A Little Bit About Me (an update)

A little post about my life and Dragons and Moonlight.

Me, I guess…

I wanted to give an update on my life. I hope you are a little interested, but if not, you can jump to the next section. Where to begin. I guess I don’t really talk about my life on here, just how I feel, and how things affect me. Life’s been good, I think. Which is strange for me to say, as life really likes kicking me when I’m down, but yeah…lots of good moments recently. For one, I had my birthday. I am now in my late twenties, and for the first time since eighth grade, I had a party for myself. A small crowd came. To be honest, I don’t have that many friends, but the ones I do have I treasure dearly. We went bowling, which I was absolutely terrible at, but we made a game of being the worst player. You had to try your best, but if you got the lowest score, you won “at golf rules.” It made it so every shot you made was a good one, because either way it brought you closer to one of the ways to win. Or maybe I’m just silly and was there to have a good time.

But I totally killed it at golf rules and won every game (lol).

After that we went to my house and played board games. We spent hours playing Ransom Notes, a game where you use little word magnets to answer silly prompts. Everyone’s answer always brought a smile or a chuckle to my lips. I haven’t had such a genuinely positive experience with people in a long, long time. And for once, I didn’t feel guilty celebrating myself.

Beyond that, I joined a TTRPG game (think Dungeons and Dragons) out of nowhere and I had my first session and it was fantastic. I had a blast, which was truly unexpected. I thought I would get bored here and there, but I was invested the whole time. Hats off to my GM. I can’t wait for the next session.

I also started a reading group centered on learning to be a better writer (which you can join if you’d like). We are reading through Save the Cat Writes a Novel and will discuss it next Tuesday. We’ve been doing writing sprints in the meantime, and it’s been a lot of fun.

I also started an internship at a literary agency, which is super cool, though to be honest I haven’t done anything that interesting, really. Maybe it will get better over time… But I guess I should explain myself a little.

So I don’t have a job. I haven’t had a job in years. I am chronically ill and have a lot of mental health issues, so basically I’ve been struggling to function for my whole life. Things have gotten a lot better and I am looking for jobs now, but it’s really hard to get a job and I need specific requirements for my illnesses (mainly that the job is remote). But hopefully I can handle working soon.

So those are the good things about my life right now. The bad parts can basically be summarized as “my parents suck,” but I don’t need to go into that. For now, let’s keep things happy.

Dragons and Moonlight

I’ve been having such a good time sharing my novella “The Mark of Death” with you all! We are nearly halfway through it and I’m excited for you to see the rest of Enos and Celeste’s arc. To be honest, I’ve planned out a second arc for them and am going to start writing it soon. I guess it’s turning out to be more than a Novella, but I hope you are all okay with that!

I’ve been happy posting twice a week lately. I enjoy sharing my blogs and short-stories with you all. I’m not sure I can keep up two posts consistently, but I’m trying to…whether that’s healthy for me or not. But it’s been plenty of fun recently. I realize that my hopes of having a short story every other week might be difficult, though. I have high standards for my stories, so it’s hard for me to rush them. I have some stories as a backlog, but I tend to feel I need to post the “right story.” I almost posted a short story today, but I think it needs some work to get it to where I truly want it to be. I simply don’t know how to get it there yet, but I will.

Recently, I got a decent microphone. I’m thinking of adding a voice over to my stories where I am the narrator. I’m not trained in voice-acting, but I think I can read things aloud decently. Either way, maybe it will be fun to hear me say it? In the future, I’m thinking about making a podcast, but I need to consider that more seriously before I commit to that. I am just excited to be able to incorporate another medium into the work I do here.

I’ve always wanted to make YouTube videos also…but I think I’m going mad with power now. Audio and video? That’s crazy.

We shall see where things go. But let me know what you think. I’m always open to feedback.

The New Year and New Me

My birthday comes right after the year starts, so the energy of new beginnings is strong in January for me. It’s weird, I couldn’t really put to words what my resolution was until now.

I want to grow.

I want to learn to write better, read more, go on adventures that I never would before, learn new hobbies, just live more. I want to challenge myself, to continue putting myself out into the world and finding new people to connect with. I want my world to become bigger. I honestly think this community and writing on here is a huge part of that. I want to keep pushing what I can do for this publication while also taking into consideration my limitations. See, I want to grow, but I want it to be without leaving parts of me behind. I want to push my boundaries without breaking them, to soar without a crash landing.

And I’m going to.

I know this year will have its ups and downs, and surely I will not reach the heights I am dreaming of, but I will get close. I won’t be perfect, I’ll have slumps, I’ll give up, I’ll remember to stand up, I’ll deflate, but in the end, I will blossom.

-Aether

If you’re looking for more content, you can take a look at my short story collection, or try out my Novella, “The Mark of Death.” That or you can look at my blogs like “I Want to be the Type of Person Who Writes at Cafes.”