IMO, the issue isn’t so much that chat AIs will produce “better than human” prose.
The issue is that scam artists will FLOOD the world with so much content that finding human-authored works – books, news articles, art, code samples, anything – will become nigh impossible. I think we’ll soon reach a point where 90%, 95%, 99% of search results on ANY topic will be mediocre AI-authored garbage.
And because of that flood, actual creatives are losing out on opportunities. So many small press publishers have closed down their submissions because of the overwhelming amount of AI spam. Clarkesworld is just one example.
There is absolutely an issue in regards to the art market as I mentioned, and I won’t minimize or dismiss that in any way. I hope for everyone’s sake that the Writers win their strike. I think AI-generated works passing for being written by actual authors and dominating the best seller list says something important about consumer behavior, which I assume is that they don’t actually read what they’re buying. I haven’t seen much interest in AI generated stories in places where people read things and provide feedback.
AI generated plastic “art” certainly has novelty because of the speed in which it can be produced, so I don’t doubt it’s all over the place. It can produce images which look pretty cool as long as you’re scrolling past them. In terms of the chance for exposure for the average artists that could be an issue, but the issue is not that the machine can competently replicate what a person can do. There is a challenge in the plastic arts in general considering the scroll past behavior is much more common than looking at the work and think about what you’re looking at, but I think that says more about the general audience than it does about any threat to art. If a person sees a piece that they want to engage with, actual art has a person behind it and perhaps others in discussion about it while LLM produced has nothing.
Err, yeah, but you kind of are doing exactly that.
The threat to art (writing, visual arts, and music) is that AI tools will be “good enough” that the average person can’t tell the difference on cursory examination. And they only get “good enough” because they’re training on YOUR STUFF. And my stuff, and all the other stuff that was written, drawn, painted, composed, played, by real human people. And you’re not getting compensated for that training at all. None of us are.
So you absolutely should care if your work is scraped and appropriated by LLMs, because we’re not far from a time when businesses fire all their copywriters and graphic artists because the $30/month AI subscription gives them results that are “good enough”.
I suppose where the true difference opinion lies is that I don’t think LLM produced content can possibly be good enough to engage an actual person, and glancing at something for a moment is not engaging with it. Obviously good enough to engage with “art” hasn’t yet been demonstrated despite the deluge of LLM prompt results posted everywhere, but technologically I think we’re a long way from getting there considering the infinite difference between unthinking data processing algorithims and the emergent process of a human mind made up of trillions of non-binary neuron interactions at any given moment which we are far from reproducing or even really understanding. These models contain a lot of quality literature already and have been trained significantly to reproduce some aesthetics, but since it can’t have any kind of understanding of what its doing it’s all hollow.
To go more into detail about commodified art, it’s a huge problem that artistic merit is one of a variety of factors considering sales in a marketplace. The art market has always been driven primarily by perceived economic value and that has always been a major problem as what sells has always displaced everything else regardless of quality or merit in the market. Corporate produced art products like much of what’s on the radio, on tv, or in theaters are less products of artistic expression and more of what market testing has demonstrated the kinds of aesthetic features people are willing to spend money on. That doesn’t require engagement, just enough to drive a purchasing behavior. LLMs being able to make something that’s fine to play in the background or to hang up and never really examine displaces this kind of highly lucrative art (which is still superior human produced art) which has always displaced art which people create with passion. I think that producing art exclusively for economic reasons is a terrible practice. What I’m talking about in my essay is “pure” art which is almost never economically feasible without being born to several generations of aristocrats. I think that producing art on the market’s terms has always been a hindrance to human expression and a wider problem in society, but the state its in is still better than being produced by machines which have literally no understanding of what they’re producing.
The above can probably accurately be interpreted as me undermining the economic value of art, but what I’m really trying to express is that economic drivers poison art. In a better system, anyone and everyone who wanted to fully devote themselves to their art could live comfortably on a stipend and create only what they think is important for them to create and share, and art would be free. Instead of receiving financial awards, they would receive more human rewards from sharing their art. In this fantasy world, labor saving technology would be doing the rote tasks driving the ability for people to live comfortably rather than displacing workers for the benefit of the business owners.
In the real world, artists pay their way by doing commercial work, or holding down a day job as a graphic designer, etc. Actors do commercials and Hallmark specials while looking for their break into serious theater. Writers put in hours writing ad copy or translating or speechwriting while trying to sell the Great American Novel. You call it poison, but ultimately it puts food on the table for artists and their families.
