# Preface Date: 14 February 2026 This past week was wild. And it's leading up to Aromantic Awareness Week, too! So if you're Aromantic like I am: I see you, and you are great. I had some high highs and a low low. That's not an exaggeration. I've written the most in a week (so far) than I have ever before... or at least ever recorded. Let's start with the writing, then I can get to the near-accident. Over all I wrote 5,419 words. I'll spell it out below. But let that sink in. That's equivalent to ~774 words a day. I mean, they came out in spurts but you get the idea. I'm still wrapping my brain around that. And then there's my near-accident. For the first time ever, I was nearly hit by a car. Picture this: Twas Tuesday, around 6pm. I had just gotten some chicken korma from an Indian restaurant I frequent. It was raining a lot for the Bay Area. The sun had set. I am tall and pretty visible, even in the black hoodie I was wearing to protect me from the rain. I had gone halfway across the crosswalk, the bright white walking guy dutifully told me I could walk forward. When I saw light flash up against me. It took me a second to really understand what was going on. And it sent me into shock. It took me about three days to work through that. I couldn't write. To bring this back to writing, that means I wrote the other four days this week. It was something. Anything. Towards my college classes and my fiction. # Part 1: Non-Fiction ### 1.1 College 2.0 (what I can share, anyway) Word count: 2,576 #### 1.11 Critical Thinking I worked on an essay about word precision. I had to read two short essays and write about which one was more precise. One of them was written by a human, the other was written by ChatGPT. This lead me to realize a couple of things. 1. I seemed to have learned the wrong methods in essay writing. I've made it harder on myself by not reading everything first, then gathering quotes, then writing my thoughts on said quotes, then putting those thoughts and quotes into an organized manner. I've simply started writing the essays, which always made things harder for me. 2. I seem to have adopted a combination of MLA standards and APA. Which is wildly confusing. Example: I always use a comma right before a quote, which I've learned isn't necessary. I have also always used "p." before the page number; which isn't strictly necessary and only needs a parenthesis and number. #### 1.12 Creative Writing I was allowed to turn in some homework late this week. It was a Descriptive Writing assignment and it was about my creative writing notebook. A couple of weeks ago we were asked to take 10 minutes and free write about an object that means a lot to us. And because of the near-accident, I had to take some mental time away from everything. We also had a prompt to go off of, and we got to choose. I chose my tattoo, and went off on a description of that and what it means. This weekend I'm reading an essay called ***Create Dangerously***. #### 1.13 Motivation Letter I've been getting help from someone on campus about this motivation letter. I still feel woefully behind at times. But I'm just trying to complete the damn thing. But I got a ton of really helpful feedback. And it's essentially told me that I am not used to describing myself in a professional manner. That style of talking just seems to go away whenever I am describing myself as a human being. That's one reason I've been doing a lot of personal work, because I just don't really know who I am, or how to describe myself (professionally). But I'm pushing forward. ### 1.2 personal essay I wrote something on people-pleasing (link below). Much of this is similar to what I said in the motivation letter part, but I think it's worth reading. There's one mistake, but I'm going to leave it in to spite my perfectionism. # Part 2: Fiction Word count: 2,438 ## 2.1 Short Story Titled: Anxiety Potion Word count: 431 Synopsis: A Berkeley witch finds love and cannot say it to her crush. So she devises a potion to counteract her anxiety. Notes: I have finally finished this story! But alas, I cannot remember the site that I intended to send it to. Though I think I may have just found it. Maybe? We'll see. I don't know if I have someone to read it to give me anymore notes on it. But it's one of my stronger pieces, I think. ## 2.2 Project Madison Flame Word count: Synopsis: Notes: Nothing towards this project this week. ## 2.3 Project Moonshadow Word count: 1,259 Synopsis: A gay Bay Area man gets trapped in the Fae Area and must fight to keep himself, his sanity, and his memories alive. Notes: I am down to two chapters. I'm currently sitting at 7,149/10,000 words. So this may need to be chopped down a bit. But I'm very near completion of this project and I am stoked. ## 2.4 Project Castro Word count: Synopsis: Notes: I was going to work on this project, but a car nearly hit me and I'm just gonna have to do more this up-coming week. ## 3. Substack **Please note:** I'm stacking my fiction and (eventually) non-fiction for Fridays in future. So you won't immediately see the content for Substack. It's queued up. ### 3.1 Flash Fiction Friday 344 "All in Black" Titled: Untitled Date: 13 February 2026 Word count: 945 Synopsis: Erika is performing her last recital at Julliard. It’s In the Hall of the Mountain King. But before that, she must battle her nerves. She has brought two sets of clothes: a dress and a blouse plus slacks. All in black. But she forgot her flats. Notes: This is my submission for [**@flashfictionfridayofficial**](https://www.tumblr.com/flashfictionfridayofficial/). This is a weekly prompt that I try to participate in every week. Some weeks I can’t think of anything, other weeks I do. ## 4. Link Roundup Below is a complete list of this week's links. I realize that if I'm gonna be showing off, the least I can do is have all my links in one basket, rather than scatter them about. They aren't seeds. Plus it makes it easier when I do this on Sunday. ### 4.1 Substack [On People Pleasing](https://open.substack.com/pub/aroacephoto/p/on-people-pleasing?r=2getsk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web) [Flash Fiction Friday 344 "All in Black"](https://open.substack.com/pub/aroacephoto/p/flash-fiction-friday-344?r=2getsk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true) (will be posted on February 20th) ### 4.2 Tumblr [Flash Fiction Friday 344 "All in Black"](https://www.tumblr.com/acewriter/808494992333094912/all-in-black?source=share) ### 4.3 The Kitchen Sink # Conclusion Not much else beyond that! I thought it was funny that this blog number coincided with the 14th. I'm currently taking a break from reading for my creative writing class homework and motivation letter to write this. So I should probs get back to that. If ever I need some motivation, this week will serve as a reminder that I am capable of doing so much more than I thought I could. I just need to not beat myself up if I have another slow week. I'm not a machine. 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 | 1,259 | | Flash Fiction Fridays | 945 | | Non-Fiction | 405 | | Short Story | 431 | | TTRPG | | | College 2.0 | 2576 | | Grand Total | 7,332 |