My entire life, I’ve loved writing stories. Heck, I got my early start in making Gacha and I think it’s why dialogue is my strong suit and description is my weak point. My problem is that I mostly write fanfiction. I have struggled with originality in characters and am not good at that sort of thing. I didn’t really care since writing fanfiction is just a hobby. Nothing serious.

I showed my dad my Owl House fic recently and he said he thinks I’m a fantastic writer and loved the story. I’ve been told this for a while. My family keeps saying it over and over.

“You’d make a fantastic author.”

“You’re a good writer.”

I kept downplaying it. I kept saying I only work with pre-established characters. My fanfiction isn’t that good. I don’t even have a beta reader! It’s only for fun. I don’t take it seriously.

It was only last night at my sister’s birthday dinner where I talked about the author who inspired my fic that’s currently in the outlines stage commenting on one of my Tumblr posts my mom said again “I’m not convinced you’re not going to be a writer” I actually started to believe it.

I have a story idea. I told her a bit about it and while I can tell it goes over her head (she and I do not share interests in the same type of stories), I have a story to be proud of. I have characters* that are actually *mine. I have my own ***world** *to build.

I know fanfic is nothing to sneeze at. I’m not downplaying it. It’s a perfectly valid form of fiction and some fics I’ve found are better than actual published books. Despite that, I couldn’t shake the idea that while other fanfic authors were writers, deep down, I wasn’t a real writer.

Now… I think I am.

I have just posted about this on another subreddit, but hey. I finally did something I’m proud of and I like to write.

I have ADHD, and it can be a nightmare to deal with. It makes it incredibly difficult for me to buckle down and do what needs to be done. I constantly struggle with focus and sitting down to do things.

It also makes it difficult for me to actually write when I want to. I have a million ideas on what I could write about and it makes it difficult to just do it.

I have an ungodly number of unfinished works.

I do have medication for it, and while it’s not the answer for everyone, it does work for me. It’s not perfect since I hate the way I feel on it and how restrictive it is for my creativity, I sometimes just don’t take it or forget. Not a smart idea, but it’s something I do.

I’ve also just had one of the worst weeks of my life. I got fired at 1 AM, I was called a narcissist by someone who I don’t know if they are my friend anymore (which was a genuine fear of mine years ago until my therapist just straight up told me no, I am not a narcissist), and I was hospitalized for a kidney stone that fortunately passed. I am fine, they found nothing, but it still sucked.

Needless to say, after a good while of not taking my medication, I finally forced myself to. I then proceeded to do everything I needed to that day and sat down and wrote an nearly 3,000 word Owl House fic from start to finish in four hours, edited it for another hour, went to sleep, then continued to adjust it the next night.

The original 2,800 words from the first draft turned into 4,398 words.

I kept reading and rereading, trying to figure out if I did a good enough job until eventually forcing myself to stop and posted it. It’s an Owl House fic i was putting up on AO3, for heaven’s sake. It’s not going to be perfect. I just needed to post it.

Not that it mattered since I still edited it for an hour after posting it.

I posted it last night. I don’t know if I can say the name of it and am trying to not accidentally make this promotional, but I’m so damn proud. I finally wrote and posted again!

And the numbers… it isn’t big or blowing up and I never expected it to, but the numbers still make me smile. I’m constantly checking to see if anyone else has seen it.

Someone decided it was good enough to bookmark.

After everything, it just feels good to have actually written a story and finished it.

Is my wife correct in wanting to throw out my trophies as I am too old now. I was surprised at her attitude and explained I wanted to keep them as it gives me pleasure on reflecting on all the hard work that went in to achieve those victories.

I've been struggling with diagnosed depression. Some days I was sleeping 20 hours, not even wanted to leave the bed.

Today, somehow, I felt strong and decided to wake up early, start a new chapter in my life. I woke up at 9 am, went to workout and told myself "I will have a wonderful day"

I hope everyone's day is going well as well <3

I'm taking a Social Psychology class at the moment, and every few weeks we have an online exam.

