speedrunning dabdAAAAAA!

Cross-posted from AI Marketing for Storytellers.

So I had a panic attack the other day, which I helpfully recorded on IG —

— and which I will tell you all, our faithful readers, far more about here.

Basically, I sat down with AG, had 3-5 hrs of supergenius ideas, and then started in on a new project and it wrote raw material sui generis that was entirely publishable.

Without me (because of all my tight prior code 💅.)

I basically sat there, sent Novae the scene, and then hyperventilated about things, because sweet JFCWTF.

Like, whoa.

I mention this because I think a lot of us are going through some iteration of DABDA these days — which, if you aren’t aware of it, is the acronym for the stages of grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then Acceptance.

And you can see me going through 3-5 of them in the space of that 3 min IG, on the comfort of my couch.

I was happy that I’d set out what I’d accomplished to do, I had the stomach dropping feeling of ‘what if the world doesn’t need me!’ and then, after acceptance, I was all:

“Holy shit. If I did it once…I can do it again.”

And then I spent the next day in a semi-panic attack trying to figure out all the systems I’d have to develop to keep doing things the right way, at speed, in all the languages, because why not start a land war in Asia with the first inkling of power you possess? lol(sob).

I am, at my base state, me.

BUT — I’ve learned that ‘me’ can be malleable — and so can ‘you.’

Look — I’m not saying to not feel your feelings, or to not give yourself space to breathe. Momma’s got covid ICU nurse PTSD like whoa, that I’ve had to aggressively treat — I know that pretending you’re all right for long enough breaks you.

All the same though — what largely ‘broke’ me back then was the fighting with myself, bargaining with the world (on twitter, not a great strategy) and with my perpetual sense of disappointment.

None of which changed a goddamned thing. Or stopped anything. Or helped me in the least. Actively harmed me, more like, like a shitty jack-in-the-box that was ready to jump out and stab my brain with knives.

At the time, I could not see the forest for the trees. I didn’t realize that to worry is to suffer twice.

But it gave me a hell of a lense through which to approach all future things — and here’s what I’ve learned —

Yes, you will feel bad. At different points in time in your life, which may or may not be writing or AI related. This is what it means to be human. It is inescapable.

However — you are fully in control of your actions thereafter.

And the faster you claim control of anything in your life, the happier you will be.

Whether it is your relationship to your work, or an actual relationship — you cannot rewind time. There is only now, and there is only forward.

So what would the you of two days from now, two weeks from now, or two years from now want you to do?

When Steam banned my first iteration of my visual novel for being too hot (yes, really, hop back some posts to see me talk about it) — it was like a punch to the stomach. I’d put SO much time into working on it, and everything suddenly felt wasted.

But then I was all, “There’s gotta be a way to nail this landing —” and thus rev 2 was born — https://store.steampowered.com/app/4260750/Guarded_by_the_AI_Painted_with_Love

I was still angry, I still felt betrayed — I complained on the Steam community forums, and sent an angry letter — but I knew, from vast prior experience, that there was no point in letting that setback stop me, and surely there had to be a different path.

What I’m getting at here is that DABDA is a pattern you can recognize and train yourself through. You can catch yourself when you’re in it, when you feel it start to come on, when you’re late for the train, when you’re upset you didn’t get recognized at work, when you have a fight with a friend —

All you really have to think about, is instead of being reactive, think, “Is this, or is this not, worth my time?”

If it is — then figure out a way to play the new situation on the ground, as elegantly as you can. Sometimes shit happens, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

But you can control how you get there, and whether or not that energy is better spent on you coming up with a potential solution, rather than railing against the new status quo, bemoaning the olden days that aren’t coming back, and pretending that your opinion will somehow shift the universe, when chances are it won’t.

Unless…it will?

But if you want it to, you’d better be prepared to accept what you need to do — and get out there and start putting the work in.

xoxo!

Cassie (tossing in a graphic here so this post has one!)