Now. I know what you're thinking. "Oh my god, she finally updated something." And you'd be right. I, uh...kinda went radio silent there for a bit. I have actual reasons, but I hate explaining myself. Mainly because I was once told I should stop trying to make excuses, when I was literally explaining things. So y'all (whoever even reads these) are gonna get the short version.

I took a break a week before I left for a week long vacation (where I didn't write any), which equates to two weeks of no writing. That was followed by another whole week of just pure decompression, because fuck family reunions. That was...two weeks ago? Three? Kinda lost track of time. That's on me.

What followed after that week of decompression was just a kinda meh feeling at what I'm writing. For The Shifter, it's because I'm kinda sick of the party. I didn't really plan them out all too well, and I feel like they're hindering the plot more than they actually contribute. I'd want to go back and rewrite it all, but I've been trying to avoid doing that. As I mentioned in a previous rant, I have this one story that I've been trying to write for years. The reason I haven't gotten too far is exactly because I keep trying to go back and make it better, which leads to zero progress.

I feel that way about The Shifter. I feel I could do much better, but I also told myself I wouldn't rewrite it. The downside to that, is that I lose all motivation to write something that I don't feel good about. So, yeah, I've been torn up about what to do with it. Do I cave in and break the promise I made to myself, and rewrite The Shifter to where I feel better about it? Or do I try to push through and salvage what I can from where it's at now? Ugh.

Meanwhile, for The Core, it's kinda the exact opposite problem. I've reached the point where things start picking up, and I'm torn on what direction I should take it. For those who don't know (though I don't know why you wouldn't know, I'd assume all of you came from my other stories), The Core is a dungeon core story. The MC is a dungeon. So, do I go the usual route, and have her interact with other people? People who aren't dungeons? Or do I keep on the path I've been going, and focus more on dungeon building? Both bring there challenges and difficulties.

Interacting with people means I'd have to write dialogue, which I absolutely hate doing, because I always feel like I'm messing something up. On the other hand, writing the dungeon building aspect would mean I'd have to go in-depth on the descriptions of the environment, which, while I feel like I can do that better, I always feel like I'm not doing enough and need to make the descriptions longer.

Now, I could simply choose option number C, and start a completely new story. I've had this idea bouncing around in my head, and it probably wouldn't make for a good story. It's literally just, like, a shit-ton of time-skips, serving as bookmarks as the MC gains power. It wouldn't explain much, and would be as if the MC were narrating things from their perspective to someone else. Wait, I take that back. The MC would explain a few things extremely in-depth, but otherwise, would skip over things.

However, I don't want to do that, cuz I'd feel bad for leaving my other two stories to die, which I don't want to do either. And, it's just, uuggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Hence the name of this "chapter". I still exist. I'm still writing (or at least trying to). But I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing.

Also probably doesn't help that I've been binge reading a lot of other things from start to finish. For instance, The Mark of the Fool? Yeah, book one is being published, which means those chapters are being taken down. So, I decided to go back and reread the entirety of it from start to finish before that happened. That's, like, what? 340 chapters? Something like that? And then, once I finished that, I tried to find something else to binge read, so as to distract myself from the terror of facing these decisions, and I realized I ran out of things to binge read. So, I played the Sims 4 for a while, and then inevitably got bored of it, and went to watch youtube. It was, however, at that moment that my computer decided it didn't want to have bluetooth capabilities anymore, and straight up deleted bluetooth from my computer (again). Nothing I've tried has ever fixed it, so I just have to wait until my computer decides that it wants bluetooth back, at which point it will come back. So, now, I have run out of things to do, and am being forced to face the existential dread that is being an author.

So.

Yeah.

That's what's up with me. Sigh. I don't know what to do. I might take segments of this rant and post them to each of my stories. Probably only the story relevant parts. Anyway, hope y'all have a good day/night.