Category: Personal

I have three story-children right now, and I’m a terrible mother to all of them.

There’s the eldest (a fantasy trilogy that consumed about a month of my life, during which I listened to an unholy amount of sea chanties), the middle child (a magical realism standalone that got all my attention for almost one whole week), and the youngest (another fantasy trilogy, because apparently I have a type). They’re sitting in various folders in Google Drive, increasingly chaotic Apple Notes documents, some random Markdown files (a holdover from that one week a while back when I was frenetically convinced that I was going to get my life together by shoving everything into Obsidian), and possibly burned so hard into my psyche that I could die 40 years from now and my last words will be to wheeze out the solution to some random plot hole I gave up on. All of them waiting for me to come back and finish raising them properly.

But here’s the thing: I keep making new ones instead.

I realize how this sounds. I realize that admitting to serial creative abandonment while your existing projects slowly starve for attention makes me sound like exactly the kind of writer other writers roll their eyes at. “Oh, another one of those,” they mutter into their coffee, thinking about their own single, carefully nurtured manuscript that they’ve been faithfully tending for three years.

They’re not wrong to judge me. I am absolutely that person.

Let me tell you about my parenting style, because it follows a disturbingly consistent pattern that I’ve only recently started to recognize (and by “recently” I mean “literally while writing this sentence”).

The honeymoon phase: when everything is perfect and I’m the world’s best mom

When I first meet a new story, I’m the most attentive parent imaginable. I shower it with everything: detailed character backstories, intricate world-building, magic systems refined through multiple iterations. I spend hours crafting family trees and political systems and historical timelines stretching back thousands of years. I outline chapters with obsessive care. I research Renaissance shipbuilding techniques and the theoretical physics of steampunk airships because somehow these details feel essential to the story’s DNA.

This is the spoiling phase. My new story-child gets everything: unlimited time, resources, attention. I’ll spend three hours researching the proper terminology for different types of medieval fortifications for one throwaway line. I’ll create detailed maps. I’ll write extensive character questionnaires for people who might never appear on the page.

I’m that mom who documents every single milestone. First outline completed! First chapter drafted! Look how perfectly structured this plot is! Look at these compelling characters with their rich inner lives!

And during this phase, I genuinely believe this is The One. This is the story I’ll finally see through to completion. This is my magnum opus, my breakout novel, the book that will make readers weep and critics swoon and my mother finally understand what I could have done with more encouragement.

I am fucking delusional.

The misbehaving phase: when my characters start having opinions

Here’s where things get uncomfortable, because this is where the parallel to actual parenting becomes less cute and more uncomfortably accurate.

See, stories (like children) eventually develop their own personalities. Characters start making choices I didn’t anticipate. Plot threads tangle in ways I didn’t outline. The magic system I spent weeks perfecting suddenly doesn’t work for the story I’m actually telling. My beautiful, controllable outline starts feeling like a straightjacket.

This is when my story-children start “misbehaving.”

And what do I do when faced with the messy, unpredictable reality of something I created refusing to stay in the neat little box I built for it? When my characters start surprising me and demanding things I didn’t plan for?

I emotionally withdraw. Just like I learned to do as a child when things got hard and there wasn’t enough support to push through.

I stop showing up. I start making excuses. “I just need to think through this plot problem.” “I should probably do more research first.” “Maybe I need to restructure the whole thing.” I develop sudden urgent interests in new projects that seem so much more manageable, so much more exciting.

It’s textbook avoidant attachment, except instead of abandoning actual children, I’m abandoning fictional worlds that exist only in my head. Which somehow makes it both less harmful and more pathetic.

The replacement baby syndrome

You know what I do when one of my story-children starts acting difficult and demanding actual work from me?

I move one state over, commit authorial bigamy, and churn out a new baby.

Not literally (thank the gods), but creatively. Suddenly I’m struck by a brilliant new idea that’s so much more compelling than whatever messy situation I’m trying to avoid. This new story feels fresh and manageable and full of potential. It doesn’t have any of the complicated emotional baggage of that other project. It doesn’t demand that I push through difficult scenes or solve complex plot problems or face the uncomfortable reality that writing a book is actually really fucking hard.

