. There were some impactful tidbits that had me diving into different parts of writing (like always giving characters their “warts”), but it was compiled back in the 70s, and it feels like it was compiled back then. One of my biggest grievances with reading something published then is how the dominant pronouns for neutral references to readers and writers is always he/him. Mentally I usually shift these to they/them, because I find the purposeless gendering ridiculous (I don’t give a shit if it was common practice at the time. It was unnecessary and nonsensical). But it was unending through each article and occasionally difficult to get around.

Nobody Wants This (season 2) on Netflix

Short and sweet, maybe? Felt like nothing more than a taste of a season. But I enjoyed it because I love the cast and laughed often.

Boots on Netflix

This show was unexpected. I thought I’d turn it on and turn it off after the first episode, but I watched it through to the end. I’d even like watching another season of it. It was strangely refreshing to watch a military show from the perspective of a closeted gay kid in the early 90s (and to find out it was based on the memoir, The Pink Marine).

The Woman in Cabin 10 movie on Netflix

Bummed to say this, but I absolutely do not recommend this movie. I guess if you’re bored and you have nothing else on this planet to do or watch. But some things are worth it and some aren’t. Love Kiera Knightly, so this was a bit of a bummer. Not sure if it’s a bigger bummer for me or for her.

The Morning Show (seasons 1 & 2) on Apple TV

I stumbled into this show and was drawn in by Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston spearheading the cast. It has both pleasantly surprised me and not so pleasantly surprised me. Mostly I think I recommend it? It’s interesting because the show is always talking about actual issues of its filming time, and that makes for a strangely interesting modern day alternate universe that’s not so alternate at all? It feels a little voyeuristic because of how much it mirrors the world.

~Wishing you a peaceful beginning to the holiday season~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

“Don’t follow the Muse. Follow the pain.”

Or at least that’s what I read of the header in a marketing email I received, what it really said was “Don’t follow the Muse. Follow the plan.” Why my brain switched out plan for pain is only extremely telling for how I’ve been feeling recently.

I don’t typically open up about how I’m really feeling. I get as close to the sun as I can on it, but I always maintain a healthy distance away from it. And the reason why fills me with shame because I’ve always been too afraid of hurting the people who have hurt me by being out in the open about it.

Even now I don’t want to talk about how or who.

One of the other reasons I haven’t wanted to be open about some of my experiences is because I’ve always felt like it didn’t matter. Like I didn’t really matter. Like what I had to say and what I’d experienced and how I felt all didn’t matter. And honestly, it’s blocked some of my writing because that feeling directly translates into “my writing doesn’t matter.”

Because of that feeling, I’ve always felt that someone else’s words were more important. I’ve felt like other people deserved to have their voices heard more than mine, their feelings protected over my expression of truth. It feels selfish to admit out loud to others how someone else hurt me.

The worst part about those feelings isn’t the part where that’s how I feel or that’s how someone else treated me. No, the worst part is all the times I’ve let someone treat me poorly because I was too afraid to speak up for myself, because I believed it. I believed wholeheartedly that maybe I didn’t matter as much as other people. That maybe I never did and I never would.

And when you believe something so wounding as that idea, you accept that treatment. You accept the reality others project onto you. You believe them even despite the mountains of proof that piles against their ideas and words. Because when you believe something like that about yourself, how can you stop someone else from treating you exactly the way you treat yourself?

I recently went through some personal things that exposed exactly the way others have been treating me, having been talking about me behind my back, have betrayed me and the relationship I thought we were building, and it absolutely crushed me.

But it wasn’t really anything they did or said that crushed me (although they gave it their best effort), what really crushed me is that I’d known. I’d known for so long, yet I’d kept going, kept excusing them, kept staying silent when I should have spoken up. Here I sit around trying to shout about integrity and to stand up for others who can’t stand up for themselves, and I haven’t even been able to stand up for myself.

It’s the self-betrayal that really eats at you. It curdles in your stomach. It eats away at the joy in your day. It tears you down from within.

Because it’s so easy to sit around blaming other people for your own misery and heartbreak, but when you sit there and look at how you allowed it to happen, that’s when it’s hard. When you have to face all the versions of you that let people cross your boundaries and disrespect you, those actions don’t belong to someone else. They belong to you.

As I’m writing this, my heart is beating with a dull throb, an ache, my lip is curled up in disgust, and an illness feels like it’s spreading through my limbs, tightening my neck, weakening my muscles, making me want to give up.

And all I can think about is how I could just delete this, never subject anyone to any of these words, any of these feelings. I could just delete the risk that the wrong person reads this (or maybe they’re exactly the person who needs to read this). I have to fight myself to get the words out, I have to fight myself to keep them, and I’ll have to fight myself to publish them.

Maybe you don’t spend quite as much time fighting yourself, but I feel like so much of my time this year has been spent on fighting myself, fighting my body, fighting my mind, my feelings, and fighting others.

I don’t know about you, but I’m so fucking sick of fighting.

In fight, flight, or freeze, I’ve always been a fighter. Therapy taught me how to pick my battles, that I have a choice on what, where, and who I fight, but what do I do when the main person I have to fight exists within my own head?

It’s funny because I want to be silly and light-hearted and fun and go-with-the-flow, and I want you to read this newsletter and enjoy what I’m saying, but I’m not really any of those things. At least not all of the time, and certainly not most of the time. Lots of the time I’m serious. Life weighs heavy. I don’t want you to feel that weight, but I guess if you don’t want to, you’ll choose not to. Because maybe that’s how it works for some people.

And maybe I’m just not one of those people. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe I like myself just fine, and maybe some of you like me, too, and hey, I think that’s pretty cool. I like you too.

Life feels pretty serious to me. I don’t try to take myself too seriously, but life feels like something to take seriously. How you make people feel and how you treat others feels like something to take seriously. Because you can seriously hurt someone with your words, actions, inactions, intentions, and gossip.

So be careful with your words because they matter more than you think. Be careful with your thoughts because they craft your world. And be careful about the treatment you accept because you matter more than you think.

Something Accomplished in September

Despite my very real and heavy feelings I kept swimming in through September, I made great progress. And it’s absolutely impossible for my brain to hold the fact that it was September and that’s it’s over now. October, November, and December feel more like OctnovdecJanuary in practice, so I’m not completely in love with entering October (RIP to all you fall lovers, I know). But I am completely in love with how far along September brought me in my third draft. I conquered a whole 17,000 words, and I’m now right on the cusp of finishing my draft, which is a huge step in the direction of beta readers(!!!).

It was a slower month otherwise, with no new contests this month. I did receive feedback on a first chapters contest I entered with the first chapters of my novel. It was generally positive and left me hopeful for the direction of my fourth draft, which should go a lot faster than my third draft has.

I find out a few more results in October, and I’ve been working on some less formal submissions that I’ll be sending out to some general online magazines and places that might make it to where I can finally share something published with you.

Some Things Enjoyed in September

The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck

This book entered my life at a good time, as most nonfiction books typically feel for me (which I guess makes sense since I’m the one picking them….). Anyway, it had a quiz early on in the book to see how much you live with integrity, and it told me I live with an “unusually high amount of integrity” to which my partner agreed immediately. Unusually feels like an unusually strong word to use, but alright. Beck ties in talk about living with integrity and in alignment with who you are at your core with Dante’s Inferno by taking the reader on a journey similar to Dante’s, and that was a fun way of exploring the topic.

Fairy Tale by Stephen King

Another book that talked about descending down into the earth. There’s been a trend in my life and reading around this idea of descending down through the layers of hell (my life has resembled a hellscape over this year). This book did a great job at capturing the feeling of change. By the end of the story, I felt the sensation of embarking on something long term that was reminiscent of the idea of being on person some years back and feeling completely different based on who you are now. This was my first novel by Stephen King, and it required it’s own journey to complete it.

The Summer I Turned Pretty (season 3) on Prime

Back in March, I canceled all things to do with Amazon, and honestly, I haven’t looked back since. But when the final season of this show came out, I reopened that door a crack to watch this in two days. I loved it. I’m a bit disappointed they’re going to also have a movie, but I’m also really excited to watch that movie, so I guess, you win some you lose some.

Russian Doll on Netflix

This was actually a rewatch so my partner could see one of my favorite shows of all time. I love Natasha Lyonne. If I could physically be someone else, I’d be her. I think she’s hilarious, and I love how she always seems to be doing whatever the hell she wants (and saying whatever the hell she wants) in everything she’s in, and I find that really admirable.

Wednesday (part two) on Netflix

Shows like this always seem to be over too soon. One of my favorite parts of season two was the Freaky Friday moment. Both of the actresses killed it. I’m always completely fooled by Freaky Friday moments. The switches always feel so believable to me, and they trick my brain so effectively.

~Welcoming a new cycle of seasonal death~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

My life isn’t quite what I’d imagined it would be.

I didn’t necessarily have expectations, but things are feeling… unexpected. Over the last nine months, I feel like I’ve been forced into a series of changes.

When my back was injured back in December, I was forced into a regimented routine that completely shook the foundation of my day to day. I had to go outside, and not like once every now and then, like everyday, three times a day (ideally anyway). Before my injury, I could spend days without going outside (cue horrified gasps from some of you, including my partner). I used to feel like going out into the world, even just to the grocery store, was this big feat that counted as me going outside.

Now, I’m months into being able to walk 30 minutes at a time (from barely being able to walk for 5 minutes around a kitchen island), and as you can imagine, it is a very different feeling actually going out into the world first thing for my “morning” (more on that later) walk. It’s so different that one weekend, when we’d painted our living room, I didn’t go on my walk around the neighborhood that day. I went right into painting then walked around for a bit while we waited for paint to dry, but by the end of the day, I missed my walk outside.

Crazy thought. Especially considering all the mornings I wake up and still fight that walk first thing and still miss being able to lay around and hide from the rest of the world for an entire day.

Without my back injury, I’m sure I’d still be lost in a cycle of unhealthy habits, and if I skip my walks, the pain in my lower back starts to get bad again. Not only has walking helped me regain my strength, I’ve also lost some of the weight I gained at the height of my injury. Walking has truly helped me in so many more ways than I would have thought it could.

My back injury got the ball rolling on my physical changes. Then we were forced to move within about 40 days, which felt like needing to climb Everest with no training. We’d been planning to move, just not by May. Hell, we’d still probably be living where we were if we’d had a choice. But the timing ended up working out, and now we’re in a house we love, even though that forced us to cough up a lot of funds and has been needing so much since day one.

Moving pushed me into a new social sphere and back into some memories (good and bad). I’m finding myself around people that knew me before writing became a big part of my life, which leaves me feeling uncomfortable often because I don’t align with the version of myself they remember.

Writing books has changed me in so many immeasurable ways. I run where I used to crawl. I jump where I used to hide. I yell where I used to stay silent. But most importantly, I show up. I show up for myself, and I try to show up for other people. I want to take everyone as seriously as they take themselves, because I take myself seriously. I seriously write books. I have a lot of fun doing it, but it’s not all fun—if it was I’m sure a lot more people would follow through.

Being back in Cincinnati is forcing me to face those old demons I’d moved beyond when I lived on the East Coast. Out there, everyone had demons and no one cared about them. Your past didn’t really matter. Your present and future mattered so much more. It mattered more where you were going than where you’d been. There’s this understanding that we’re all working on it, and that we all want to get somewhere.

Here, the misogyny is heavy handed. It’s baked into every interaction in the most insidious way possible—completely under the radar. If I even attempted to have a conversation with some people about it, they’d probably tell me to eff off. But you can feel it in the way some people won’t listen to me, but they’ll listen to Pat (my partner). I can see their respect for Pat blossom immediately yet not for me. There’s a quiet distrust and discontent in my presence.

It’s not everyone, but it’s far too many. On the East Coast, I was backed by a whole swarm of other feminists that would talk to me and understand and fight it. I felt a lot less alone in the feeling, because it’s everywhere in America and as much as I’d love for it to just go away, it won’t, not for a long while.

But being back in an area with baked in misogyny is making me so uncomfortable and sad. I feel rejected—a feeling I’d been working hard to reform by establishing meaningful connections with people who understand and love me. Here, I feel unlikable. I feel like being myself is a problem, something I shouldn’t do, which is basically equivalent to the idea that I just shouldn’t exist at all.

Being back here I understand why I remember my time in undergrad at University of Cincinnati as some of the darkest years of my life. My depression had flourished here, because every part of me had been rejected here.

Before we decided to move back here, my greatest fear was that that depression would return and wash over me in a heavy cloud. Moving here has forced me to confront that fear. Life was different back then. I was different then. As hard as it is to sit here facing these experiences, it would be even harder for me to revert back to an earlier version of myself. Being forced to move and moving to Cincinnati has forced me to reframe parts of my life and experiences.

Then losing my job has forced me to find new routines, and that is what has been the most unexpected part of this all.