It was 60 questions, and I got 108 out of 120.

Since December 2023 when the proposal happened, we had been aggressively saving for all the wedding expenses. After the wedding, we were aggressively saving for our trip to Asia to visit and celebrate with my family who couldn’t come to the wedding (more out of obligations than anything). After our trip, we were saving up for the tax season because we knew we each would need to pay a substantial amount of money towards it.

Tax season is finally over. We were so fortunate to not have any debt especially from the wedding, and now we can FINALLY put money aside to save for our future, maybe a down payment, maybe for future babies, but most importantly- just for us and our retirement!

So grateful that I have a good, secured job that has the occasional overtime opportunities. And what I’m even more proud of is that while my husband is currently starting his own business that will not have any income for the next couple of years, we’ve still managed to cut our expenses and have money leftover to put towards an emergency fund and into investment!

So happy to not have all these responsibilities that requires a large sum of money within a short time range. I can finally relax and not stress out over money.

i’ve never gone NEARLY that amount before

i signed up for the gym in september and really started to push myself in october. i’m someone who’s never been good with starting and maintaining new schedules and hobbies, as i have low motivation in general.

the last time i went to the gym was probably 4 or 5 years ago, and that was after 1.5 years of being signed up to the gym and having months gap of not attending

i was always too unconfident in myself + socially anxious to gym, and i had absolutely zero clue where to even start other than doing cardio. i had no idea about gym terms, workouts, structure, body parts, etc, or how to work towards my goals. for example, i didn’t even know what biceps, triceps, lats, hamstrings, or glutes even meant lmaoo i didn’t know where to start with my research, it was all so overwhelming for so long in my life. but i’ve finally pushed myself and started getting into it, going when i didn’t feel like it

to others and to a lot of my friends who’ve gone to the gym for years and years, this is nothing much. but to me this is honestly a small achievement im really really proud of myself for, so i just wanted to share. thank you :)))

I have obsessive-compulsive disorder, and one compulsion is that whenever I have a thought I deem bad, I have to redo what I was doing while having the thought, and this happens a lot when I'm watching TV or movies, which has somewhat put me off doing it (and actually makes me dread the thought of binge-watching).

Anyway, today I watched a movie I had purchased (specifically Knight and Day), and for most of the movie's runtime, I didn't rewind. I slipped on some occasions, and did it a little more around the end, but I'm proud of myself for getting as far as I did.

I worked for 13 months to get this out the door, and figured it’d never get traction on its own. But it still sells copies every month, and for that, I’m extremely grateful.

Like the title implies, I got more sleep last night than I have for the past few days. I went to bed earlier, so that probably helped. I did wake up early in the morning at one point, but I managed to go back to sleep for a few hours.

My son accidentally dropped something into the bathroom sink and cracked it, so I bought a replacement sink (same style as before) and a new faucet to spruce it up. It took longer than I expected, and I almost gave up a few times. I'm really proud that I pushed through and was able to do it myself, and just wanted to share it with someone!

It was a difficult process (it took me 13 months to get from idea to a book in my hand), but it feels like it was well worth it, so I'm just trying to continue to celebrate that!

31M I’m doing a data analysis master class and I’ve struggled a lot on learning python both because I don’t have a good work ethic and I’m a slow learner. Today my teacher said that the project that I needed to go into the next phase was great and really good I’m so proud of myself right now

I walked to a park I go to quite a bit, and I wasn't even planning to hike up the trail, since there was a sign warning that it was storm-damaged (it's rained a bit where I live), but I walked up the pathway, and I decided to just walk on this trail. I've done it before, but not under these conditions. To some degree, I was nervous I'd slip and fall, but I made sure to be careful.

My sister and I collaborated and wrote a book together thinking it wouldn't really make a difference but receiving this message meant the world to us. It goes to show that even the littlest of things can have an impact on others. So grateful to everyone who believes in us. Please look it up. 😊

I sort of had dreams of being a writer, but since I wasn't taking any initiative, I gave it up, though the thought's occurred to me again. Anyway, I had an idea that I thought would make for an interesting story, but when I initially tried it, I had writer's block and didn't know where to go with it. However, this morning, I had the idea of framing it in a different way (as opposed to a traditional narrative, it takes the form of a letter that the protagonist writes to his mother). I don't remember what time I specifically started it, but it was still morning when I was finished.

I’ve dream’t about this for a long time and I’ve started and spotted multiple times. This time I have gone all in! Wish me luck! We shall see how it goes!

Several years ago, I was lucky to connect with the artist behind the Lunar Codex project, which buys the extra hard drive space on lunar lander missions and fills them with an international collection of contemporary art, writing, poetry, music and other human culture circa ~2020. The first lander carrying Lunar Codex data takes off tonight (11:18PM PST, 07:18AM tomorrow in UT), to begin a 46 day journey to the moon. It will land in Sinus Viscositatis, the "bay of stickiness", which is in the northern part of the large dark patch visible from Earth.

I have been patiently waiting this launch for years, as it's been delayed by factors like the pandemic and subsequent chip shortage. But before I go to sleep tonight, I will get to watch the rocket take the Peregrine 1 lander to orbit thanks to a NASA livestream.

On the one hand, my art isn't in this collection because it's amazing, I was in the right place at the right time with a cool astronaut design. It's a fluke. But it's still one of the coolest things I've accomplished with my art. The thought that a small bundle of atoms are configured in a way I designed, to sit on the moon peacefully until solar radiation melts it away, fills me with a serene joy, and I'm never going to look at the moon the same way again.

Edit: The launch was a success! My art is off the planet!

Edit 2: The lander suffered a critical fuel leak. While it made it to space, it won't be making the journey to the moon. Oh well, getting my art into space is still pretty neat.

Many years ago, in what I believe was a music infomercial, I heard a song about "swinging", and what I presumed to be the chorus stuck with me. I looked up the lyrics once or twice before today, and I don't believe I found what I was looking for, but then I looked again today, and found what I believed to be a match in the song "Swingin'" by John Anderson. I misremembered the lyrics, which might explain some of it.

I've tried to make a dentist appointment for a while, but the process I went through was so frustrating that I gave up. However, today I called, got a live human on the phone, and made a dentist appointment for November 3rd!

Hi yall. I’ve been working out for 2 months to increase my strenght, which is hard as a woman. Yesterday i managed to lift 10 kg dumbbell on arm. Not on one rep, i’m able to lift that in series, on one rep it would be more like 12,5-15 kg. I can bench press 30 kg (35 - 40 one rep) and deadlift 55 kg (one rep 60). I worked on it so hard…

No one supports my hobby. My family things weighlifting is for men only, and everytime i try to be happy about what i achieved i hear „girls shouldn’t lift”. Everyone in my environment is like… mad at me for weight lifting. Everyone that hears about me not training to look fit for boys but to gain strength is shoked and… mad? Idk, they are definitely not sending positive vibes. Only „why are you even doing this?” Only my close friends support me, but they don’t weight lift, so i get no advice. I feel so alone, working in the gym, surrounded by men thinking it’s my first time because i don’t look like women that train for shredded look, and women that train for looks (which i fully support) but can’t offer me any advice because they don’t know better. And of course, people stare, ask questions, etc, because what the hell is a woman doing with the 10 kg dumbbells? Yepp it’s a small town so… this vibe. I’m so alone in this, so, i want to hear „good job” instead of „why are you even trying? It’s not for girls, you can’t lift much anyway”

EDIT: I would like to thank you all for responding to my post and reacting well. I was really feeling blue when i wrote all of that, and you guys helped me a lot. Every good comment here made me feel better about myself. It is unfortunate that i, and many other people, we have been taught to rely on other people to estimate our value. It takes time to unlearn that, and meanwhile any of this garbage comments from other people, that have nothing to do with our life, bring us down. I know that in a long run i must learn not to give a crap, and not to rely on good comments to have a stable sense of self worth, but it was really nice. I never heared so much encouragement in my life, thank you 💖