It’s the literary equivalent of that person who starts planning their next relationship while still technically in their current one. Except instead of cheating on humans with feelings, I’m cheating on imaginary people who can’t actually be hurt by my emotional unavailability.

(Which, again: somehow, weirdly, makes it worse, not better.)

My eldest story-child (the fantasy trilogy) is the most neglected. I spent over a month building that world. Literally thousands of years of history. Multiple continents, complex political systems, an intricate magic system I refined through six different iterations. I have character sheets for people who don’t even appear until book three. I wrote twelve chapters, outlined the entire first book chapter by chapter.

And then my characters started surprising me.

The protagonist made a choice I didn’t expect. A side character became more interesting than I’d planned. The magic system that looked so elegant on paper started feeling clunky when I actually tried to write it. The plot wanted to go in directions I hadn’t outlined.

So I… left.

I told myself I just needed some time to think things through. I started a new document to “work out some plot issues.” That document somehow became a completely different story (the magical realism one). Which I threw myself into with the exact same obsessive energy I’d given the fantasy trilogy.

And then, predictably, that one started misbehaving too.

What happens to abandoned story-children

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about creative abandonment: your story-children don’t just disappear when you stop paying attention to them. They don’t quietly fade away or find new parents or become independent. They just… wait.

They sit in their folders like abandoned Tamagotchis, exactly as you left them (dead for the moment, but resurrectable). That fantasy trilogy is still frozen in the middle of chapter twelve, right where my protagonist was about to make a decision I didn’t know how to write. The magical realism novel is stuck three chapters in, right where my metaphor of problem drinking being the result of a literal curse started to get painfully clunky.

And sometimes, late at night when I’m procrastinating on whatever new project has my attention, I’ll open those old files and read what I wrote. And it’s… good? Actually really fucking good in places?

Which makes everything worse.

Because it means I’m not abandoning these projects because they’re bad. I’m abandoning them because finishing them would require me to push through the uncomfortable middle part, the part where writing stops being planning and research and world-building and becomes the messy, difficult work of actually telling a story.

The question I can’t answer

So here’s what I’m wondering, as I sit here with three abandoned story-children and a growing suspicion that I might be some kind of creative sociopath:

Is there a way to channel this emotional promiscuity into something lasting?

Because here’s the weird thing: I think my inability to commit to one project might actually be teaching me something. Each abandoned story has given me skills I didn’t have before. The fantasy trilogy taught me how to build complex political systems. The magical realism novel taught me how to write emotion without sentiment. The newest fantasy project is teaching me how to plot without overthinking.

Maybe I’m not a negligent parent. Maybe I’m more like a serial foster mother, taking in story-children just long enough to give them some essential foundation before passing them on to… who? My future self? Some hypothetical version of me who’s learned how to push through the difficult middle parts?

Or maybe I’m just really good at coming up with elaborate justifications for my own emotional immaturity.

The possibly hopeful ending (or: what I’m trying to do differently this time)

I started a new project last week. (I know, I know.) But this time, I’m trying something different. Instead of building an elaborate world and detailed outline before I start writing, I’m just… writing. Messy first draft, character decisions I haven’t planned for, plot threads I’m discovering as I go.

It feels terrifying and uncomfortable and completely wrong.

It also feels like maybe the only way I’ll ever actually finish anything.

Because maybe the problem isn’t that I’m a negligent parent to my stories. Maybe the problem is that I’m an overprotective parent who can’t handle watching my story-children make their own mistakes and grow up into something messier and more complicated than I planned.

Maybe the trick isn’t to stop creating new stories, but to learn how to let the ones I’ve already created become what they want to become, even if that’s not what I originally envisioned.

Maybe I need to stop trying to control my story-children and start trusting them to surprise me.

Or maybe this is just another elaborate justification for my creative commitment issues, and I’ll abandon this new project the moment it starts demanding actual emotional labor from me.

But hey, at least now I have enough material for a really good essay about why I can’t finish anything.

Which I did finish, so… progress?