Growing up, I had a lot of issues sleeping during “normal” hours. My favorite time of day was night, when the rest of the house was asleep. I loved the sense of calm I’d feel in the silence, away from any expectations of others or for the day. If you’re an early morning riser, you’ve experienced a similar feeling minus the extra layer of quiet that darkness adds to the experience. The whole world shuts down at night, even the sun, narrowing down your options on how to spend your time.

Throughout college, I occasionally had sleep issues, but not as much as through grade school. After graduating then working full time, I almost never had sleep issues (partially because Pat’s presence makes me feel safe and he came with a very noisy fan).

But of course that’s changed now that I don’t have a job. It started slow, and I resisted it along the way. When we’d first moved here, I’d sleep till 11, wishing I’d wake up at 9 if only to beat the intense summer heat for my morning walk, but then instead of getting up earlier, I slept later. Because whenever I tried to sleep earlier, I fell asleep later and later.

Finally, Pat told me to just stop resisting it and let it happen for now, so I did, and now I don’t get up until 1 or 2 most days because I’m not falling asleep until 3 or 4 AM (sometimes even 5 AM). It’s hard because by the time I’ve gotten out of bed, gone for my “morning” walk, written my morning pages, I’m having breakfast when a lot of people are having dinner—and that feels absolutely wild to admit. I can’t go to a lot of cafes because they’re closed by the time I’m ready to start my day.

Right now, I’m glad to be falling asleep before the sun rises. Despite my bedtime, the night has helped me make more progress, in fact, I’ve been more productive than ever. I feel like I’m thriving in the dark. When Pat goes to bed, my day feels like it’s just starting. I’m writing, reading, unpacking, learning new things, cleaning, just doing anything that needs to be done as if it were the middle of the day.

I feel so alive. Energy and ideas run through me, and if I don’t use that energy, I have an even harder time sleeping. So I started writing even more this month, guiding my energy in new directions, and preparing for the near future (i.e., publication).

While I’ve resisted every forced change in my life over this year and felt absolutely hopeless at times, I feel like I’m finally starting to experience some of the benefits of all these extreme changes. Every day I wake up and I feel a little different than the day before. A little stronger. A little more alive.

I feel reborn.

Something Accomplished in August

I hate to say finally, but I feel like finally something different, finally I feel more alive, finally I’m unlocking the potential I thought I’d find after losing my job and focusing on writing. It took me three months, but I’m starting to experience some of the benefit. This month I added 14,000 words to my third draft, which has pushed me farther into the story and closer to the end of this draft.

That doesn’t mean the work on the draft is any easier. For me, the ending is always the hardest. I don’t like endings, in life or in writing. And everything leading up to the ending feels extra challenging because I tell myself it can’t go too far, too long. I can’t push it too much because I have to resolve it. Which might be a limiting belief I have around writing a book and letting it become more than it’s been.

Either way, it’s entirely possible I finish my third draft before the end of September, which is terrifying and also so exciting. I have so many big things left to unfold, but it’s actually starting to feel like a book. Like one that people might read, like one they might be able to get through to the end. It still needs a ridiculous amount of work, but I’m filled with so much excitement to do it.

Other than writing my third draft, I also submitted the first chapters of my book to a contest (should find out if I make it on the longlist by the end of September), and I wrote a short story for another contest (this one focused on mythology). Most of what I have out in circulation doesn’t come back with results until October.

Some Things Enjoyed in August

The Knight and the Moth by Rachel Gillig

For the past couple months, I’ve had to add a book I was still reading to the list (because I’ve been reading slow as hell), but this time I actually started and finished a book within the month! Rachel Gillig (also wrote One Dark Window) has easily become my favorite author. She is clear, succinct, descriptive, and tidy in her writing and execution of story. I find myself in awe, trying to study how and what ways make her books feel so well delivered. This book was a delightful read. It has ambiance, and her worlds are so contained, which makes it a really easy fantasy book to become invested in. Definitely recommend her books.

Wednesday Part 1 Season 2 on Netflix

Bummed Netflix decided to do something silly and separate half a season a month apart from the second half, but I’ve been bummed about them doing that since they started doing it a couple years ago. The second season of Wednesday started out feeling pretty cheesy, but I’m wondering if that’s how it felt watching the first season (who knows since that was 3 years ago). Still excited to see where they take the show to finish out the season.

The End of the F***ing World on Netflix

This show has been out for a while, and it’s been on my list for about half the time it’s been out. And I’m so glad I saw it at this point in my life. It brought me so much joy to watch this show. The characters were spectacular. The show did a great job blending dialogue and interiority, which gave perfect deliveries of comedic effect and drama. I’d watch this again (maybe even right now) because it was so enjoyable and watchable.

Perfect Match on Netflix

I’m really sick of reality TV. Usually I watch about 3-4 seasons/reality TV shows across an entire year. This year has been a lot more. Honestly, I think the reason is because I feel like I’m running out of things I actually want to watch (which may be a good thing). I don’t know if I’d recommend Perfect Match, but Pat and I enjoyed it when we watched it.

Freaky Friday (Disney+) & Freakier Friday (in theaters)

Freaky Friday starts off cheesy and bad, but as soon as the actresses “switch” places, they kill it. Jamie Lee Curtis really holds this one down. And she absolutely delivers in the second one, too. Both of these are classics worth watching.

~Hoping fall doesn’t murder you with allergies like it does me~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Another month, another 31 days of crazy.

Life is settling at the edges—albeit slowly and roughly. Every moment I start to feel normal, start to feel sane, life throws another curveball. The biggest one of July was waking up one Wednesday morning and finding out my car was stolen.

At first, all I could do was laugh.

I’ll be honest, I wasn’t in love with our car. We’d bought it from a friend in 2020 with no idea what the history or recent repairs were (or what would be needed very shortly after buying it—hint: it was a lot, new tires and all). We bought and inherited a messy vehicle full of our friend’s shit. It needed a deep clean, and in all the four and a half years of owning it, I never did muster up the energy to do it.

Dust stacked on dust until it was so hard to get off it had merged as one with the dashboard. The car didn’t smell or anything. It was just never fully clean. And while I desperately had wanted it to be clean, the thought of cleaning it as deeply as it needed was debilitating. Especially in the chaos of COVID, my master’s, and moving a few times.

Now, I’m glad I never cleaned it. I’m glad I didn’t waste my time and energy on it just for some random to come along and claim our clean car as their own. I’m glad they have to deal with the dashboard dust and random junk scattered through the car and the chips of paint in the front bumper and the bag of books I’d been meaning to take to a Half Price bookstore.

