# Preface Date: May 31, 2026 Oh boy! It's been a minute since I've written one of these. And I think this one will be more of a personal blog than anything. It's always the case with something like this. I get momentum going, the race speeds up, and then I dramatically hit rock bottom and go into burnout or depression or something about this whole mess just makes me fed up. I call that ABD (Anger, Burnout, Depressions) since I don't always know which one it is. And that is certainly what happened in March. In May I stopped keeping track entirely. Let's break down why that's so. # Part 1: Non-Fiction ### 1.1 College 2.0 This semester was a bit of a rollercoaster. Not only did I take a critical thinking class, I took a creative writing class. Both challenged me in the "thinking of what to write" dept. For Critical Thinking, I realized that in the past I had not actually learned what this was. A fellow student saw me reading the class book one day and asked "doesn't that defeat the purpose, to read a book that tells you how to think?" I sort of had a quick response. But I did think this through (quick responses from me aren't always good). The book in question is "Thinking for Yourself" by Marlys Mayfield. And as someone who has grown up with a high-control family, I actually didn't think very critically all that much. And TfY is actually laying down a foundation for a good number of things. Arguments, fallacies, deductive and inductive reasoning. I'm still not the best at it. However, I feel I'm off to a good start. Creative Writing challenged me in other ways. There are plenty of exercises that ask you to look into your past. "Where I'm From" was the first one we encountered in this class. And... well I couldn't. Not for lack of trying, but I couldn't really recall much of anything. There were emotions. But emotions alone don't make a good story, fictional or otherwise. # Part 2: Fiction I haven't been able to focus all that much on my fiction in May. But I am processing and recovering from the semester the best way I can, and will be slowly building myself up to writing more. I hope to work on Project Madison Flame a bit more before the summer semester begins in June. For this section I'm going to update you with information on what I've actually gotten to. Not focusing so much on numbers, but on descriptions and meaningful changes. For instance: I'm writing Project Moonshadow, which will get its own page soon. # Conclusion One of the more recent things that came up was what I'm coining the Semester Hangover. Recently I was house sitting and found myself mindlessly tuned to YouTube. And the itch this scratched felt similar to the social media addiction I faced about a year ago. So I have decided to step away for as long as I can. It seems my social media addiction isn't over yet. With that said, I am also beginning to record some videos on things I find important, so you may find some links in The Kitchen Sink eventually. One of the things I realized I've overdone were the numbers. I went to the Student Accessibilities Services center and got tested for a learning disability. And I came out with a rather intriguing nuance. One that taught me that numbers aren't exactly my strong suite. It took me a minute to realize that I actually hate statistics. It's easy to get lost in the numbers; easy to get tired of keeping track of what I wrote and when. So I'm going to rethink how I present my progress on here. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week! The below table is mostly for myself. But if you, like me, enjoy seeing numbers go up in any capacity, then this may be for you as well. It's meant to be an encouragement to keep on writing. I tally up all the different categories of writing that I contribute to. I keep track of them monthly. | Word Type | Monthly Totals | | --------------------- | -------------- | | Project Castro | | | Project Moonshadow | | | Flash Fiction Fridays | | | Non-Fiction | | | Short Story | | | TTRPG | | | College 2.0 | | | Grand Total | |