So here’s the thing about procrastination when you’re Olympic-calibre at the sport: it’s got layers. Like an onion, except instead of making you cry, it makes you question every life choice that led you to researching the precise difference between alchemy and actual science in Victorian-era fantasy literature at 2 AM on a Tuesday. Again.

I should probably start at the beginning, which was recently when I was supposed to be making a budget. You know, that thing responsible adults do where they look at numbers and make charts and pretend they have their shit together? Yeah, that. Instead, I found myself opening a new document and typing “Chapter One” at the top of a blank page.

I hadn’t written fiction in over twenty years. 

The fantasy trilogy that emerged from my budget-avoidance was ambitious in the way that only complete delusion can be. Three books! Intricate world-building! A magic system so complex I needed spreadsheets! (Which, now that I think about it, might have been a more palatable way to approach budgeting, but hindsight is a bitch.) Twenty thousand words in, I realized I had created something that would require approximately seven additional lifetimes to complete, assuming I could figure out whether my entire book two arc had a point beyond that one scene I kept imagining.

So naturally, I pivoted.

The second project was going to be smarter. Simpler. A standalone magical realism novel that was basically my life story but with, you know, magic. How hard could that be? Turns out, pretty fucking hard when you realize that processing your own trauma through metaphor while simultaneously trying to craft compelling narrative is like performing surgery on yourself while riding a pissed off horse. Uphill. In a thunderstorm.

Which brings us to Project Number Three, aka How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Brass Fittings.

I don’t remember the exact moment I slipped into steampunk territory. It wasn’t dramatic. There was no sudden revelation, no Come to Gears moment. One day I was writing about modern-day magic and the next I was researching the tensile strength of copper tubing and wondering whether airship captains would realistically wear leather or brass bracers. (Leather, obviously. Brass would be too heavy for practical use and the heat conductivity around all that steam is a risk, but you could incorporate brass accents for aesthetic purposes.)

See? This is what I mean about layers.

I’ve become someone who has opinions about the structural integrity of fictional flying machines. I know the difference between gaslamp fantasy and classical steampunk (it’s all about the magic-to-science ratio, if you’re curious). I own a belt with a drop holster style pouch that I’ve now realized is perfectly suited for carrying mysterious vials and clockwork devices, though it currently holds dog treats and some very unstylish hand sanitizer.

Here’s the beautiful absurdity of it all: I used to roll my eyes at steampunk. Not in a mean way, just in that gentle, bemused way you might regard someone’s particularly niche hobby. Like people who collect vintage thimbles or know way too much about train schedules from the 1890s. It seemed so… specific. So committed to an aesthetic that required goggles you’d never actually use outfits that work with a bustle.

And yet.

There’s something about the brass and leather and impossible machinery that speaks to a part of my brain I’d forgotten existed. Maybe it’s because I spent years studying the history and philosophy of science, diving deep into what it meant to live in an era when the boundaries between science and magic were blurrier, when invention felt like incantation. Or maybe I’m just contrary enough to be drawn to the one fantasy subgenre that isn’t just medieval Europe, but with dragons.

Or maybe, and this is the theory I’m going with, I just really like goggles.

A fan of my long-defunct blog once sent me a pair, years ago. At the time, I thought it was sweet but puzzling. Now I’m wondering if they saw something I didn’t. Some latent steampunk potential lurking beneath my surface, waiting for the right combination of procrastination and creative desperation to emerge.

The story I’m working on now draws loose inspiration from the Irish goddess The Morrigan, particularly her aspect as a sovereignty goddess. It’s the same old story we’ve been telling as a species for millennia: rebellion against tyranny, the fight for autonomy, the refusal to bow to systems that crush the human spirit. Because genuinely, fuck fascism. Even fictional fascism with really excellent costume design.

But here’s what I’m learning about creativity after two decades of… what? Drought? Hibernation? Traumatic dormancy? I honestly can’t remember what it felt like before. Childhood memories are sparse at best, a side effect of growing up with well-meaning parents who did a genuinely godawful job in ways that scrambled my neural pathways and left me questioning whether I was worth taking up space in the world.

But I remember that creativity used to feel easy. Natural. Like I was born with stories in my heart and an innate knowledge of how to assemble words not just to share information, but to evoke feelings. To make people feel less alone in their own beautiful, messy humanity.