The idea of selling and moving on from that car had felt impossible, so a part of me had been hoping something would happen to it—although having it stolen had not crossed my mind as a possibility. Back the week of my high school graduation, my neighbor had driven into my white VW bug and totaled it right in front of my house. That was more along of the lines of what I’d imagined.

Part of me feels responsible for its disappearance, not because I had anything to do with it, but because I’d wanted something to happen to it.

I feel like I’m living the advice of “be careful what you wish for.”

I’d underestimated the emotional effect of having a car stolen/wrecked/etc. It wasn’t a happy go lucky time. It was unsettling and stressful. For a week, I felt violated and unsafe. I’d check the locks on the rental car and my house five times before bed and still stir at any unusual noise (which happens a lot with cats). I imagined moving the machete ( a story for another time) to my bedside, prepared to act should my visions of home invasion and attempted murder come true. I entered a deep state of paranoia, convinced anyone idling on my residential street was a threat or unwelcome (I’m still having issues with this).

Then on top of that I had to learn how to buy a new car and what car to buy—something that couldn’t have been farther from my mind after buying a house. We jumped into the search, making mistakes left and right. Two perfectly fine cars slipped from our grasp due to our lack of dealership experience.

Our stress is only recently resolved. The last day of our rental car, we managed to successfully negotiate (finally) and bought a car. We have now upgraded from a 2016 Honda Civic to a 2022 Mini Cooper Countryman, an easy trade off in a not so easy journey. I hope to have many years with this car and don’t wish a stolen car on anyone.

Something Accomplished in July

Fortunately, despite the chaos (and hopefully a sign life is steadying), I added 9,000 words to my third draft (2,000 more words than I added in June!). I’m now right around halfway done with the draft, which feels amazing. Before long, I’ll finish it, and things get really exciting after that.

When I’d signed up to earn my MFA back in 2021, I had one goal: to finish writing a book (at least one draft). And I came out with two first drafts for two different books and a second draft for one of those. After graduating, I knew I’d need to keep my head down for a while and let the stories develop.

Finishing the third draft brings me to the next step in my process, which is prepping the book for a few trusted beta readers. I’m excited and incredibly nervous to be getting to this step in the process, but I can’t wait to see what people think about the story I’ve been writing alone for 4 years. I’m not there just yet, but I get closer everyday.

Outside of my manuscript, I also submitted a short story for the Writer’s Playground contest (one of my favorites) and heard back from a couple others I’d submitted to in June. I received an honorable mention for one of those challenges.

Some Things Enjoyed in July

Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by VE Schwab

Schwab has become an unknowing mentor to me. I read her monthly newsletters and feel connected and seen in her words and experiences. This book featured lesbian vampires, and I loved it. She had new twists on vampires that were refreshing and not forced or off putting. They were poetic. I admire her tenacity and overall career and hope one day I can follow in her footsteps.

The Materialists

I thought I’d like this movie, but instead, I feel conned. Conned by the appeal of Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal, and Chris Evans being in a “rom com” together. I felt like this movie was trying too hard to send a message it failed to deliver effectively.

K-Pop Demon Hunters

It’s kind of strange this movie ended up being as popular as it is. I liked the overall message, but there wasn’t anything super crazy cool about it. I did enjoy watching it.

The Bear season 4 on Hulu

Another season of The Bear blinked by with me hardly remembering any of it yet remembering all the points that mattered. This season had forward motion and character development at least, so that was refreshing—I’m looking at you, Carmie.

Squid Game the final season on Netflix

Nothing the Squid Game creators did after the first season would have ever lived up to that first season. Something about watching Squid Game the first time really hit in the heart and stuck with you. I enjoyed watching the final season, and I am excited for the United States spin-off, which I hope they can do well.

Temptation Island on Netflix

This was easily one of the worst and most toxic of the reality TV shows on Netflix. Pat (my partner) compared it to experimenting on people. They took four couples and sent them on an island to be “tempted” out of their year plus relationships. It was chaotic, messy, and sad. I want to say I wouldn’t watch it again, but I probably will.

~Wishing you lovely summer days~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Moving back to Cincinnati has been bittersweet. Sweet in that I’ve loved reconnecting with old friends and rejoining the social world. Bitter because it’s been difficult to move back here. Part of me feels like I’ve given up by moving back after six years out in the rest of the world. I’d have loved to have moved back to Philly, a city where I really felt like I began to grow into myself as a person.

Those years are still with me and have been a huge part of developing who I am today, but it wasn’t in the cards for us to move back there. Now, I’m in a city that both feels incredibly familiar yet also completely foreign. I live in an area of the city I’ve not spent any time in before, so every day feels like an exploration of something new. But I often drive to familiar areas and find myself warring with awakening memories from my past. Memories of a self I couldn’t feel farther away from being.

Despite my conflicting feelings that we’re here, I am enjoying my time. I’ve been feeling more alive since last month. May’s chaos bled into June for a bit, but I feel reborn coming out of the end of June.

The difference has been so stark from here compared to the last two years in Indiana that I’m only now realizing exactly how depressed I was out there. Depression and I have always circled around each other. Sometimes it crashes over me in an oppressive wave, and others it sneaks up on me to whisper sweet shortcomings into my ear. When it finds me, I don’t always know that it’s what was knocking on my door.

So I hadn’t realized a giant elephant had been sitting on my chest until I felt the elephant lift off of me over the course of the last month. It’s not gone completely, but it’s gotten a lot smaller, which has really helped me breathe. I think no longer being locked away from society in Rapunzel’s tower with no stairs down and a chronic problem of cutting my hair too short to use it to climb out has really helped.

The world has opened up around me and given me the freedom I need to feel alive again. A big help has been friendship and community (both old and new), and returning to acupuncture after a two-year hiatus has helped me feel more calm and grounded.

Moving to Cincinnati has forced me into such an aggressive transformation, I no longer feel like I even need my feet on the ground. Instead, I’ve grown wings, and I’m flying over it—clumsily—but I’m doing it.

Something Accomplished in June

With my newly awakened energy, I added 7,000 words to the third draft of my fantasy novel. Last month I’d scrapped together 2,000 in the remaining 11 days of the month, and this month I flew through 7,000 words in 15 days. I’m looking forward to what my re-established momentum does for my draft in July.

I also submitted a fun fantasy piece for a short story contest. Next month I have another contest (that had given me very positive feedback in their last round of the contest). After that, I should find out results for my most recent batch of contests starting in August.

Some Things Enjoyed in June

School of Shards by Marina and Sergey Dyachenko

This is the third and final book in the Vita Nostra series, which is still one of my all-time favorite books because of how strange and compelling the world is. I love how short and sweet these books are because they always pull me in and take me on a journey I don’t fully understand.

