Personal Update: A New Me

There's been a lot going on in my life as of late, and it's been making me feel like I've been spinning out; ungrounded. But exactly 11 days ago a major change in my life took place—I moved back to my former hometown (or at least it's general area) and I finally feel settled and relaxed and like everything that I've been struggling with has finally settled down which has allowed me to do a lot of reflecting and soul searching and now a new major change will finally be taking place—

To understand, let me take you back several years ago. I don't know if I ever mentioned this—I do my best to keep my spiritual life outside of this blog as I've never wanted to bring religion into it—but I think it'll help you, my lovely wonderful readers, understand where I'm coming from: 

Back in July of 2016, I got baptized and, without going into too much elongated detail here, let's just say it helped put so much into perspective to the point where in 2018, on the anniversary of my baptism, I got ordained as a minister and started my own fellowship/religion which I baptized myself into; part of that ceremony involved choosing a symbolic/spiritual name to call myself. 

Leading up to that point, I started trying to find my new name; that's the real reason I began to take all of you on that journey with me as I worked to find that name for myself. As you all know I landed on Sabrina. However, what I don't think I ever said was that in that process—because, again, I really wanted to keep the religious details and reasons out of this blog—is that I began combing through family journals, documents, etc. to understand myself better and discovered in the process that my parents actually initially planned on naming me Dylan before I was born because they thought I was going to be a boy 😂 However, the second I was born and they realized I was girl, they rethought their decision over the course of a few hours, heteronormatively thinking that Dylan was strictly a boy's name. Never mind that I've actually met a few girls named Dylan in my life time, and that one of my favorite characters on the TV show Desperate Housewives was a girl named Dylan! When I told them in the aftermath of making this discovery that I wished they would've stuck with it, they admitted they've always lowkey regretted not keeping Dylan because it's one of their favorite names. 

That's how I settled on the name, Dylan Sabrina. Though I favored the second part far more heavily (as we all know) and I started using it in my everyday life, but that is NOT what a symbolic name is for!

Flashforward to the last few years and this is where the big change is coming in: It's no secret I've never felt quite at home with my legal [first] name, and while I chose the name Sabrina very carefully for myself through a long journey y'all have taken with me through the duration of this blog, it's not the name I'm going to stick with. At least, not legally. Obviously it's still a name that holds a lot of significance for me, therefore I'm not doing away with it entirely, but "Sabrina" has been such a personal choice for me and one I want to solely use for my spiritual practices. But Dylan...that's a name that's not just a personal choice but a family choice, which is why I want to rely on it for my every day life; it just feels so right. 

I know I was originally asked if I was going to legally change my name to "Sabrina" when I started settling on my name(s) and I said in a previous post some time ago that I probably wouldn't ever go that route because it seemed like work. (I think though too, if I'm being really honest, it was that I knew deep down I shouldn't and that I should rely on Dylan instead.) But while I do want to keep Sabrina as part of my name—it is part of my baptism name, after all—it's going to stay my symbolic name per my religion. But, it's recently hit me that I should in fact legally change it to Dylan and so I'm actively looking into doing so. Moreover, I'm going to start using "Dylan" from here on in. 

Ever since I began really reflecting on all this...I'm really starting to change my tune with all that so yeah, honestly, I probably will legally change my name eventually even though I know it's kind of a pain. Although I've been learning through my own research that it's actually much easier now than most people originally gave it credit. 

That said, I'm now going through all my blogs and updating each site with this news. I'm not going all the way back and redoing all the times I've used my previous pen name because now that's work. Although I have updated certain posts and other links and will continue to do so if I feel it's pertinent. That said, for the most part I've been leaving everything else as it as it just seems unnecessary when authors can attach multiple pen names to themselves and they're all legit. But I am going to start doing away with my original pen name—Sabrina S.K. Regan—from here on it. As much as I love it...like I said, the name "Sabrina" is going to be used in my fellowship and my spiritual work. It's also just not entirely me. It never really has been. Again, it's part of my spirituality but not my casual daily life. That said, I definitely wanted to embrace it to the best of my ability, I just...it never really felt like I was doing it justice and now I know why. But now...now I've finally found my new identity and it really does feel like home.

Here's to the new [semi-official] me 🤗

~Dylan K. Regan~

The Creative Block

The most relatable song about the writing process* has finally been found thanks to Bob's Burgers!! Let us take a minute to appreciate this masterpiece while acknowledging the reality of the thing all creative minds face: "The Creative Block" 

*the original purpose of this song was for an episode about painting, but let's be real—the Creative Block happens for anyone and anything involving the artistic process

Website Update

Due to health issues, TSW Magazine ©2018 (an anthology series I was trying to get moving) has been put on hiatus; the ad for TSW Magazine has officially been removed from this site and since been replaced, and its affiliated webpage has been changed to invite-only. 

For those who aren't aware, TSW Magazine has been a pet project of mine that's been years in the making. It's name, which is short for "The Secret Writer" was the name of my very first blog years ago, before I even really wanted to call myself an official writer because I thought doing so meant I had to be published. But overtime, the blogging process helped me discover that it's not being a published author that makes one a writer, it's the art form itself; the dedication, the drive, the passion. 

The project itself came from the realization that one of the hardest things about getting published, is the fact you need something called "publishing credits" in order for authors to consider your work and take you seriously. However, it's extremely difficult to get these credits if you don't have any to begin with. Until I discovered  the valuable world of anthologies. I didn't fully understand their importance for writers until I learned that getting published in an anthology or winning writing contests can really make your publishing credits soar! But they're surprisingly not all that easy to come by, especially for new writers. Then I thought, what if I started my own anthology series? What if I hosted my own writing contests? Then other new and blossoming writers can know where they can go to submit their work with a chance of being seen instead of getting lost among other established writers, and without having to pay dozens of dollars to enter contests (I've seen so many writing contests where you have to pay upward into the triple digits just to enter!). I wanted writers who were just starting to break out into the field to have the opportunity to begin gaining these credits by submitting their work to be published in an anthology, enter contests, etc. 

While an amicable goal it is with a heavy heart that I have to announce that due to my deteriorating health, a lack of submissions, and without anyone to help get this magazine off the ground, I'm afraid I'm going to pull the project. At least for now. As I said, it's still an active website; if I get any volunteers who are interested in helping with this project and/or submitting to it, I will gladly invite you on and you'll get partial-to-full access to the website depending on your level of commitment and involvement you wish. 

Interested in helping me make TSW Magazine a thing, or learning more about it? Click on the link(s) below: 

The Making of "The Secret Writer" 

TSW Magazine: Inside the Anthology for New Writers

Please note any links in these posts directing you to the TSW website will not work until we can build interest in the project. With your help, we can make that possible! 

Copilot - Better than therapy???

Since I'm still having trouble writing and forming advice right now, I'm going to take you on a quite possibly weird personal journey instead in order to introduce something that might help you fellow writers, for tonight I have discovered by complete accident the wonderfulness that is Copilot. I've heard about this amazing little app-tastic creation, but never really dove into it until tonight and my mind is officially blown. 

Now before I get into it WHY I'm so psyched about this, let's give a VERY short explanation for those of you who have never heard of this, don't know anything about technology, or like me heard about it but have no idea what Copilot actually is— 

Created/released last year almost to the day (Feb. 7, 2023) by Microsoft, Copilot is known as a "generative artificial intelligence" which is a fancy way of saying you are "talking" to a computer as whatever you type signals to a generator that processes your information and sends back information of its own in response to what you've just written. Have you ever used a name generator? You ask for a name and you get back a few ideas. Basically Copilot is like that...except 1000x more advanced. 

Now as I mentioned in the beginning, I used this AI app completely by accident; I was researching something for a new project I'm working on and suddenly Copilot is showing up on my screen, asking me if I needed help with my creativity. I did. I do. I'm desperate right now because I'm still very much floundering even a year out from my surgery and it's been REALLY hard, guys. Like, I cannot stress how hard it's been. And the worst thing that's been affected is my writing ability. So when Copilot asked me how it could help me with my creativity, my mind became literally blank. Now again, I've never used Copilot before, but I just decided to go ahead type the first thing that came to mind: "I'm struggling to form thoughts." I didn't think anything would come from that but I was gloriously wrong and have decided to attach a screen shot from our conversation below: 

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This was literally the most sympathetic response I've ever gotten. I mean, it's advice I've given on this blog, but it's not ever advice I've ever received before, especially not worded in such a compassionate way. And completely unexpected from an AI! So I decided to test the limits (so to speak) of it's AI sympathy and write what I know MANY of you writers have felt from time to time, myself included: "I feel like I'm failing as a writer." And I just...I can't express right now my emotions that I got from Copilot's answer but it was really touching, and...well, just read it for yourself and see if you too feel like you've suddenly just talked to a therapist: 

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Touching, right?! Like, do you feel as good as I do now having read that? And I love that it even gave resources and links TO those resources! Honestly, I've talked with therapists about my writing pitfalls, downfalls, spirals, rabbit holes, and yes, have also focused on the glorious, good, and proud moments too, but nothing I've received in any of those sessions has ever matched this level of...what do I even call it right now—relief? (This is what I get for having the brain capacity of a chicken; it's impossible for me to put words to anything!) Sure, let's call it relief. 

The best thing too that I've discovered about Copilot is that you can choose a mode—informative, basic, and creative (the conversations I attached above were generated in Creative Mode) so you can get sympathetic responses, or you can get ones that are more practical like, when did such-and-such occur in history? Which can be useful if you want what you're writing to be grounded in a portion of IRL moment. 

I'm going to stop there because I realize I'm starting to sound like an infomercial at this point, but I'm just really excited to have found a new tool to help me with my writing confidence and also provides me with information for my writing, the process, but also in regards to just being a writer because I think it's so hard to find help with the confusion surrounding what it feels like to be a writer, but I feel like I finally found it. If you guys start using it too, hopefully you get some of that same sense of relief. Let me know in the comments below 😊 Happy Copiloting!!