This current chaos feels different. It’s messier, more chaotic, like my brain is a construction site where creativity is rebuilding itself from the ground up while I’m still trying to live in it. Every project feels like controlled demolition followed by frantic rebuilding. I’m an ADHD fractal, generating increasingly complex patterns of creative avoidance that somehow, miraculously, lead to actual creation.

The Bluetooth keyboard that looks like an 18th-century typewriter hasn’t arrived yet, but when it does, my workspace will be complete. Or at least more aesthetically aligned with my current obsession. I can already imagine the satisfying click of brass-colored keys as I type about airship rebellions and clockwork hearts and the precise alchemical formula for revolution.

Because that’s what this all is, really. Revolution. Not just in the story I’m telling, but in the very act of telling it. Every word I write is a small act of rebellion against the voice that spent decades telling me I wasn’t creative, wasn’t interesting, wasn’t worth listening to. Every ridiculous plot twist involving steam-powered machinery and gaslight magic transmission is a middle finger to the trauma responses that convinced me my imagination was broken beyond repair.

I’m probably going to make dozens of terrible, half-finished messes. I might never create anything worth showing the world. But you know what? The process of creating feels amazing. It feels like coming home to a part of myself I thought was lost forever, except this version comes with better fashion sense and strong opinions about the practical applications of pneumatic tube systems.

There’s something deeply satisfying about the steampunk aesthetic that I’m only now beginning to understand. It’s not just the brass and gears and goggles (though the goggles are undeniably excellent). It’s the idea that you can take the machinery of the past and reimagine it into something that never existed but absolutely should have. It’s retrofuturism for people who believe the future can be more beautiful and just more  than what we’ve been handed.

In gaslamp fantasy specifically, there’s this perfect balance between the magical and the mechanical, where alchemy and engineering dance together in ways that make scientific sense if you don’t think too hard about it. It’s fantasy for people who want their magic systems to have blueprints, their rebellions to have mystical tech, their heroes to wear practical boots that can also look amazing with, gods help me, a top hat. 

And if that’s not a metaphor for rebuilding your creative life after trauma, I don’t know what is.

I’ve started thinking about creativity differently now. Not as something I either have or don’t have, but as something I can rebuild. Like a particularly ambitious automaton, it requires the right materials, careful engineering, and a willingness to believe that something that’s never existed before might actually be able to function.

Some days the whole project feels ridiculous. I’m a middle-aged woman writing about fictional rebellions involving impossible technology while avoiding real-world responsibilities like addressing my sorry finances and having my life together in other conventional ways. But then I remember that the alternative is not writing at all, not creating, not allowing that part of myself to exist in the world.

And that feels like the worst kind of tyranny.

So I’ll keep writing about tripartite goddesses and steam-powered revolutions. I’ll research the metallurgy of fictional machinery and debate the practical implications of corsetry in combat situations (despite firsthand knowledge that they simply fuck up your shit in a proper brawl). I’ll probably start more projects than I finish, pivot more than a dancer being electrocuted, and continue to be the kind of person who has strong opinions about “what if?” technology.

Because this is what creativity looks like for me now: not a smooth, linear process, but a beautiful, chaotic spiral that somehow keeps moving forward even when it seems to be going in circles. A sloppy, perfect pattern of procrastination and passion, avoidance and engagement, that generates something new with every iteration.

And if that something happens to involve goggles and leather dusters and protagonists who refuse to bow to  regimes (fictional or otherwise), well… that seems exactly right for where I am in my life right now.

The typewriter keyboard should arrive next week.

I can hardly wait to see what impossible thing I’ll build with it, or what weird new obsession has arrived before it does. 

There’s a special kind of madness that comes with adulthood. A silent, creeping understanding that you’re supposed to be doing things that keep the wheels of life turning: paying bills on time, checking your credit score, and occasionally (when you’re feeling particularly masochistic) creating a fucking budget.