Ginny & Georgia (season 3) on Netflix

Ginny & Georgia did it again. No matter how many years pass between seasons (and no matter how much I forget), they always manage to take me on a ride I don’t want to get off of. The show is right on the threshold between too much and just the perfect amount. I love the characters and especially identify with Maxine.

Nine Perfect Strangers (season 2) on Hulu

I love Nicole Kidman and all her strange choices. I loved the first season of Nine Perfect Strangers, and despite my skepticism, I even loved season two. They do a similar thing to White Lotus where they bring in a cast full of people you love seeing and make them all weird and have lots of issues. And by the end, they do all end up a little healed.

Lilo & Stitch (live action)

Lilo & Stitch is one of my favorite Disney movies (I also relate to Stitch pretty hard and felt a lot like him growing up, which sounds weird as hell but that was how I felt). The live action was really fun, but I’d rather just watch the animated version. I didn’t get anything extra out of the live action (except for Jumba being Zach Galifianakis which was a treat).

How to Train Your Dragon (live action)

There have been a lot of movies I wished were just exact copies of their animated version, so when How to Train Your Dragon ended up as a carbon copy, I was a little surprised. And I had really underestimated how many times I’ve seen it, so I could actively quote most of the movie. This one is a real treat though, and if you haven’t seen the animated version, then it’ll be even better for you. It’s one of my all-time favorites.

~May you find shade in the blistering heat~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

I haven’t found my footing yet in my new life. Every day has felt like I’ve been sucked up in a never-ending whirlwind.

Between closing on a house, moving back to civilization, finally having access to delicious foods, and losing my job, I’ve been struggling to feel grounded. Time flies and before I know it, I’m waking up to a new day and staring up at the dark ceiling of my bedroom.

I’m so untethered, most days I don’t get out of bed until 11 or 12, even if I wake up at 9 or 10. My house and life are so chaotic, my to do list is endless, and when I wake up in the dark cocoon of my bedroom, I often don’t see the point in getting up, of unwrapping myself from the warm darkness to embrace the light of day and pick up the next item on the list.

But then my lower back aches with an echo of the pain it experienced through the winter, and I know I have to get up, put my shoes on, and step outside into the light.

Getting up and going outside is never as unpleasant as the version of me that can’t fathom leaving her cocoon imagines. She treks up the hill to forge a new path across unexplored sidewalks in a new neighborhood full of life. A stark difference from when I’d walk out to the lifeless landscape of gray winter, where my closest neighbor had no reason to leave their house other than to go to work.

By the time I return from my morning walk, I feel alive again.

In life’s transitionary phases, when you shed something old to become something new, you always hope it happens instantly. That one day you’re one way and the next you’re another. But life’s a lot messier than that. Transitions take time. Growth comes with discomfort and unsteadiness. No matter how hard I try to understand that this is my new life, that I have all the time I need to set the right habits and rituals, I still can’t force myself to be ready and the hard part to be over.

Instead I lay in my bed, staring up at the ceiling waiting until I’ve made all my changes and feel ready to start my new life.

Something Accomplished in May

I didn’t pick up my third draft until 20 days into May. 20 days passed by before I felt sane enough—until I could push through the brain fog—to pick up where I’d left off. I kept it small this month. Impressively, I wrote a little over 2,000 words, which felt like trudging through mud to find.

It was hard to not see myself as a failure at that point. I’d lost my job and there I was not doing the very thing I’d set out to do with my life. But those jabs of self-doubt and self-criticism happen no matter what’s going on. And there was a lot going on.

My main goal recently in the new house has been to setup my office, so I can establish those good habits and vibes I need to feel supported by my surroundings. I always make sure to write no matter my circumstances (traveling, visiting family, office-less, etc.), but nothing quite beats having the space for your mind, and work, to flourish.

In the last couple days of the month, I also managed to submit a flash fiction piece for a contest, which I loved taking the time to do. I’ve got some really fun contests on deck over the summer, and hopefully, I can share those with you all soon!

Some Things Enjoyed in May

The Broken Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

As you can imagine, my reading pace has also been slow as hell. This is book two in a trilogy I started back in April. It was a whole new cast of characters, with some overlap on minor characters. I love the world Jemisin’s created. There are gods, humans, godlings, and demons. It’s interesting to see the way Jemisin explores how each subgroup would behave and interact with others.

The Companion

My movies/shows hit on similar themes this month. The Companion had a compelling narrative on women and men’s traditional roles and the underlying issues of misogyny. I also liked how the viewer was really rooting for the robot this time. It’s labeled as horror, but the comedic tone keeps it lighthearted at times and helps with the intensity of the plot (sometimes).

Sirens on Netflix

I’d really been hoping for actual sirens (like in mythology), but that’s not what you’re going to get from this show. There is an undercurrent through the five episodes that makes you think it’s a possibility though. This show also hit on the theme of misogyny and did a phenomenal job of reshaping the common ways men view women and man’s own inherent issues that cause the very problems they blame on women. I really enjoyed this show, and the cast was spectacular (Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore, Glenn Howerton, and more).

The Four Seasons on Netflix

I love Tina Fey, so I had to watch this show. I’d thought from the title it’d be like a White Lotus rip off. It wasn’t. It was silly and all too real at times. I enjoyed it even though it definitely wasn’t targeting my age group (it tries to make fun of my age and younger actually) and is written more for middle aged to upper middle aged people.

One of Them Days

I really enjoyed this movie. It was fun and not too serious. I love Keke Palmer, so definitely recommend this movie if you’re looking to laugh.

~I hope you enjoy the warm weather to come~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Fun fact about the flowers on a magnolia tree: you can eat the petals (they taste like ginger).

Or so I’ve heard, I have yet to taste one myself. Something about taking the leap and shoving flower petals into my mouth feels a little risky.

One of these days, I’ll feel brave enough to try them (let me know if you do).

If I wasn’t losing my job now, I wonder if I’d ever have been brave enough to eat the flower and commit myself to writing fiction.

For the last five years, I’ve been working as a federal contractor. Given the lovely climate we currently exist in as a country, I imagine it’s no surprise to you that being a federal contractor is not the best place to be these days. While losing this part of my life feels big and scary, I also feel ready.

When I began my hunt for a job after undergrad, I scrambled. While I was selective in my search, I’d follow eagerly along any path my arrow struck. Even as I made a commitment to my website and to being a freelance writer, I still leaped at the chance for something more stable.

