Elizabeth Hauser's Blog

I’ve been trying to figure out why I’ve been having a hard time writing. Anyone who has read past post know that this is an ongoing problem that I had been dealing with. After some thought I believe I narrowed down what my actual struggle is. It not lack of drive or creative, it comes down to a difficulty forming words and thoughts as myself.

I’m not sure if it’s a lack of ego or not wanting to come off a self service, but for whatever reason finding my own voice and talking about things make me feel awkward. Even this is a chore to write since its all about me.

I’ve always been more comfortable in the background, minding my own business and observing the things that happen around me. There are times that I see something odd or funny and want to write it and share but I never know how to get my point across without meanderin. So I came up with a solution. A new blog that will be written from the viewpoint of a character instead of me. It will be about thought and moments that happen in my life, but there wont be that anxiety of what people think about me. I’ve never tried to care about people’s opinions about me but frankly when you put yourself out there its hard to distance yourself. Now it will be about someone else and I can at least partially remove myself from the equation.

I wanted to share this here because I’ve been touched by those of you that have taken time to read my posts. While I will occasionally post here, mostly if there is any progress with my books, I hoping to be more frequent at my new site. I’ve managed to already draft a couple of weeks worth of posts and will likely re edit some of the ones here to match the tone there.

So, if any is interested check out my new site Diary of a Millennial Goth

Thank you all so much!

I’m probably one of the most easily distracted and actively procrastinating people around. It’s funny because at work I’m usually very on top of things to the point I get things done early. Let when it comes to things I enjoy it’s the opposite. Maybe because at home there’s to many options to keep me occupied. That’s why I decided to change that.

I took a vacation from work this week and it tends to consist of me seaping into an indent in my couch play games. Thankfully I was invited to lunch by a friend and that made me think, since I’m out why not check out the library.

I used to enjoy going to the library  just to hang and surf the internet maybe read a book or two. But I don’t know if it was having access to my own computer or just laziness for having to go out, I just stopped going. Whatever it was, I decided to check out the library in the town I moved to a couple of years ago. I applied for a new card and wondered a bit thinking maybe I should come her before my vacation ends to try and write.

So that’s what I did. And having a table and chair certainly make typing easier then the set up I have at home. The quiet also helps if I’m honest. Sometimes I find noise is the thing that gets me more frustrated than anything else. Another excuse I use to procrastinate.

Since this is only the first time I’m using the library there was a little getting used to it. Where to sit, being that weird person trying to make absolutely no noise. Like I said it’s been a while since I’ve been to a library. But I think if I can find a routine this could work better then trying to write on lunch at work or while my dad is out of the house.

With all that said, I have added more chapters to The Ravenwood Blade. It helps that I’ve have more of a handle on how to use ChatGPT. I’m now writing full descriptions of the chapter and letting it write the outlines, which works better for me since I tend to have a hard time finding the right words to describe things. There’s a quite a bit of editing after the chapter populates, adding small touches here and there to help with the flow and length. I also noticed that this time around the story isn’t as dialog heavy as The Winds of Time was. It could be from how I wrote it to begin with, but that just ended up being a headache to keep together with the personality changes that happened. Here the characters haven’t changed drastically just with in their arcs, which has been nice to watch form.

All and all things are progressing and if this works out, I’m able to do a chapter in under an hour with minor edits. Which is great because I’m getting towards the end of the story and that means I just need to go back and do more of a detailed edit to wrap it up.

Fingers crossed I’ll have more news next week.

Things definitely took a turn. When I last updated, I mentioned about pushing through despite so weird pacing and character changes that happened throughout the story. I was able to get some of it under control by back tracking and added more prompts and for a bit something was happening. Then I just stopped. It wasn’t the AI or the annoying modern slang that I hate popping up that did me in, it was a complete lack of interest in the story. It turns out I was the problem not the program.

This is similar to what happened when I started writing The Winds of Time close to five years ago. I had a rhythm and was enjoying what was happening, then I hit a wall and had no desire to continue. A bit of back story to this is that the idea came from a friend of mine and a dream he had of us. I thought the idea was cool and ran with it. The thing I believe became a hang up was the time period and location the story takes place. I’m a decent history buff, especially when I was younger, but I never really had interest in Feudal Japan and that is a problem. You can’t write about something you don’t have a passion or interest in. While the idea of The Winds of Time is cool, I just can’t make it work. This is one hundred percent human error.

With all that said, an idea came back to me the other day. After my biggest distraction, my gaming computer, gave out and I was waiting on parts to fix it, I thought about work on The Winds of Time. As I was booting up my chromebook, I remember something I came up with a couple of years ago when I was trying to focus my brain to go to sleep. The interesting thing is I’m almost certain the idea sprang up from my fail attempt at The Winds of Time before. The big difference is there’s no time travel or magical elements involved. Really the only through line is the time it takes place and that the story begins in Japan. Funny thing is, as I was playing around with it, I found myself getting more adept at using the AI and crafting the story with it instead of letting it do all the heavy lifting.