It started innocently enough. Six years ago, I settled in a semi-rural corner of Vancouver Island, thinking I was being clever. “I’ll avoid the insanity of big city prices,” I told myself, “but still be close enough to civilization.” What I didn’t account for was that even being within 30 minutes of Victoria would mean watching housing prices climb to levels that feel like straight-up extortion. The plan was simple: one, maybe two years tops. Get situated, figure things out, then decide whether to fully commit or move somewhere else in Canada where I wouldn’t need to sell a kidney to exist. Somewhere my bank account could actually breathe instead of gasping for air five days before payday.

But here I am, six years later, still throwing obscene amounts of money into the gaping maw of high-cost island living, having somehow convinced myself that “temporary” is a relative concept that can stretch across half a decade. The guilt keeps me anchored here. My 80-year-old parents are nearby, needing someone close who gives a shit. Meanwhile, my brother’s living his best life in LA, apparently unburdened by such trivial concepts as “familial responsibility” and happily taking their money while I play the dutiful offspring. Not that I’m bitter or anything.

So I did what any reasonable adult would do: I decided to finally sit down and conduct a thorough financial audit. Map out exactly where my money was going. Create a budget. Make an actual plan for my future that doesn’t involve working until I’m 90. Figure out, once and for all, if staying in Island-That-Costs-Too-Fucking-Much was financially sustainable or if I needed to pack up and move to Affordable-ville.

That was a little over a week ago.

What I have not done since then: a single calculation related to my finances.

What I have done instead: created an entire fantasy world, complete with gods, history, cultures, maps, cosmology, lineages, character bibles, and twelve completed chapters of what’s shaping up to be the first installment in a trilogy.

If procrastination were an Olympic sport, I’d be standing on the podium with a gold medal around my neck, anthem playing, tears streaming down my face. Twelve chapters in a week? That’s not just procrastination; that’s procrastination with a fucking vengeance.

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It started with a whisper from my brain, that treacherous organ that’s supposed to have my best interests at heart but clearly has other priorities: “I bet you could write a book! Wouldn’t that be more fun?”

More fun than calculating how much money I’m hemorrhaging each month? Than facing the cold, hard numbers that might force me to make an actual life decision? Than acknowledging that my financial situation might be precarious enough to warrant immediate attention? Than admitting I might need to leave my aging parents behind just to afford existing?

Yeah, no shit it would be more fun.

And just like that, I was off. It was like my mind had been waiting for this moment, keeping a fantasy world on standby for precisely this occasion. Not just any fantasy world, mind you, but one carefully designed to address all the complaints I’ve read on romantasy subreddits (yes, I read those too; procrastination has many goddamn layers).

The world of the Shattered Seas was born—a maritime world of islands and archipelagos, where continents are merely legends whispered by drunken sailors. Why a world of islands? I have no fucking clue. Maybe because islands have clear boundaries, unlike my spending habits. Maybe because I already live on an island but wish it were one far away from my financial responsibilities. The subconscious is a wild place with a shitty sense of humor.

Instead of focusing on my dwindling savings account, I found myself obsessing over why fantasy protagonists are always teenagers who somehow defeat ancient warriors with minimal training. My protagonist Ceridwen (named after a Welsh goddess of rebirth, because why not be pretentious when you’re avoiding adult responsibilities?) is 29 — an actual adult who makes somewhat reasonable decisions. A cartographer who’s good with a sword but wins fights through spatial awareness rather than magical teen hormones. God forbid we have a protagonist who acts like she’s been alive long enough to learn things.

And because apparently I wasn’t procrastinating hard enough, I created Casimir, the Umbral King: a hot vampire monarch love interest who’s both brooding and surprisingly decent once you get past the whole “I rule from the shadows and occasionally drink blood” thing. Because, shockingly, another complaint in romantasy forums is “there aren’t enough vampires,” and apparently my procrastinating brain has decided that the world’s most pressing issue isn’t climate change or my financial instability or my guilt about potentially abandoning my elderly parents, but a vampire shortage in modern literature.

There’s something deeply fucked up about the fact that it took me six years to work up the nerve to face my financial situation, and then less than eight hours to create an entire cosmological system for a fictional universe complete with divine hierarchies and ancient blood feuds.