These roles can ONLY be displaced if AI is allowed to steal everyone’s work, and flood all available channels with mediocre AI paraphrases and transcriptions of that work. That’s the decision point we’re facing right now – do we stand idly by and allow big tech to replace workers by copying the fruits of human labor without compensation?
We can debate whether AI output is “good enough” for various use cases. And in some cases, you’ll be absolutely right that AI will never produce a convincing product for particular use cases. But that’s not the issue. The issue is whether it’s right for companies to steal the work of humans to use as training inputs, and flood the market with that mediocre output. AI producing sh*tty output doesn’t make it morally acceptable to steal, and to profit from the stealing.
I agree with you totally on the economics of it. When I say economic drivers poison art, I didn’t mean to imply that there is currently a better alternative to be a full time artist for most people. As I mentioned, the only way to be a full time “pure” artist is to have enough wealth to retire on before being born and this is a deeper issue with art than this particular situation. Professional artists are businesspeople participating in a marketplace who have found a niche and everyone needs to respect their right to protect their ability to make an income as a literal matter of survival. A program appropriating their niche and producing thousands of images with the thing their customers like to buy is a harm which should be stopped. Although I don’t like that this is an issue, it is and I won’t deny it.
The reason I titled the post the way I did is that I don’t participate in the market and don’t intend to. My essay is more targeted to people producing non-commodified art for purposes of expression or other non-monetary motivation. This isn’t to diminish art from the marketplace because there is obviously a lot of amazing stuff produced there. This is an appeal to amateurs like myself who have lost the motivation to produce art because they feel like the machine has made what they can make irrelevant. Anyone losing motivation because they are considering competing in a marketplace has a real concern. In my mind I’m distinguishing the abstract idea of art itself as human expression vs a business in which the product is art.
And by choosing to let AI take your stuff and use it however, you’re facilitating the economics that will allow AI to take the jobs of artists, and by extension, replace art all around us with mediocre pap spewed from the orifice of AI for the price of a premium subscription to ChatGPT or Stable Diffusion, or similar.
A good place to start is to look at stories you love and see how they're structured. I actually find this very useful with movies and some TV shows. Ask yourself how they arrived at that ending, and if it was implied from the beginning. And if it was implied, ask yourself how.
You can also follow some writing formulas to get a feel for them. A common one is the "try-fail" approach. Your characters are attempting to accomplish something -- have them fail twice, and then finally succeed. The failures themselves can be very interesting. For example, Frodo tries to take the ring to Mount Doom, but runs into the Ring Wraiths. They act as an obstacle, so the path is no longer clear.
If you take that approach, in my experience the failures will often suggest the successful ending.
Once you've written the story, go back and read it through. Sometimes endings will feel jarring because there's not enough of a suggestion for them earlier on. You can write in little hints, add a dream sequence, whatever. Over time as you practice with this, you'll develop some mastery and be able to write subtler and more mind-blowing endings.
I must say, I really enjoyed reading it - the absurdity of it made me laugh out loud a lot (really, a lot). I am glad you overcame your writer’s block, and I look forward you what you write next. :)
Not that it matters, but it looks like some if the typical generative AI cues are present (looking at eyes, button, fingers, especially).
Out of curiosity, could you share how much did you pay the artist (ballpark)? And were you expecting something “handmade”, or did you know you were getting AI generated (if that is the case, of course).
Four people suggested this was AI-made, and I’m gonna be honest that it’s frustrating (not that I’m mad at you). I like to keep all stages of commissions; and so I have all dozen or so stages, plus the redline-work I did and sent back to them to help them understand what I was going for.
The art style in this pic isn’t how I see Solemn in my head; but it gets the broad strokes down, and I find that it looks more like Solemn to me the more I look at it. I do wish it were more accurate to real body and feature shapes and proportions, but there’s only so many edits I can request before it starts being rude/frustrating.
I paid this person $60 for their work, on Fiverr. They have a nice (and consistent) portfolio, and I told them they could put this pic up on it too!
Sorry, it wasn’t meant in any negative way, and could have been worded much better. I can see how that would be annoying, and I’ll try to do better in the future 😊
I’d love to see the sketch work, curious how your vision of Solemn differs from the end result 🙂
All the characters in my novel are supposed to have very accurate body and face curves, and accurate feature proportions and shapes. It’s almost like anti-stylization in that area. In my head I don’t see a lot of fine detail; but the accurate curves and shapes help give the idea that the work is more adult and sophisticated; while the flatter semi-watercolored colors I see in my head really help with the science fantasy look and with the moodiness the work often has. Eventually I’ll get the professional artist who will capture this!
Also, if you want more details on the world or on why I am writing this, I posted a giant wall of text in the replies here. (Plus a list of character diversity, but that’s not the one I mean.)
Why? Because – and while I applaud you paying someone to do the art – the art reminded me of Nazi Propaganda. I was saddened to see another idealized blonde haired, blue-eyed Jugend/baby getting elevated to special reigning status. Most of the world is dark haired and brown-eyed. Why give Nazis yet another piece of fiction to subtly push the zeitgeist into believing the abnormal caucus folk are better than the lower masses?
Villagers of Yéva Nol: Many of them proto-humans, as early as 50k to 100k years old. Dark-skinned, smart and awesome
Enki: One of the villagers of Yéva Nol, Mesopotamian, super charismatic
Nila: Indian young woman who lives in Yéva Nol, and Jessi’s new romantic interest. Talks about the benefits of both individualistic vs. collectivist social thinking
Solemn themself is asexual, aromantic, and agender/gender-curious.
Zoey is MtF trans and is writing a book on the “joys of gradual transitioning” instead of getting the body you want the moment you are reincarnated
Jessi is lesbian, Nila is at the least into girls (Jessi)
It is good to hear that there are some non-whites in your story. Since there was no detail in your initial post, the art of an Aryan Angel did not inspire me to ask any question except, “Yet another blonde hero?” I get very tired of “white man’s burden” stories featuring white men picking themselves up and solving problems that ‘others’ could not overcome.
It sounds like your hero strays from the archetype enough to be atypical, so hopefully s/he realizes some reliance on the vital contributions of ‘others’ along their journey, too. All I’m saying is that the initial art didn’t speak to of any of that. The only thing it said to me was ‘racist agitprop’ (though not of the historic/Russian variety).
I’ve only ever once commissioned art of my characters before (just one, and it was a rough sketch with some canons from a video game) but I know it made me really excited and it’s been my phone’s lock screen for four years. I have no artistic talent so to see one of my creations come to life still makes me smile.
what made Chris choose the name Solemn? what made you as the writer decide to write this kind of main character? who are the political activists? and lastly, what made you choose the afterlife as a setting?
those are just some questions that came to me off the top of my head! I know how much I love talking about writing so I wanted to give you the space to gush and chat about yours.
Alright, so. I actually had a horrible childhood since infancy, and Chris/Solemn is semi-autobiographical. The novel explores not so much the events in Solemn’s history, as how it affects them now, focusing on healing and on the craving for loving family that they had since they were small. Like Chris, I also fantasized from a very young age about being rescued from abuse, neglect, and abandonment by strangers, who would pity, love, and care for me. And so the novel explores Chris discovering and grappling with attachment disorder among the other issues. When I was that age, I also wanted to be Don Bluth; and I spent most of my life writing, drawing, and creating music that channeled my trauma, feelings, and what I was learning into art.
My novel’s spiritual predecessors always had that intelligent child character. I both wanted them to be a “woobie” child, but also able to have experienced enough to become “broken”, and to learn to heal. And I wanted the power fantasy where they saved their family and the world. While in previous ideas the setting was different, I ultimately settled on an afterlife to raise the stakes; to allow the setting to more naturally encourage talk about healing, self-improvement, and important timely topics; and to allow a true “happily ever after” wish fulfillment. So this afterlife the novel takes place in now has really cool themes and features. Reincarnation pods that determine your new body based on what your psyche wants, all situated on the space station Advent Terminus. Spaceships, sub-light travel, psychic features and tech that work with them, and a lot of domestic technology that makes living and productivity easier. I wouldn’t call this “hard sci-fi” by a long shot, but it is pretty well-thought-out, grounded, and pragmatic. Seraphs themselves have science fantasy powers— telepathy between seraphs (which has a really cool explanation that factors into the plot in several ways), and “ionic fields” they form around their bodies or other objects. The ionic fields separate them from outside matter and forces, which allows for defying gravity (flight), telekinesis, near-invulnerability, and sub-light travel at .9x. Spaceships and Advent Terminus also use ionic fields to keep in atmosphere, maintain gravity, leave or enter a planet’s atmosphere easily, and travel at .3x.
For Chris’s new name, they didn’t want anyone from Earth to remember them. They wanted to start anew. The first night that Chris’s new foster mom brings them home, she validates Chris’s bad life and their deserving to be loved. She then reads them a poem about appreciating the duality of a bad day, called “Sing a Solemn Song”. So they choose the name “Solemn”.
As for the political side, seraphs separate humans to one of four of the five planets based on simple and pragmatic definitions of their ethical and emotional maturity, and encourage individuals to improve themselves so they can “ascend” to another planet in the solar system if they wish. Seraphs are social workers and keepers of the peace, and only get involved in government if human rights are being systemically violated. This system allows people to become better so they can move away from a more problematic and exploitative planet/society, potentially to the paradisical planet. But peoples’ lives are generally pretty good regardless of the planet, due to the foundations seraphs set and make sure are still working, as well as the seraphs’ social work when needed.
So about the planet separation. Eris is for people who believe they are good, or want to be good, but who struggle to challenge their flaws. They might be, say, your grandma who goes to church and helps with charity, but who believe interracial marriage and trans people are bad. Or they might be self-righteous against, say, people who do casual drug usage. Nemesis however is for people who know they are harmful and simply don’t yet care. So Nemesis is a soft prison where people have their own homes and jobs, but seraphs have more say in laws and they make sure people are separated better so they’re not harming others. So what if people from Nemesis want to become better, so they are allowed to leave? Well, a lot of people on Eris don’t believe in forgiveness or in rehabilitation, and they often rely on platforms of self-righteousness and fear. And KAPE is the most-prominent group of such people, and are political activists. And our husband-and-wife main villain duo are at the head of this.
What’s more is this issue extends to Solemn’s new family— though I won’t spoil why. Something happens concerning it, and… long story short, Solemn becomes a seraph. But when the seraphs are killed by the main antagonists and KAPE, Solemn isn’t affected nearly as much due to the psychic feature I vaguely mentioned before, and they are the last seraph remaining. Until our villain duo kidnaps Solemn to read their mind and learn how it happened (same way minds are read when first arriving so seraphs can present the body you want to you, and place and help you when you are reincarnated). Then the husband becomes a beefed up seraph, and the spouses and their KAPE military continue their war on the world order.
The villains, Solemn’s family members, and the supporting characters (including their helper android Iota) are all really richly-developed and cool, too, and have their own major struggles that factor into the story heavily. But that’s another post altogether.
If you have any more questions, I would love to answer them. I love getting questions or feedback. I also upload a semi-public WIP draft as I work on it, if you want to see any of it. I warn though that it’s still cheesy or unfocused at a few points.
hey! sorry replying to this took so long, I have had some mental health struggles.
I can definitely relate to writing about those topics. I feel like it’s a really good way to cope, because it’s what I used my entire childhood as well, but also to explore those issues in a controlled environment. although I wouldn’t call it someone extending “pity” towards you, you’re seeking sympathy, and I know it’s easy to fall into that trap but wording is important!
I used to always write younger characters (though they were always teenagers) being taken care of by an older character, always an adoptive sibling situation, because I have no siblings but always wanted one. parents were never part of it. I think you and I want the same things in our writing – the healing aspect is really important instead of breaking the character over and over, which is something I see a lot of writers enjoy in the spaces I used to be in. it’s something I think is important for people to see (even though I don’t write publicly anymore), especially people who might be going through their own struggling.
I envy your ability to write sci-fi, I’ve never been able to write it in a way I was happy with. my favorite has always been “soft sci-fi” or “sci-fi that makes sense but we’re not going to do any math or science okay?” hahaha. just because unless it’s pretty simple (which yours sounds like it is) my poor single brain cell fries itself trying to remember and parse everything.
when you say reincarnation pods that determine what your new body is based on what psyche wants, does that mean even if people reincarnate, they don’t leave the afterlife? and also, does that mean you don’t really have any control over it? so someone who, say, is not in touch with or not open to admitting they’re something (like take gender identity for example) might end up having to stare that in the face? if so, I think that’s really cool! it makes for a really interesting plot to explore, even if you as the author don’t end up taking that route for any of the characters.
I love that choice for Chris’s new name! Solemn is also just really pretty. the choice to use a name change to represent starting anew is also very nice.
when you say “beefed up seraph”, what does that entail? extra powers?
and can you tell me more about Solemn’s new family? I love secondary/supporting characters. I have a curse with them ending up my favorites.
I’m not currently in a place where I would be very good at reading the WIP, but I do really appreciate you extending the offer. I understand if you can’t reveal too much because of you working on it, too! and of course, I wish you lots of luck and inspiration in that process.
