(no subject)

I am finally -- knock on wood, cross fingers, spit over your shouder -- not sick and no longer coughing like I'm dying. JFC, that had to have been almost a month and a half. I know things change when you get older, and one big thing I've noticed is that illnesses are less intense but more spread out, but I think this one was particularly exceptional.

I knew I was finally over the bend when a) I wasn't coughing every 2-3min, but instead maybe once an hour, and b) I could feel the urge to run start to creep back in. I've also been able to focus at work again, take both of the kids to their places on the bike, and manage crossfit. I'm back?

I don't talk about dayjob much, but it's gotten both better and more interesting. I somehow become the Compliance person, which is absolutely hilarious to me, as someone who enjoys stretching and bending rules, but I'm also weirdly good at it. On top of that, I'm finally developing trainings again instead of all the background LMS stuff that takes over my winters.

One of them is a training on AI, which I have to admit I absolutely spit out my coffee when my boss tagged me for it. Then he explained it's explicitly because I dislike AI and trusted me to be clear about all of its limitations instead of starry-eyed like the Board. So even though it looks like work will be encouraging using Copilot for some tasks, I get to design the training that explains what LLMs are (fancy predictive text) and what they can do (steal). I'll see how much I can actually get away with putting in a training (an aside about their outrageous environmental costs?), but I guess better me than the few other folks who I've talked to who didn't even know LLMs are not factual and frequently make things up. 😬

It's a good thing dayjob has been better because my writing is in the pot. I organized a write-in with some local folks doing Camp NaNo and between last Friday and this Friday, I wrote... maybe 500 words? But at both write-ins I managed 2k, so I'm not completely broken. Just breaking down; when I opened my laptop to write yesterday, I was overwhelmed with the futility of it all. So I guess I haven't excised all those demons just yet. 😔

I just don't know what else to do. I've stepped back from all things publishing. I guess I could tell my agent I'm done, but somehow I think she'd just laugh at me. I need to grapple with the feelings of being left out and looked over, even if that's just what every baby author goes through. I wish there were a way to find the others who've slipped through the cracks, whose books got dropped like hot potatoes and vanished despite all their efforts, but the nature of that is, well, they've disappeared. I know I'm not the only one, but all I see are the books that made it, the authors still kicking. Even the few folks I know personally who pubbed when I did and haven't done anything since still have their books in stores.

There's a poem that's gone around a few times that's something like I hope my enemy's books get remaindered and I remember chuckling the first time I read it, but ever since -- especially after having my own remaindered -- it feels like it needs an answering poem. Something like, My books got remaindered / despite everything I tried / it isn't the end of my words / or maybe I've just lied . IDK, I don't poem. ^^()

So maybe I do know what to do. Grapple with that big feeling of being left behind. But the shame that I even feel left behind is so much I can't quite get there yet, and it's not the most relatable thing to talk about with friends. So I'll just throw myself into other things instead and pretend it doesn't hurt to go to the bookstore, to go to the library, to see another list about ace/desert/lesbian books that doesn't include mine. 😞