So out is The Winds of Time and in is The Ravenwood Blade.

In a few hours over three days I accomplished more than I did with The first story. Taking away the fantasy aspect and shifting to focus more on the character and mystery aspect seem to work better for my interest. Having the story set in Regency Era England, which I’m more familiar with has made it easier for me to engage with. I also feel that feeding the AI full chapters somehow confused it. I noticed that it seems to do a better job at keeping the continuity and supporting characters intact.

There’s still more work to be done from finishing the rough draft then trying to go through and expand bits of the story and let it breathe some. I noticed that the pacing always seems fast with AI and there’s not room to live in the world. With some fine tweaking I hope to add more to each chapter to flesh out the characters and the world. I also noticed that unlike with The Winds of Time there seems to be a lack of dialog created, making it feel like the characters never really talk to one another.

Maybe round two will be a better success. Who knows, maybe someone out there would be interested in help to bring The Winds of Time fully to life in a way I can’t. Right now though, The Ravenwood Blade is taking shape and will hopefully be something in the near future.

Hope you all have a Happy New Year in 2026!

It turns out I’m easily distracted. Probably not the most encouraging start to an update, but it’s true. Good news is I have the prologue and the opening to chapter one completed. Bad news is, its been almost a week since I’ve actually written anything. That’s were getting distracted comes in.

If anyone has read other posts I’ve written, you know that I found myself jumping down a rabbit hole of completing another book I gave up on by using AI. On top of that it’s the holiday season and the time I normally write is on lunch at work, but that has become difficult with the increase in employees and just getting caught up in conversation. If that wasn’t enough, I let myself get sidetracked by making an ugly sweater for a contest at work.

This happens every year and I know I should have waited to start book 2, but I was so happy the finish Night Hunter. I didn’t want to lose the momentum I felt, and I haven’t really, I just pushed my creativity in other directions for the moment. Now the sweater is done and checked off the list so it’s one less thing to worry about and with my schedule changing I should in theory have less people to distract me on lunch.

With all of that said, I have been thinking of changing the structure in book 2. Before I switched between Kiera and Jack for each chapter, but now I may do a page break and swap POVs. Ultimately though Kiera will be the main focus as she was always intended as the main protagonist with Jack acting as the introduction to her world. But things are slowly moving along per usual and with luck this won’t turn into a two year project like book 1.

On the plus side I made a pretty decent ugly sweater….

Are you more of a night or morning person?

Night has always been the time of day I’m drawn to. Even as a kid, I loved running around chasing fireflies or playing hide and seek through the neighborhood with friends. The was always something about the dark skies and stars that I felt at peace with.

Nothing has changed as an adult. Trying to get up in the morning for work is always a drag, through that could just be because of work. It could also be because people are rushing from place to place in the morning and at night everyone seems calmer. It’s like when the sun goes down everybody just eases into a comfort zone that doesn’t exist with the hustle of the day.

It’s not even like I enjoy going out and doing things associated with night life. What I enjoy is the quiet. Things just seem to stop at night and I could stay up until the wee hours just sitting around in silence. Darkness to me is like a security blanket. It probably shouldn’t feel that way since it’s often associated with bad things, but I feel comforted by it.

I always joke with people I know about being a vampire, but to be honest I don’t like the sun. I’m one of those weird people that wear sunglasses on overcast days because the light is too much for me. Maybe I should move to one of those placed where it’s night for months of the year. To be honest, I think the reason I enjoy night is because it’s something to look forward to. It may be a small thing, but in this world we have to take joy from any place we can find it.

This is a continuation of AI or not to AI

“Fantastic. Love that for us.” How I loathe generational stereotypical phrases. I’m probably one of the worst millennials out there because I want to cause physical harm to people that use these types of phrases. So, you could understand my frustration when, love that for us, popped up six different times when generating scenes in the story. This all happened in less than a hour on top of it. When I had the dumb brain wave to do this I knew it wouldn’t be seamless but there were some unexpected issues that rose.

The first thing I’ve noticed is the formatting. The scenes that the AI are creating have become very dialog heavy. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the chapters I have written without AI had more of an internal monolog since ot came from the protagonists POV. That leads to the other issue that popped up. My protagonists voice completely changed. This wasn’t an over time change either. Within a chapter her whole personality shifted. I don’t know if it was because the last chapter I wrote was more introspective then the others, or it couldn’t figure out a way to write her from what I originally had. Either way, it’s made the story feel different then what I had envisioned. It could have also stemmed from the choices I made with the AI or not giving it enough detail for the scenes it creates.