I freaking love to talk about the novel and I will keep talking as often as people ask questions ♥
when you say reincarnation pods that determine what your new body is based on what psyche wants, does that mean even if people reincarnate, they don’t leave the afterlife? and also, does that mean you don’t really have any control over it? so someone who, say, is not in touch with or not open to admitting they’re something (like take gender identity for example) might end up having to stare that in the face?
Okay, so, the computers called KOM-40s actually read peoples’ psyches when those people are in heliapods. There’s no other way to read minds. All the KOM-40s and heliapods are located on Advent Terminus. Only the seraphs know the full tech of both the KOM-40s and the heliapods, and the computers have seraph-exclusive biometric access.
When people die on Earth, their consciousnesses are beamed to a heliapod on Advent Terminus and they are reincarnated. And in the afterlife, if you die, are injured beyond full healing, or if you get trapped, your body dissipates completely and your consciousness gets beamed to Advent Terminus. So if you dissipate/die in the afterlife, you stay in the afterlife.
Now, when people are getting reincarnated— either the first time or any other time— the KOM-40s completely read (or update) the information in the person’s mind and determines what people want to be— and that includes meta stuff like “I want to be this the most; but I have these insecurity issues, so I’m not going to do that yet”. As an example of a meta, in the Reedtree center chapter, an important supporting character shills her book called “The Joys of Gradual Transitioning” to a new arrival who is beginning to fully discover they are trans, but weren’t reincarnated as trans when they arrived. The book is basically about how many people will enjoy the process of gradually changing sex— or otherwise improving your body— over instantly getting the one you want via heliapod.
I would also like to add that seraphs always offer consent to people when in the psychnet before their new body starts being created— not because people would say no to the body decided on, but because people think differently about results if they aren’t at least offered the ability to say “no”. And consent is very important to seraphs, even though they do have to make a few hard rules— especially about planetary placement— to make sure peace and order is kept.
when you say “beefed up seraph”, what does that entail? extra powers?
Same powers, just stronger. The idea of new powers might sound cool, but I really don’t want to break my universe’s rules/pragmatism, nor throw a fastball at the readers.
and can you tell me more about Solemn’s new family? I love secondary/supporting characters. I have a curse with them ending up my favorites.
Oh, wow, uh. There’s a lot to say! First is Solemn’s new foster mom, Lu Montsely. Lu always took things seriously and tried her hardest on Earth, and got frustrated when things didn’t go her way. Her dad was also an overbearing parent. When she had her kid on Earth, she was a frustrated parent as well and didn’t understand what to expect of children. So she abused her toddler and one day lost control of her emotions and beat him to death. She was shanked shortly after in prison when the inmates discovered what she did. And when her husband Tony learned of that, he drove off a cliff. Lu has spent the last hundred years on Eleos learning to be kind, patient, and wise— both so she can distance herself from who she was, and also so she can finally be good enough to join her loving husband who ascended to Themis 70 years ago. She’s now fostering Solemn— and soon mentoring her niece Jessi— as her final test. And Solemn didn’t know about Lu’s history until after Solemn was fostered (they learned about it a few days later at their foster party, where Lu’s dad Tom— who resents Lu and didn’t want her to foster at all— harshly revealed it). As Solemn becomes more accustomed to being allowed to have feelings and a say in their life situations, they realize pretty explosively that this foster situation feels unfair to them. I won’t say what happens after, but it’s also an example of how seraphs— while objective, good, and thorough— can’t see the future and still take risks sometimes. Either way, much of Lu’s family still doesn’t accept Lu no matter how far she’s come. Lu works at a community center and charity called The Reedtree, and it’s a super cool chapter and I don’t have time to talk about it in this post. As part of Lu’s exploration of meditation and inner-peace, she got into tai chi and later other forms of kung fu, which she practices along with meditation as part of her daily routine.