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Let me paint you a picture of my current reality: my living room floor is covered in index cards, each one containing a plot point or character development moment. There are string connections that make my house look like a detective’s office in a crime show. Except instead of tracking a serial killer, I’m mapping out the emotional journey of a fictional cartographer who has to decide whether to marry the Umbral King as bound by her ancestor being signatory to the 700-year-old Shadow and Sea Accord. Just normal stuff you think about when you should be balancing your chequebook.

I fall asleep thinking about plot holes that need fixing. I wake up at 3 AM mumbling dialogue into voice memos on my phone. “Ceridwen needs to more deeply explore the implications of the Weave unraveling in chapter 14…” Meanwhile, my bank statements remain unopened, gathering metaphorical dust in my inbox like archaeological artifacts from a civilization that actually had its shit together.

I’m pricing out whiteboards (actual, physical whiteboards) to better organize my fantasy world and track the intrusion of void creatures from between planes of existence. The irony is not lost on me that I’m planning to spend money I should be tracking on tools to help me procrastinate tracking my money. It’s like buying an expensive treadmill to avoid going for a run, except I’m buying whiteboards to avoid confronting why I’m still living thirty minutes from Victoria when I could probably afford a small castle in New Brunswick.

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There’s something comforting about creating a world where you make all the rules. Where a 29-year-old woman can be competent without question and nobody fucking mansplains cartography to her. Where problems can be solved with a well-placed sword thrust or a clever bit of magic. Where the borders are clear, the gods have defined roles, and the protagonist always has enough money for a drink at the tavern without checking her bank balance first. Where the biggest problem is the literal fabric of reality unraveling, not the fabric of your financial security.

In the Shattered Seas, there are no surprise bank fees. No housing markets gone insane. No guilt about leaving elderly parents (we probably shouldn’t delve into why Ceri’s an orphan). No decisions about whether to move across the country to save money. There’s just adventure and romance and cosmic horror as the Veil between planes disintegrates and void creatures slip through the cracks.

I’ve spent hours (okay fine, days) designing the political structures and histories of islands no bigger than Great Britain or Honshu. I’ve created origin stories for gods that don’t exist. I’ve mapped ocean currents and trade routes and argued with myself about the realistic sailing times between fictional ports. I’ve developed an entire metaphysical framework for how reality is woven together and the consequences of its unraveling. I’ve crafted a centuries-old magical accord between shadow beings and seafaring mortals.

All to avoid a simple question: can I afford to keep living here, or am I staying out of guilt?

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The worst part? I’m good at this procrastination project. Really good. Those twelve chapters written in a week? They’re not half bad. The world-building? Kind of impressive, if I’m being honest. The characters? They feel real to me in a way that’s slightly concerning. Like, should I be worried that I’ve spent more time thinking about Ceridwen’s motivations than my own?

I’ve created a protagonist who’s brave enough to face void creatures from beyond reality while I’m too scared to look at my own bank balance. I’ve written an entire chapter where she decides whether to honor an ancient accord by marrying a vampire king she’s never met, while I can’t decide whether to open a spreadsheet. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, but I’m deliberately ignoring it because acknowledging it would mean I’d have to do something about it.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all just an elaborate form of self-care. Maybe my brain knows that I’m not ready to make the big decision about moving away from my parents, so it’s giving me this beautiful distraction instead. A place to pour my energy that feels productive, even if it’s not addressing the actual problem.

Or maybe I’m just exceptionally good at avoiding uncomfortable tasks. Maybe this is the boss level of procrastination — so elaborate and involved that it feels like an accomplishment rather than avoidance. “I didn’t deal with my finances, but I DID write twelve chapters in seven days, so who’s the real winner here?” (Spoiler alert: still not me.)

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The other night, I was deep into writing Chapter 5, where Ceridwen has to make a difficult choice: honor the Shadow and Sea Accord by marrying Casimir or break an agreement her ancestor signed hundreds of years ago and risk supernatural consequences. I wrote three different versions of the scene before I realized what I was doing.

I’m not just procrastinating my financial audit; I’m processing my own life choices through fiction. I’m giving my protagonist the dilemma I’m avoiding, hoping that somehow, by writing her through it, I’ll find my own answer. Should she stay or should she go? Should she honor old commitments or seek new horizons? Should she keep sacrificing for obligations that aren’t really hers?