It’s funny, I had ignored the personality change throughout because one of my side characters stayed mostly the same. But as I got closer to the end, it started nagging at me more and more. Is this how she should be acting? A question I started asking more and more. On top of that I started to wonder if this was the direction I wanted things to go. The AI kept trying to insert more supernatural elements when I was trying to keep it more grounded. Of course it being a story about time travel through a sword does lend itself to otherworldly plot points.

Now I’m trying to decide if I should keep going. I had the majority of the book done but I just didn’t feel it. I might start over just to see if maybe I can get the characters voice back on track, maybe be more specific with what I want instead of just letting the AI free-form everything.

I will say it hasn’t been a complete waste. There was one scene that the AI wrote that did hit me hard, like it knew exactly what would get me emotional in that moment. Maybe there is something to it. But is one moment really enough to solidified hours of material that just doesn’t seem right, even if it’s not terrible? I guess the only way to find out is to charge back in and see what happens next.

That’s the big question right now. The topic of AI is a controversial topic depending on who you ask. For some it’s a tool to aid them in expressing their creativity in a way they might not have been able to do so on their own. While others see it as a program that could ultimately affect their livelihood due to higher up seeing it as a cheaper option then having to pay a person to do it.

Yes, it can be misused and treated as a short cut for a quick buck. But maybe it can also be used to bring a story to life that a writer can’t quite figure out how to put into words. It’s a fine line that has to be approached carefully, when does it go from a helpful resource to a crutch doing all the work.

This was the rabbit hole I found myself in the other day. I was having issues word an author bio, which is not unusual because I’m not a good hype person for myself. So I decided to put it through an AI program to see if it could polish it up. It took my words and add more substance to them, something I have a huge problem doing. That got me thinking how well could AI craft a story with someone holding its hand.

A few years back I started a story that formed from a dream a friend had and had gotten a few chapters in when I lost interest. It was a good idea, I just couldn’t figure out how to get past the initial set up. So, after a late night delve into creative chaos, I decided to try something I scoffed at for years.

Using the chapters I started, I’m going to see if I can complete a full novel using AI. I won’t just publish a book with complete nonsense, I plan on proofreading and editing the story as I go, but the bulk of the writing will be done with AI.

I’m hoping to share the journey here. Maybe with some laughable prompts or unexpected results. I am curious to see how it all ends ups, if it’s good or a complete disaster, only time will tell.

Hopefully you all join me on this journey.

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

It’s been awhile since I’ve answered a prompt question — mostly because I haven’t felt interested, and partly because I never quite knew how to respond. But this one relates to what I’m currently going through, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Most people want their first impression to be friendly or warm. They want to seem approachable, open to conversation, and willing to listen.

These are things I know I’m not.

I’ve learned how to fake it — customer service will do that to you — and I’ve gotten good at it without even realizing. But the truth is, I’m closed off. I don’t enjoy approaching others, and I tend to shut down in large groups. Social situations have always felt awkward for me, so I avoid them when I can. In person, I know I can come across as prickly or even angry, but I’m not. I’m shy. I just have a hard time connecting.

This topic feels timely because I’ve been working on putting myself out there more as an author. If I want people to read my stories, I have to be social and open — two things that don’t come naturally to me. Over the last few days, I’ve started posting on different sites and slowly interacting with others. Whether it helps their first impression of me is too early to tell.

Maybe one day, people will see me as friendly and approachable — and it won’t be because I’m faking it.

What’s the first impression you want to give people?

It’s been awhile since I’ve answered a prompt question — mostly because I haven’t felt interested, and partly because I never quite knew how to respond. But this one relates to what I’m currently going through, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Most people want their first impression to be friendly or warm. They want to seem approachable, open to conversation, and willing to listen.

These are things I know I’m not.

I’ve learned how to fake it — customer service will do that to you — and I’ve gotten good at it without even realizing. But the truth is, I’m closed off. I don’t enjoy approaching others, and I tend to shut down in large groups. Social situations have always felt awkward for me, so I avoid them when I can. In person, I know I can come across as prickly or even angry, but I’m not. I’m shy. I just have a hard time connecting.

This topic feels timely because I’ve been working on putting myself out there more as an author. If I want people to read my stories, I have to be social and open — two things that don’t come naturally to me. Over the last few days, I’ve started posting on different sites and slowly interacting with others. Whether it helps their first impression of me is too early to tell.

Maybe one day, people will see me as friendly and approachable — and it won’t be because I’m faking it.

I decided to set up a Goodreads author page. I figured it was time to start coming out of my shell and dip my toe into the social pool. At some point I’ll have to break and get Instagram or X, but I can barely keep up with one blog let alone a bunch of media pages. Most of the posts on the Goodreads blog will be from my main site, maybe at some point if I gain followers there I’ll do something different. For now we will see how things go. Check it out at https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/21921299.Elizabeth_Hauser

Any advice on how to juggle social media or general ideas on how to draw interest? I’d love to hear what people think.