Jessi Vargas is Lu’s niece. She’s a Mexican-American chaotic-neutral. She kinda hates people and you really get an understanding of why. She hates authority, she loves thrills, and she’ll risk hers and others’ lives and well-being without a second thought. Because of this she’s actually died doing stunts many times, and no longer fears death. She’s very cool, but she looks down on people who aren’t (including Solemn). Because in a lot of ways she doesn’t care what harm she causes, she lives on Nemesis. She also worked as a low-level security guard at a networking security firm— the one that’s a front for KAPE’s weapons and their research into taking down the seraphs. And she doesn’t know about those details. Now, Jessi hates Nemesis a lot. When the seraphs track the strange weapons back to the firm, they discover that any time they approach it, the seraphs get so disoriented that they have to leave (due to the very tool that will be beefed up to take down the seraphs later). And their scanners are being stopped by the building’s walls. Furthermore, the seraphs don’t want to tip them off to the investigation, else they could move all the data. So the seraphs make a deal with Jessi as a former employee, that if she at least tries to infiltrate and place a scanner inside so they can gather data, they’ll let her try a year on Eleos, even though they believe she’s not ready. And during that time, she’ll also be mentored by Lu. Things go bad during the infiltration, and long story short, the seraphs use one of the stolen heliapods inside the complex that Solemn hides in to transform Solemn into a seraph so they can save their new family. Solemn becomes a seraph— same child Solemn, but now with seraph powers— in Chapter 5 of 20.
There are about a billion Iota androids. Our Iota is wise, funny, and cool. He’s Lu’s home-helper, and becomes a second caretaker to Solemn as well as their best friend. Iotas follow the Laws of Robots, so he can’t harm anyone nor assist in harming anyone. Because of this, later, when the villains’s fighter ships are trying to shoot down Solemn’s family with underdeveloped weapons (this is Heleia after all), they are unable to hit them because Iota is piloting the family’s ship and using his super-calculations to weave between ships and canons expertly. Stuff like that. Iota and Solemn have some really cool and touching moments, but I won’t spoil them in this post (maybe in another).
Tony is Lu’s husband and he’s a smart, compassionate, adorkable spaceship engineer who lives on the utopian planet Themis, where all his ambitions and dreams come true. He raised Lu’s and his son Daniel after both Tony and Daniel died a few months from each other on Earth. He’s got great dad energy, and he spends a good amount of time assisting in the plot and being a fun character.
There are smaller, supporting-role family members too.
Keep asking questions whenever you’re curious to know more! ♥
For English writing, this is wrong. I don’t know enough about Japanese tenses to know how it worked in the original (before translation). Per the comment by apis, it may offer immediacy, but it made me cringe while reading. Caveat: my mother was an English teacher and would never let me submit anything in this state. She would tell you to rewrite and if a sentence isn’t working, it is better to find another way to say it than keep struggling. Here, though, I would think it easier and less jarring to simply keep the past tense, like so :
It looked as though he meant to ride up. He didn’t seem to be fooling around. He was quite a bit older than the other child-demons. Maybe a junior high student.
For the next line, you could go one of several ways:
If he couldn’t tell the difference between an ascending and descending escalator, there must have been something seriously wrong with him.
Or (less authentic?):
I thought, “If he can’t tell the difference between an ascending and descending escalator, there must be something seriously wrong with him.”
Or (possibly clunky):
I thought that if he couldn’t tell the difference between an ascending and descending escalator, there must be something seriously wrong with him.
Here I’d think the dip into present tense is to create a sense of experiential immediacy as he gets into the flesh of the memory, then back to past tense where there is some cognitive distance from the situation.
This is quite common for athletes being interviewed. They will talk about the game in the past tense but discuss specific plays as if they are in the moment. Also every reality tv show has some of this. Where you will watch a scene spliced with the actor/participant discussing it as if it’s happening now.
I want to make appreciable progress in spite of the sometimes overwhelming feeling of imposter syndrome. Some days I’m happy with what I’m putting down but other days I’m Donnie hearing Walter telling me how out of my element I am and it’s a fight to keep from deleting what I’ve eked out. Those days, a series of notes for what to write on a better day looks like success; I want to believe others got through that struggle and that I will too.
On the bright side, I’ve been making my way through the latest round of research papers and technical documents I’m using as references.
My writing resolution was to simply put less pressure on myself to write “a thing” and to spend more time just writing. So far it is going well. Whether I want to write something that is only 3 paragraphs or 30 pages, I’m giving myself that freedom.
I wrote a cyber-punk short that ended up only being a few pages with a time-skip in the middle because I couldn’t figure out how write the middle part. Then I decided “it’s cyber-punk, everyone knows how the middle goes” and wrote the last bits instead. Not something that would be published but always trying to write something that would be publish-able is what stopped me from writing in the first place.
i’ve been playing on 4thewords for awhile now, and while i’m not super active in the forums, they are very, very active. it’s not free, but the subscription isn’t horribly expensive, and the artwork is to die for. you may even be able to see the forums without a subscription? i’m not entirely sure.
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