The job searching process after college broke me—broke my confidence in myself and in my abilities. Spending each day alone in my overpriced D.C. apartment painting furniture and drowning in TV shows while my two roommates went to their full-time jobs wore on me and my self-worth (which already needed work). At the time, I’d felt like the biggest failure. I’d hardly leave the apartment, feeling like I hadn’t done anything to deserve so much as a coffee.

I have one person to thank for pulling me out of that haze and seeing potential in me that I was still so far from seeing in myself (thank you, Sarah). That job helped me build myself up, build my life up, and build a stronger foundation to rest my future on. I paid my student loans off because of that job, got a master’s degree, traveled, and learned who I was in the process.

Now, as I take my leap into the next phase of my life, I don’t feel like a failure at all. After undergrad, I’d felt like I’d got pushed off the edge of a cliff. I felt like I was in an endless freefall, rolling and tripping all over myself and who I thought I was supposed to be. This time I feel like I’m diving headfirst into whatever waits for me at the bottom. And not seeing the bottom doesn’t scare me as much as it used to.

Apart from my job loss, I have another major update: Pat and I bought a house. We’re moving back to Cincinnati (where I went for undergrad) into a cute little Tudor-style house. The house feels like the perfect fit with tall ceilings (Pat is 6’8” and needs amble ceiling clearance), real wood windows and trim, the old warped glass inside the window panels, and something a little fantastical. I feel like our house belongs in a fairytale, which gives me so many good vibes about writing full time inside those walls (Pat keeps telling me it’s the house where my first book will be published, which is absolutely terrifying to think about but also really exciting).

April has been both bitter and sweet. As sweet looking as a magnolia and as bitter as the taste of its petals.

Something Accomplished In April

Despite the chaos of this month, I feel like I’ve accomplished so much. I added 7,500 words to my third draft, I’ve been staying on top of a freelance writing course I’m taking, and I figured out how to buy a house (which feels like its own mountain to conquer).

Back in February, I’d applied to a fantasy workshop, Clarion West, which had Martha Wells (author of the Murderbot diaries—which is fantastic) as an instructor. I’d used all the energy I had for that application when my back had me incapacitated, but unfortunately, I didn’t get accepted. I will be applying again next year though!

I got back more results from some of the contests I’d entered, but again, nothing promising on that front either. My favorite contest (NYC Midnight’s Flash Fiction challenge) kicks off at the end of May, so I’m hoping to enter that one—I usually place at least in the first round of that, sometimes the second round, too.

I did get back some lovely feedback in a rejection that hinted at me almost not being rejected. Apparently, my story had been in the running through to the end in a field of 716 other stories but didn’t ultimately place in the top 20, so I’m feeling confident in improving in the next round of this contest and hopefully bumping myself into at least the honorable mention list.

Not writing related, but I’ve also gotten my walks (to help my herniated/bulged discs) up to 30 minutes! I’m now going on three 30-minute walks a day—which is as exhausting as it sounds, but they help my back so much!

Some Things Enjoyed in April

The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms by N.K. Jemisin

One of my favorite parts about this book is its inception. After Jemisin’s book, The Killing Moon, got rejected by publishers (primarily for having an all black cast by a black author in the early 2000s), she rewrote The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms. In an interview with the Guardian, this is what she said about it:

But that little detail isn’t the only reason I like the book. There’s also something so familiar in Jemisin’s writing. I’ve been searching for years to find authors I felt akin to, and something about Jemisin’s writing feels similar to my own. She’s by and far way, way better than me, but I feel at home in her writing in a way I don’t typically feel with others. Plus I love her cast of characters.

Writer’s Digest Handbook of Magazine Article Writing, How to Write Fast (While Writing Well), Writing for Story, and more…

Part of the reason my reading list is so short is because of how much reading I’m doing every week for my freelance writing course. I’ve read large chunks out of a handful of books at this point. My biggest recommendations for the writers in my life are Writing for Story by Jon Franklin—the way he talks about the process of writing fiction feels the same as writing fiction which is always refreshing—and How to Write Fast (While Writing Well)—honestly, this book has taught me so much about the mysterious world of freelance writing in such a short span of time.

You season 5 on Netflix

I thought I’d be disappointed with the ending of this series. Part of me hadn’t even wanted to finish the last couple episodes, because I kept imagining a cheesy and unsatisfying ending. They ended up rounding it out in a fairly satisfying way that didn’t leave me feeling cheated or disappointed.

Battle Camp on Netflix

You can usually tell how chaotic my life has been by how much reality TV I’ve been absorbing. I watched Battle Camp in a single day when I couldn’t handle the chaos of packing for another second. Reality TV is so unserious and ridiculous that it brings me peace. Most shows/books/movies I like are very serious, but I’ve had about enough of serious these days. Loved this show. It was so fun.

Million Dollar Secret on Netflix

Another reality TV show I watched very quickly. I enjoyed watching this, and I liked who ended up winning.

The Residence on Netflix

I watched this because one of the main characters is from Orange is the New Black (the main detective’s name is Suzanne in the show), and she did not disappoint in this show. It felt like her character had been transported into a make-believe world where her character wasn’t in prison and was imagining her life as a detective.

The White Lotus season 3 on Max

I always have mixed feelings about my White Lotus experience. There’s part of the show I like and parts I don’t like. I love the characters always though. My favorite this round was Aimee Lou Wood—she’s always lovable no matter her role. I related the most to Carrie Coon’s character Laurie though.

Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu

One of the shows on my Nicole Kidman in weird roles list. I feel like Nicole Kidman has been taking some pretty off the wall character roles (maybe she’s always done this though, anyone remember The Stepford Wives?). This show had an amazing cast though. Melissa McCarthy’s character felt like a snapshot into what part of my future as a published author could potentially look like. This show was also pretty wholesome despite being intense.

Big Little Lies on Max

Another stellar casting with Nicole Kidman at the top of the list. I didn’t like this show as much as Nine Perfect Strangers, but they are very different from each other and doing very different things.

Sinners

I’m loving this kick of having scary movies that really aren’t all the scary. I love me a vampire movie, too. And I love that the main vampire, Remmick, is Cook from Skins (which is an absolutely wild show). I liked all the weirdness of this movie. It was so fun and enjoyable to watch.

Odessa

Another weird as hell movie. This movie is considered a space opera, but it doesn’t actually take place in space at all. The entire setting is on the same planet, and Sadie Sink goes on a walkabout playing music. I loved how strange this movie was.

~May the Fourth be with you~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

March was long and complicated, but I think in a good way? My emotions were as shifty as spring weather.

