# Preface Date:January 18, 2026 This past week I've been all kinds of nervous and excited. Excited for my game dev meeting (Project Castro), for school, for organizing. But I've also been incredibly nervous for some of the things as well: rewrites to things I intend on publishing on Substack, grad school applications (why are they so complicated?), and rewrites to my visual novel script. I've really had to have a conversation about feeling overwhelmed. Much of last year was beginning to learn to slow down. Now I'm putting that into practice. Decision paralysis or my brain getting ahead of me makes me freeze a lot. But writing things down into my diary and/or my Goals & Desires notebook really helps out. This way I don't drive my best friends insane when my head is spinning. # Part 1: Non-Fiction ### 1.1 Substack I wrote a couple of pieces this week, neither of which I am certain that I'll publish. But it felt good to get them both out of my head. ***Graveyard Talk*** Word count: 406 Every once in a while my Brain brings up random memories. It's about as annoying as a social media algorithm, bringing up good or bad memories that no longer matter. The thoughts are just as intrusive. This time it was about an argument that my mom and I had about Nathan Bedford Forrest's statue being torn down. The piece itself ends up focusing on how my mom believed graveyards were sacred and you couldn't move them. But I've read since then that that's not really true - graves get moved all the time. The argument as a whole didn't last that long, because my mom (mistakenly) claimed she was right. I'd like to fictionalize the conversation some to make it more palatable, and frankly funnier than it actually was. But we'll see where that goes. ***Figuring out my path*** Word count: 502 This one is possibly even messier than the graveyard talk piece. But it's the beginning of a series I'm thinking of creating. This one focuses on how I've just never found a good job that I wanted to stick with. I'll probably go over some of my other jobs while searching for my focus. It's going to also focus on my graduate school choices; what I want to study and what my prospects are going to be once I get into it. I think this is far more likely to show up on my Substack than the first one. But we'll see what sticks. # Part 2: Fiction ## 2.1 Monster of the Week Titled: Episode 3: What Dreams are Made Of. Word count: 1,301 Synopsis: Nope! Just in case one of my Hunters sees this the day of the session, I'm going to leave the recap out of it. Maybe on another part of the site, or in another writer blog. Notes: So I'm used to being a solitary writer. Well, except for Project Castro below. But being the Game Master of a tabletop game is yet ***another*** challenge to face! Since this is collaborative, I'm flexing these story-telling muscles a very different way this week. Since it's up to the entire group to tell a story, I as the GM need to focus on the Non-Player Characters (NPCs) and setting. The story itself is up to the Hunters. So I write a full cast of people and a little cast of Threats (the Monsters they face). And boy-howdy was this a lot of fun! Exhausting, I'll be honest. But oh so much fun to create. ## 2.2 Project Castro Word count: 0 Notes: I had a game dev meeting this week. Which was great. I hadn't seen my fellow nerds in at least a month. We three queerdos are hella busy but are making progress in this little visual novel. We gave each other progress reports on what we've been able to do and talked about the next steps. I don't think I've actually said much, and I honestly need to create a standalone page for this whole project. But this is a visual novel video game about a meet-cute. Two non-binary college-aged people run into each other at a pharmacy in the Castro District of San Francisco and accidentally swap medications. It's a short game, and it's expanding my abilities as a storyteller and a visual artist.I will be figuring out how to share art (I'm working on the backgrounds) at some point that isn't just Tumblr. ## 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 340 "Parallel Lines" Titled: Died in the Wrong Universe Date: January 16, 2026 Word count: 804 Synopsis: Devin, a transgender superhero who recently failed to defuse a Time Machine-turned-bomb, meets a Death that is not her own. [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/acewriter/805952286612406272/fff340-parallel-lines?source=share) [Substack](https://open.substack.com/pub/aroacephoto/p/died-in-the-wrong-universe?r=2getsk&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true) 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. # Conclusion Weeks like this is why I started this blog. I feel like I haven't done enough. And then I see the 3K mark and... well, damn. I did more than I thought I did. And there's still two more weeks left in January. One of my New York City friends (of which I have 2!) recently told me that January isn't for making plans and trying to hit the ground running. It's for being cozy, chatting with those you love the most, hibernating, and ***thinking*** about what needs to change. I paraphrased a bit. I won't be hitting the ground running next week, but I do have plenty to accomplish. We'll even ***see*** if I get to sit down to hammer out words. But here's a list of what will happen: • Go to student ability services to see what flavor of neurodivergent I am. • Start classes at my local community college. • GM a Monster of the Week session (1/18, the day this blog comes out). 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 | Weekly Totals | Monthly Totals | | --------------------- | ------------- | -------------- | | Project Castro | 0+0+0 | 0 | | Project Moonshadow | 1,112+0+0 | 1,112 | | Flash Fiction Fridays | 0+670+804 | 1,474 | | Non-Fiction | 0+644+908 | 1,552 | | Short Story | 1,103+514+0 | 1,617 | | TTRPG | 0+0+1,301 | 1,301 | | Grand Total | 3,013 | 7,056 |