Chapter 2 of my story, Phoenix Academy, is out now. The first one was just escape, the second begins to show us the strangeness: royalroad.com/fiction/109929/p…
Hey, if you, like me, are a US citizen who's had your books/stories/articles stolen by Meta to train AI, you can submit your name to the class action suit using this easy contact form for one of the law firms involved:
I wrote something a bit experimental. A story set in a world without planning, hierarchy, coercion; where decisions are made in the moment. It's a little weird, but someone may like it.
I've been fiddling around a lot with a local copy of DeepSeek-r1. I've come across a lot of limitations and things it can't do, but that's not what I'm here for today.
There's something LLMs are surprisingly good at. Workshopping stories. That is to say, formal criticism, editting, and so on.
Why this, retrospectively, makes sense. It's an actual pure language task. The system doesn't need to know very much about the world, but about how words come together. Hallucinations, if they ever arise, are not a significant problem, since they are obvious within the secondary world of the story being worked on.
In this sense, they can be used like a sort of more potent thesaurus, (give me three ways to say this).
Other useful things. Finding dialogue beats (all the cinematographic-style frowning, blinking, etc). That's especially hard for me as someone who can't see body language.
Refining snappy dialogue, keeping to the voice of a character. This is surprisingly successful. It really helps detecting dialogue that doesn't work and, if you're willing to let it write for you, it can come up with some wicked lines.
Structural criticism. Pacing, conflict, plot holes, uniqueness of character voices. Finding cliches.
Finding problems. Why is it a bad idea if my character does x? Does it make sense psychologically for my character to do y?
The most important aspect is, you don't have to agree with it, but it's still useful. It gives very fast feedback onr your text, obviously not as good as a real editor, but better than you can get rubberducking. Occasionally it will say stupid stuff, and you ignore it and move on.
I realise for many people using LLMs in their creative project is anathema. I understand and respect that. For me, it's not like that. Writers have been using tools forever: dictionaries, thesaurus, concordances, reference works... Why is it suddenly bad if the answer comes out of this tool instead?
Anyway, the immediate feedback turns out to be a huge thing for me. I'm able to write a lot faster by getting the illusion (and I am well aware it is an illusion) that someone has read my text.
My favourite part of this interview? Hmmm...maybe this?
Vikander: What did you learn about craft while writing this, your first book?
De Garis: Craft is a conversation with your materials. It can’t be hurried. It requires attention, patience, and humility. Writing also taught me that craft resists capitalism—not just in theory but in practice. Eighteen months of work for £1250 made that point clearer than any philosophical argument.
I wanted to share with you a conversation that I had with journalist, therapist, broadcaster and editor extraordinaire Svea Vikander. I know Svea well and, like all of us, I am most compelling on any subject when I am comfortable.
🤔 it's not just me right. There really are WAYYYY fewer black protagonists in published books… Right?
Again. Representation matters. It's important for marginalized people to see themselves in stories.
It's important for non-marginalized people too read about non-marginalized people they won't encounter in everyday life so that they can be sympathetic and understanding of them when they do encounter them or issues related to them.
Applied African Science Fiction (SF) is a project funded by Imperial College London that, together in collaboration with the University of Nairobi, the African Speculative Fiction Society, Vector a…
I maintain writing projects (they're text documents, not code) in Git repositories. Some of them are collaborative, leading to pull requests from other contributors. I have found using Git's --word-diff option to be especially valuable in reviewing proposed changes word-by-word rather than line-by-line. The -U0 option suppresses context lines from the output, making it easier to review. The documents are typically written with one line per paragraph. The formats vary, but may be any of Markdown, LaTeX or HTML, depending on the situation and on whether it's a personal project or collaborative. #Git #collaboration #writing #MarkupLanguages
Their links lead people away from your site and back to Google. Because that’s definitely what you want, right? That’s why you have a blog or portal or web site or whatever. You want people to leave your site and go back to Google.
Oh, it’s not?
If you don’t like it, you can “Opt out.” Opting out is a pain in the ass. Here’s where you go to do it. You have to enter every variation of each of your domains or it won’t work. It will take up to 30 days, during which time Google will continue to pollute your work and your writing and your website with their modifications and their added links to take people away from your site and back to themselves.
For example, here’s the list of what I need to opt-out just for this one blog: solarbird.nethttp://solarbird.nethttps://solarbird.netwww.solarbird.nethttp://www.solarbird.nethttps://www.solarbird.netweb.solarbird.nethttp://web.solarbird.nethttps://web.solarbird.net Yes, you explicitly have to file no prefix, http:, and https: variants separately. They say so.
Making it difficult like this is 100% intentional and entirely designed to make it as annoying as possible, and also, to make sure you slip up if at all possible and forget one or more combinations.
(Tho’ I am just going to depreciate web. as a prefix right now, to bring down the load a little. Still gonna list ’em, though, because spite is why.)
Right now it’s only in the Google app for iOS and it’s probably a test to see whether they can get away with it without complaint, and how much revenue it generates. Let’s make that a combination of no and as close to zero as possible. Because otherwise they’ll roll it out everywhere, and probably derank you if you don’t go along.
To opt out of this annotation feature for pages , fill out the following fields. The Page Annotation feature triggered on your site will be disabled within 30 days after you submitting this form. You only need to submit it once.
Evidence of oldest known alphabetic unearthed in Syrian dig. The writing, which is dated to around 2400 BCE, precedes other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years, upending what archaeologists know about where alphabets came from, how they are shared across societies, and what that could mean for early urban civilizations… #Writing #Language #Script #Archeology #Anthropology #CulturalGeography hub.jhu.edu/2024/11/21/ancient…
Hello #writers of the world! With #NaNoWriMo approaching, I wanted to create a space for like-minded people to gather and share ideas, progress, encouragement, and accountability. I've created a Discord server for writers of any kind, be that novelists, poets, coders, content writers, etc. Anyone is welcome to join and hang out with us. We have text channels for casual and topic-based conversation, as well as voice channels for various topics including one for body-doubling. You're even welcome to join if you aren't a writer but enjoy reading/helping others with their projects. If this sounds like a place you might like to be, please join. :) discord.gg/hYtPBcCZ33 #writing #nanowrimo2024 #amwriting
I've just launched my new BT Projects blog! Here you will find posts on a wide range of topics, from tech to other miscellaneous things I choose to write about. There is currently only one post up, but one which I have had a lot of requests for, how to make Windows work better post setup. Note however that this post is an initial draft; it could be updated in the future but I felt ready to put what I have out there! Enjoy! btprojects.samtupy.com/blog/ Note also that this is not yet set up on the home page, this will be updated shortly. #blog #tech #writing
I always said I'd ride the dictionary train until the terminus; the train will pull into the station April 30, which is my last day at dictionary.com.
What a magical and unlikely career this has been.
VocalEye Almost Live host Amy Amantea is joined by blind, gay, disabled author of fiction and non-fiction, Robert Kingett.
Robert returns to the Almost Live space to share a sampling of his own short stories from a variety of genres including romance, sci-fi and fantasy.
0:00 -- Title card intro 1:10 -- Land Acknowledgement 4:20 -- Pre-show Introduction with Amy and Fiona 13:50 -- