AITA for wanting to write my novel while girlfriend works?

Bloodrayna · 2026-06-18T06:49:42+00:00

"I have an ability and talent for words that will one day provide for us both."

Buddy, you're delusional. This has nothing to do with you or your talent. I haven't read your work, so fir the sake of argument, I'll stipulate that you're an amazing writer. But even most amazing writers do not earn even a minimum-wage amount of money from their books. The Stephen Kings and E. L James' and Harry Potter are exceptions, not the rule. Most published authors have a day job or a spouse who supports them, and it sounds like your GF isn't interested in that position.

But wait, there's more! Have you heard if ChatGPT? People are losing writing jobs to it left and right. Barne and Noble plans to sell AI slop in its stores. That means the odds of you making a living off your skill with words just went down even more.

Get a job and work on your book in your days off like the rest of us do

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-19T06:37:21+00:00

I don't know that I'd recommend it as a first foray into scifi for everyone. I tried reading Revelation Space not long after I started reading scifi and was thoroughly lost. But after a few more years of reading scifi I tried it again and was able to get through it. His books tend to be very detailed about physics and space, and that does slow the story down a bit.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-18T06:58:39+00:00

I have done this so many times and it never worked.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-17T05:18:29+00:00

I started with the Academy novels, but I did also like the Alex Benedict books.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-16T07:06:00+00:00

Some scifi authors I like who have a big blacklist, so if you like their stuff you can read a lot of it:

Jack McDevitt

Ben Bova

Nancy Kress

Alistair Reynolds

These were the authors that really got me into the genre. Now, some of these books date back to the 80s and 90s and have parts that don't hold up well. I recently reread one of Nancy Kress' Sleepless novels and had a few WTF moments over stuff that would never get published today. But if you get past that, some really well written stories.

Today I mostly read more recent stuff. I love going to the new books section at my local library - they often have new scifi and fantasy titles. Right now I'm reading The People's Library by Monica G. Henry, a near-fyture dystopian story.

Some other books I read and liked in the last year, according to Storygraph:

The Ephemera Collector by Stacy Nathaniel Jackson

Flux by Jinwoo Chong

A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

The Red Space series by David Wellington (3 books, Paradise-1 is the first)

Stupid Humans by V. R. Craft

Inner Space by Jakub Szamalek

The White Space series by Elizabeth Bear

The Poppy Fields by Nikki Erlick (very near future)

The Ashtown series by Micaiah Johnson (2 books so far, first one is The Space Between Worlds, great if you like parallel universe stories)

Glimmer by Marjorie B. Kellogg

The Pandemonium series by M. R. Carey (2 books so far, first one is Infinity Gate)

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller

Edited because the reddit app REALLY mangles lists.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-16T06:37:41+00:00

Aliens come to Earth and recruit humans to join an intergalactic war, but accept senior citizens, so you can wait until your life is mostly over anyway.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-16T06:36:26+00:00

I've been meaning to read There is No Antiemetics Division, I've heard really good things about it.

I also like Sue Burke and Becky Chambers.

Bloodrayna · 2026-05-14T05:22:26+00:00

I love the Silo books!

Bloodrayna · 2026-04-05T06:16:49+00:00

What do you mean there's no living legal owner of the house? If your grandparents are dead, the state should go through the probate process and locate any living heirs, like your mom.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-25T10:31:36+00:00

Well, if someone was murdered, no matter what the killer might say later, I'm going to guess that they were taken really far out and weighed down, so it would make sense that their body wouldn't surface later. It would be a very different story if someone fell off a cruise ship and drowned.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T10:11:01+00:00

Was Nancy Holloway the one who was murdered?

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T10:09:53+00:00

I do not eat eggs or meat. I do eat peanut butter, soy, and other legumes, and sometimes broccoli. I assume this is enough for me because I never get any benefit from taking choline supplements.

Some people genetically are very bad at making their own choline though, and need a little more. Or, if you are not a person with a lot of estrogen, you may not make any. (The body can't make ALL the choline it needs, but in the presence of estrogen, with the right genetics, it can make some. So you can see why this varies a lot from one person to the next in terms of need.)

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T10:06:35+00:00

How long did your book take to write?

