You can take the blogger out of the blog, but you cannot take the blog out of the blogger. Or something. The urge I’ve had to blog lately. Not only do I miss putting my thoughts down here, I miss having something to say. If attending college makes your synapses fire and connections connect, day-to-day adult life has the opposite effect. Oh, and so does taking brain meds.

Let me explain the plug in my creative well.

(Oh, boy, does writing one of these feel indulgent. No writing wisdom, no original fiction, no insightful reviews. Just you and me and the way blogging used to be: someone talking about themselves.)

Since I paused putting up posts on the reg, in no particular order, I:

Published Two New Short Stories

I won a short-story contest that’s been my white whale since my college days, The Legacy’s Weird Stories and Dark Tales 2024 zine from West Texas A&M University. I then went on to receive publication in the 2025 spring edition of Freelancer at Amarillo College. That’s publication with both of the local colleges. I feel pretty good about that. (I’m boasting. This is boasting, and it feels weird outside of Linkedin, the OG boasting website.)

(I promised I would get these stories up for digital viewing, I know I did, and I will, I will, I will, I will.)

Earned a Video Game Design Certificate

Nothing beats that potent academia high of achieving tangible feedback in the form of grades or sharing and expressing new ideas with other intelligent creatives. So I went back to school for a year because I want to, in addition to writing prose, one day get to write for video games. And write TTRPG adventures. But that’s a different endeavor.

For my capstone project, I remade the dubious and infamous E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial video game in Game Maker Studio 2. I cursed out Game Maker Studio 2 more times than I’ve cursed out WordPress, the engine for this blog, but I pulled out something that resembled a video game by the end. I also learned just enough web design to start working an an overhaul for this blog and my author site. The whole experience was great and incredibly difficult and I’m glad I did it and I’m glad it’s over. I frequently despaired of finishing at all because of the next item on the list.

Suffered from The Mystery Disease™️Worsening

So much so that I’ve had to start taking special, fancy pain medication that requires providing an ID to pick up from the pharmacy. I’ve tried multiple medications, one of which made me sleep always and the other removed my brain, replacing it with ice cream. My current mix kinda works and kinda lets me have my brain, so now I get to be always at least a little in pain (if not a lottle) and always barely capable of any creativity whatsoever. I’m sure that for someone who needs creative output to live, this will be fine.

…yayyyyy…

Got Approached for Publication in a Horror Anthology

I can’t say much about the piece, but it’s ecohorror and set in my beloved homeland of the Texas panhandle and it’s the last creative thing I’ve managed to write this year. The anthology is set to release in May of 2026 and I very can’t wait to share my short story with you.

Have Nearrrrrrrly Completed Prepping the Hopeful Wanderer Novel-in-Stories for Publication

We’re so close, y’all. If only my brain would let me stay awake long enough to work on the final touches. We’re at layout, typesetting, ISBN-purchasing, and proofing territory. I even spent a long (looooooong) time teaching myself book cover design until I created the cover of my dreams. It’s beautiful. All my family who’s seen it has said so.

I want to get this book out to you so bad. If only my brain would work.

Presented My First Ever Writing Lecture

Because I’d started hosting writing sprints in the Discord server for the Texas High Plains Writers, one of their organizers reached out to me about presenting one of their bi-monthly programs. I repurposed an old blog post about writing with the five senses to create Sensory Detail: Charging Your Writing Using the Five Senses. (Who says blogging writing advice is useless?) The presentation went over well with THPW’s membership. It was super scary, but support from my life partner really carried me through.

Also, I never want to give a presentation again.

I will probably give a presentation again.

Made Copy Editing Manager with My Main Client

Since 2022, I’ve been working for a crime fiction publishing house in the copyediting arena. Managing the copyediting department for them over the past couple of years has been amazing. If I can’t make a living as a writer (and I can’t), this is the next best career possible.

Reverted this Blog Back to Word Nerd Scribbles

I made a cool logo for my old blog title! How can I not use it! Besides, I miss blogs with whimsical titles. Who needs stuffy, boring, consistent branding anyway? Not Word Nerd Scribbles!

Got Hit By a Tornado

Life Partner and I have taken up storm chasing in the past three-ish years, with this year becoming the one in which we got serious. We’ve watched a lot of safety videos, a lot of tragedy videos, and I’ve learned a little bit about reading meteorological data (mostly by cheating off chasers and meteorology pages more skilled than me).

We caught two tornadoes! I plan on making an Instagram for our chase results, so I’ll link that here for anyone interested. Eventually. But on my third chase, when I went out with my sister, we barely missed one and had to come home. That night, the weather got really weird and as a massive storm back-built over my town, the edge reached my house and a tornado dropped right on my neighbor’s place, ripping off the roof with her and her daughter in the bathroom.

Two houses down on our left took damage and two houses down on our right took damage, but our house came out unscathed. (It’s built like a tank, right down to some metal framing. We didn’t have to repair the roof until a massive hail storm came through a couple weeks later and took out our skylights). We suspect we must have been dead center in the tornado’s wind field, to be the only house undamaged. The tornado was rated an EF1 and went on to wreck shop on the neighborhood across the field from us, going so far as to throw someone’s RV onto someone else’s roof. No one was hurt, but my neighbor had to move.

Reread One of My Posts and Found This Note to Myself

This helped. I’m fighting through a nasty bout of depression and this genuinely helped to have stumbled upon. Lately I’ve felt like I have zero answers and don’t know what to do about anything. I have no stance. I have no courage. I have nothing to say.

But Past Summer seemed to think differently. Thank you, Past Summer.

Small Summer, your sense of inadequacy stems from your conclusion that everyone knows better than you. However, when action, execution, or technique differs from yours, that does not make your way wrong, just different. Very little is diamond-cut black and white. Seek only relevant input; otherwise, make your decisions. Anyone who has a problem with your choices can just deal.

That’s it. That’s all I got, I think. I’ve been cleaning up the blog for a more streamlined experience (ugh, corporate speak) as well as socials and my newsletter. Everything is still under construction, so pardon my mess. I’m reading through Tamsyn Muir’s Locked Tomb series again, and I have some thoughts, so hopefully I’ll get an annotation post up next.

Until next time!