The biggest change this month though was my feelings toward activism, my activism in specific. I spent a good amount of time with a lovely little book called Micro Activism, which really helped me to gain more perspective on sustainable ways to move forward in helping the world become a better place for others.

This line is on page 10 in the book, so right away it gets you thinking about activism through a more personal lens. Over the course of the book, I reframed my understanding of where and how I’ve already been an activist, or at least attempted to be one.

Back when I moved to DC in 2019, I worked briefly for a grassroots campaign. I went to the training, having absolutely no clue what I was getting myself into, and then they took me out into the wild streets of DC. They gave me my own side of a street, and I had to go up and knock on every single door to try to get people to sign their information on my clipboard.

I had two limits. I either needed to fill my sheet or the sun needed to set. Despite the fact that I genuinely cared about us trying to provide information on immigrant’s rights, I was awful at it and deeply insecure about how terrible I was at it. I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to say half the time, so I sounded like an automated recording every time someone actually opened the door and didn’t immediately close it on my face.

A few kind souls not only listened to me but actually sympathized with me and added their names. Some added their names just to get me to leave. And others just said no thanks.

I’ve tried a lot of things in my life, but that was hands down one of the most mortifying experiences. I was so deeply unsettled and uncomfortable after that shift, I never went back.

That was what I’d thought was a more pure form of activism—and I’d failed.

I am no door-to-door anything. The sweat-inducing, voice-shaking experience I have trying to talk to people one-on-one like that is too much for me. And I understand now that that’s okay. That work is not for me, but I worked with others that day who were great at it. They’d be done in a matter of a couple hours, whereas I’d barely finished half my sheet by the end of my five hour shift.

Activism has always felt like this thing I needed to be better at, that other people were better at than me. Like they were predisposed to the work or were raised with a better understanding of what the work needs to be. But now I see that it doesn’t need to be perfect, and you don’t have to know what you’re doing to be able to do something.

Back when Pat (my partner) and I first moved to Philly, we had to create new habits around grocery shopping because they don’t use plastic bags at the grocery stores there. At first we had to pay for the paper bags, and we did that for longer than we should have, but eventually, we bought some reusable bags and haven’t gone back since.

Part of the reason I didn’t want to go into engineering post undergrad was because of what I learned in my last year of college. (I also didn’t want to because of the blatant and inherent misogyny baked into the culture, but that’s a story for another day.) In my last year, we took a course called Green Chemistry. A day does not go by without me thinking about something called a fate analysis.

A fate analysis is an analysis on the fate of chemicals released into our environment. We learned how to calculate how long different chemicals would stay in our water supplies (ocean, rivers, lakes, etc.), in our soil (where we grow food), in the air (where a lot of chemical discharge is released through combustion), and in our food supplies (grown from soil, animals that eat plants, and in fish).

The amount of chemicals knowingly released into the environment that are forever chemicals was deeply unsettling and alarming to learn about. And there I was in a class full of people playing that snake computer game on their laptops, texting their friends, and living on as if that is not a horrifying thing to learn.

That knowledge alone wasn’t the only part of why I didn’t want to continue as a chemical engineer. I also had the experience of working in a chemical plant. Older plants were not built with humans in mind. They’re inherently unsafe, with potential explosions and gas-killing mixtures at the ready, and the one I worked at still had asbestos loose in their buildings. And since those plants are as old as they are, their environmental restrictions are minimal because at one point they had free reign on leaking whatever they wanted into the world—and they absolutely released everything they could.

Some people might be inclined to suggest that I should have gone on to be an environmental engineer then, but they have the worst of it. Not only do they have a more in depth understanding of how chemicals interact with the environment, they also are the ones at chemical plants that have to tell the plant how much they can release of different things. Aka companies have a maximum of what they’re allowed to release (and they will almost always choose the maximum because it leads to higher profits for them and is easier) and environmental engineers are the ones that sign off on how to reach the maximum all the while knowing exactly how harmful that release really is.

All in all, truly a nightmare for me because the guilt and anger I’d have would eat me alive.

So, my understanding of the harm that plastics have in our environment (because the chemical company I worked for made plastic) extends beyond plastic swimming in the ocean, because what they don’t tell you about is that even the process of creating that plastic is harmful to the environment.

If you’re interested in getting a taste for how willing companies are for knowingly releasing harmful chemicals into the environment, check out Dark Waters starring Mark Ruffalo and the recent Netflix show Toxic Town (which was fantastic by the way, love Aimee Lou Wood).

I mention all of this to say that I make choices and actions with my own activist lens by choosing what I take part in and what I choose to abstain from. I always thought I needed to be as loud and as bold as possible to be an activist, but it’s really in your micro actions and the way you choose to exist every day.

If you’d like to get a feel for where you fall in the world of activism, the book linked to this lovely quiz at omkariwilliams.com/activist-archetype-quiz.

Something Accomplished in March

With March and the beginning of spring, I picked back up on working on my third draft. I’m now sitting at about 15,000 words, which is about 15% of the way through my third draft, so I’m feeling great about making progress.

In April, I will get back some results, but I shouldn’t have any other writing due (no contests or anything) so I’m hoping to continue my progress through my third draft. I did start a freelance writing class in March though, and that does take up some of my time. But the class has been invaluable in teaching me new ways of approaching some of my writing, so I am loving it.

If you’re wondering why I’m taking that class, well, I work for a federal contractor, and we’ll see if I still am in a month…

I also submitted for a romantasy (romance + fantasy) contest, and I am really, really not cut out for writing romance. I can in small doses as an extra flavor in stories, but as the dominant storyline… yikes. My romantasy was this awful thing where a princess called someone a monster, and that monster went to kill the princess but instead they fell in love and got married. If you’re not at all interested in ever seeing that story in the light of day, just know that neither am I.

Some Things Enjoyed in March

Micro Activism by Omkari Williams

A great little book, only about a 150 pages and definitely worth a read if you’re at all interested in learning and thinking about your impact on the world. Despite its short length, it still took me most of the month to read it because there’s so much to meditate on and process and think through for how to take the content and apply it to your life.

Onyx Storm by Rebecca Yarros

The third book in the Empyrean series and also the best book so far. This book was full of adventure and consequences, which are my two favorite things. I enjoyed my time reading this so much. Waiting however long for the next one is a bummer for sure, but I’m sure it’ll feel like catching up with an old friend again just like this one.

Toxic Town on Netflix

A show as emotionally vexing as Dark Waters was. I recommend this show not only because of how good it was but also because it really is another fantastic example from real life of the consequences of chemicals being released into the environment knowingly and without care (which is what happens more than any of us could even guess).