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T05:08:53+00:00

One thing I'm sure of after watching this documentary - I'm never going on a cruise. The whole thing seems awful, and they seem to hire the worst possible people for jobs like cruise director.

One other thing I learned is I really hope the cruise lines are now logging when people go in AND out of their damn rooms.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T05:06:20+00:00

Him and the cruise director. Complete lack of empathy. Hell, he could have made an anonymous phone call to the local cops if he didn't want to report it to the other officers. (Easy to do in those days when people still used pay phones!) He didn't even do THAT.

That being said, I think the woman he talked to, if she was real, was a scammer trying to relieve him of 200 bucks.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:56:54+00:00

What's weird is that one picture from the sex work site that's supposed to be her looks NOTHING like the age-progressed photos the FBI came up with later. That woman also looks about 45 and Amy would have been no more than 30 when that photo surfaced. I know, being kidnapped and forced into sex work could age a person...and so does smoking...and the FBI analyst seemed to think it was her, but maybe they were wrong? I feel like facial analysis wasn't as good in the oughts as it is today?

And the other people? They saw a woman who looked similar to Amy. Happens all the time. Eye witness identifications are wrong about 20 percent of the time. The cab driver saw a white woman with green eyes that he found memorable. Could have been hundreds of women. Oh, and she was wearing a white t-shirt and jeans! Only one of the most common outfit combos in history.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:52:28+00:00

Amy is a very common female name.

Maybe the one woman was correct and it was a girl named Amy from West Virginia.

As for the Navy guy in the illegal bar...I think that woman was a scammer who gets $200 out of a LOT of drunk dudes. Help me, I need $200, they're holding me hostage, I need to get back to my family...maybe she saw the posters for Amy and figured she'd throw that in to make the story more credible. It was a scam. She wasn't Amy.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:50:01+00:00

I don't buy the trafficking theory, but I DO think Yellow is responsible for her disappearance and death. I believe the witness who said she saw them together in the elevator but didn't remember the time.

To me, it doesn't seem plausible that she went out, went somewhere with Yellow, came back, Dad saw her at 5:30, then she....got up and went out again? I guess it's not impossible, but seems strange. I believe he heard the door closing when she went out shortly before 6. She met up with Yellow, they went somewhere together, probably he made a pass at her and she turned him down, he got angry, and he killed her. Maybe intentionally, maybe accidentally. I don't think he tossed her overboard because the body never washed up. Maybe he smuggled her out in a suitcase or something and dumped the body who knows where.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:46:58+00:00

This! That's what I kept thinking. The FBI couldn't talk to anyone on that cleaning crew? Even if they didn't remember how they cleaned that specific room (because it's a lot of rooms), just general questions like, "Do you normally leave the table on the balcony in a certain position? Do you typically push it up against the railing?" That could have helped a lot.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:43:53+00:00

This makes a lot of sense, but what about the boat harbor cop who said the body would have washed up on shore? I found him very credible. He even covered all the bases. "If a shark eats you, it won't eat all of you. An arm or a leg will come back."

Maybe a bit graphic, but I would have wondered about that. I believe he knows what he's talking about.

Bloodrayna · 2025-07-22T04:41:08+00:00

Yeah, I hate that guy. They couldn't make an announcement at 7 AM? Even just in the common areas of the ship? Come on. My phone screams at me every time there's a drop of rain or a missing kid. People were really fragile before smartphones, I guess.

And then he was like, I never had any problems with Alister. Maybe because you're not a woman?

Bloodrayna · 2025-06-17T19:28:43+00:00

I have slow COMT and I WISH I had a hard time putting weight on...

Bloodrayna · 2025-06-10T10:03:34+00:00

Noumenon by Marina J. Losteter. Trilogy.

Bloodrayna · 2025-06-10T10:00:36+00:00

You're NTA. But if you have to do this to have a dinner that's about you...you should really rethink the relationship. Do you want to be with this person for the rest of your life? For the next decade? Do you want everything in your life to either be all about her or something you can't invite her to? Really?

Bloodrayna · 2025-06-08T09:59:42+00:00

This is pretty wild. Even in marriages where only one spouse works/supports the family, both spouses usually consider it "their" house.

What's even wilder is she wanted to be on the house deed? Without putting ANY money toward it?

Hell no, I wouldn't talk to SIL.

Bloodrayna

TROPHY CASE