It would be profound if it weren’t so fucking ridiculous. It’s like my subconscious is trying to work through my issues while wearing a Halloween costume and speaking in metaphors.

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Here’s the truth I’m avoiding: moving would be hard. I’ve built a life here over six years. Acquaintances, favorite hiking trails, that pizza place with the dough that somehow makes spending $40 for a medium pizza feel acceptable. Starting over somewhere new, even somewhere more affordable, would mean rebuilding.

Moving would also mean leaving my parents behind. They’re 80. That fact sits in my chest like a stone. My brother floated away to LA without a backward glance, happily letting me shoulder the weight of proximity. But if I leave too, who checks on them? Who helps when the power goes out or when Dad can’t drive anymore?

But staying might be financially unsustainable. Every day that passes without me looking at the actual numbers is another day I might be digging myself deeper into a hole I can’t climb out of.

So I build my fantasy world instead. I expand the mythology. I develop a magic system based on the Weave that binds reality together. I create complex interpersonal relationships between characters who exist only in my mind. I detail the cosmology of a universe where void creatures slip through the cracks when reality begins to fray.

And I price out whiteboards. The nice ones with the aluminum frame that don’t stain easily and wheels so I can hide my madness from visitors. Because if I’m going to avoid reality, I might as well do it with quality materials and proper organization.

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There’s a point where procrastination becomes something else. Something more like avoidance. Something closer to fear. Something that feels almost like grief.

I’m afraid of what those numbers might tell me. Afraid they’ll confirm what I already suspect: that I’ve spent six years making a financially unsound choice out of guilt and obligation. That I should have moved years ago. That I’ve wasted time and money I can’t get back. That I might have to choose between my financial health and being the good daughter.

It’s easier to worry about whether the fabric of reality in my fantasy world would actually unravel from the center outward than to face that possibility.

So my protagonist continues her journey while my own remains paused. She maps unknown territories while I avoid examining my own landscape. She faces void creatures and vampire politics while I hide from Excel spreadsheets and budget templates.

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I wonder sometimes what the outcome will be. Will I finish this trilogy before I ever look at my finances? Will Ceridwen and Casimir find their happily-ever-after before I figure out if I should stay or go? Will I become a published fantasy author out of sheer commitment to avoiding financial responsibility?

Wait. Hold up.

What if that’s exactly what happens? What if this fever-dream of procrastination actually turns into something? What if the Shattered Seas becomes the next big fantasy series? What if this whole time, I’ve been avoiding a financial audit only to accidentally solve my financial problems through the most elaborate procrastination scheme in history?

Now that would be a plot twist worthy of fiction.

And honestly? The writing isn’t half bad. Twelve chapters in a week isn’t just avoidance; it’s a kind of manic productivity that sometimes births actual quality. People say they’d pay good money for stories about competent adult women and hot vampire kings. They eat that shit up with a spoon and ask for seconds (#buymybook).

Maybe this isn’t procrastination. Maybe it’s my subconscious pushing me toward an unexpected solution. Maybe the void creatures from between planes are actually metaphors for opportunity, lurking just beyond my perception.

Or maybe that’s just another elaborate justification for not digging into my financials. It’s hard to tell at this point.

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For now, my living room remains an explosion of index cards and printer paper with frantic notes. My phone continues to fill with middle-of-the-night plot inspirations. The Shattered Seas expands daily, new islands and cultures emerging from the fog of my procrastination. The Weave continues to unravel, void creatures continue to slip through, and Ceridwen continues to navigate her complicated feelings for the Umbral King.

And somewhere, buried under manuscripts and character sketches, my potential Real Adult Budget wait patiently for the day I finally choose reality over fantasy.

That day is coming. Probably. Eventually.

Right after I finish the trilogy. Or get a publishing deal. Whichever comes first.

In the meantime, I need to decide on that whiteboard. The one with the aluminum frame is a little pricier, but it’ll last longer. And if I’m going to map out the slow unraveling of reality, I should probably do it properly.