Severance on Apple TV

I’ll just come out right away and say I’m not the world’s biggest fan of Severance. Pat loves it, but I don’t think I’d keep watching it on my own. It’s interesting and was a great thought experiment, but that’s really as far as it goes for me. The characters are great though.

Adolescence on Netflix

To be honest, I thought this would be better. Or at least point at the negative effects of misogyny stronger than it did. In typical patriarchal society’s fashion, the show focused completely on misogyny’s effects on men/boys, even though a girl literally dies in the show (who we end up knowing nothing about and all we get is that she was mean). So the narrative is focused entirely on the men of the world, and none of the female characters feel even remotely like individuals, which may have been a choice they made in making the show, but a disappointing choice if you ask me.

Snow White in Theaters

Snow White has never been my favorite. I always thought she was the lamest out of the Disney princesses. She doesn’t really do much of anything besides hang out with animals and dwarves. In the life-action remake, she does only a little bit more than that. I liked the spin they took on the word “fair” and found that to be a refreshing take. I also did enjoy watching it in the theaters with a theater full of kids, who all cued up the same “Aww” on the first cute animal scene, but it pretty much left my brain as soon as it was over even though I liked watching it.

~May you stay dry in the spring showers~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.

Another month has slipped by. Big changes came with this month. I’ve stopped using the walker, and now occasionally use a cane, but mostly I’ve been walking without support and resting more to balance the additional strain.

This month felt like a blur of passing shapes and emotions. Tidal waves of feelings washed over me in the chaos following the change in administration. I felt caught in a rip tide as more uncertainty surrounded Pat’s (my partner’s) job in the government and mine in the federal contract space.

I don’t have much more to say about it all without going into an in-depth rant. My frustrations have led me to find more ways to resist. So far, my favorite was adding a stack of books by black authors to my list and reading only from that list for February. I found some absolute gems, and their writing has invigorated me.

And fueled me with even more rage about the injustices in the world.

But they (Audre Lorde at the top of the list) also filled me with so much hope.

Their words forced me to reflect on how much has been won throughout history. We wouldn’t be where we are now with these platforms and ability to say what we think—I wouldn’t be able to at least—if it weren’t for all the people throughout history that took a stand against something that wasn’t right. And now we have that history lifting us up. We’re living proof that rising up and resisting works.

Nonviolent civil resistance (protests, strikes, boycotts, etc.) are twice as successful as violent ones. 53% of nonviolent campaigns are successful. So the next time you’re sitting there thinking canceling your Amazon Prime account or not shopping at Target/Walmart/etc. or standing up for someone or going to stand in a street holding a sign is not doing anything, just remember the numbers and look at history.

And if you think there’s nothing we can do about any of this, that’s exactly what they want us to think, feel, and believe. Because a complacent population is easier to control. Complacent people give up their power by thinking they never had any, but the truth is that we do. We have more power than people can imagine just by standing up for—or against—our neighbors. One voice of dissent is enough to make someone else feel brave enough to speak up too.

If you think there’s nothing you can do, give your choices a good long stare. Do you read diversely? Do you shop at small businesses owned by POC or women? Do you funnel money into the broligarch bunch? Do you lift up other voices? Do you show up for your community? Do you go and protest in the streets to show your dissent if you don’t feel comfortable sharing it online? Do you call your state reps and senators to tell them to vote no on policies you don’t want implemented? Do you stand up for what’s right against ignorant family members or friends?

You don’t have to do everything to do something. You can pick one thing and focus your energy—whether that’s anger, sadness, or disappointment—to resist this version of America. An America built on hate, misinformation, and misunderstanding. You can resist by creating the America you want to be a part of. One filled with love, joy, and acceptance.

That’s the world I want to belong to anyway.

Something Accomplished in February

February went by in a blink, which was really strange given how slowly January passed. Since it feels like it went by so quickly, it’s been difficult to hold and remember everything I accomplished in the month, but my calendar tells me I applied for a reputable fantasy workshop mid-month. I’ll find out if I got in in April and share with you the news then.

Because I finally finished up the application for that workshop and the couple writing contests I’d entered, I returned to my third draft this month, which I had dropped momentarily after my injury in December. Working on too many things at once is still a challenge since I still don’t have a lot of sitting/standing/walking endurance, so picking up my third draft and adding 2,500 words in the second half of February felt like returning home after being surrounded by strangers on a strenuous journey around the world.

And returning to working on my manuscript has eased the part of me that’s itching to do something about the injustices taking place in the government, because writing and creating is political and an act of resistance. It’s also my best outlet for highlighting the problems in our world, since it gives me a space to critique the issues in our culture in a fantasy setting completely separate from our day to day.

Some Things Enjoyed in February

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

A beautiful and satisfying story for the first book in a series. I hadn’t been prepared to read a King Arthur story (set in modern day and in the South) when I picked this up, but I found the ending really satisfying so I enjoyed it nonetheless. I really liked how grief and injustice was handled in this book.

Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination by Toni Morrison

A very dense, yet brief, in-depth look into the history of literary criticism and it’s complete overlook of racial analysis in American classics. Morrison made compelling arguments showcasing how Africanism has been painted in our literature since the beginning of America, which had me looking at the foundation of modern day America differently. One of the points that stood out to me the most was this idea of freedom in America and how much that freedom depends on emphasizing that part of the population is heavily enslaved/oppressed.

Morrison says many compelling things and breaks down the writing of Hemingway, Poe, and Mark Twain. I shared the above because this subsection highlights the backbone of American culture, and I think it draws attention to white privilege. White people also have a tendency to try to pretend race does not exist as if the foundation of this country is not built from racial oppression, but when we suppress the impact of race, we are not looking at how the influence of race has shaped the world we live in today. American history is very recent, so to ignore the racial differences painted throughout, is to try to make light of the suffering of Americans still feeling the echoes of racial oppression today.

Apart from my readings, I honestly can’t remember anything I watched and finished this month apart from finishing Younger on Netflix, which I talked about briefly in January.

If you’re interested in finding more ways to resist or stand up against the truly awful things happening in this country, the Chop Wood, Carry Water Substack provides actionable steps and updates multiple times a week.

Chop Wood, Carry Water

This weekday newsletter gives you easy, effective political actions to take to stave off despair, effect positive change and elect more true public servants.

By Jessica Craven

~Hoping you find ways to spread love and hope~

This is from Nicholette A. Guy. Her writing explores the absurdity of being human. She writes speculative fiction, with a focus in fantasy.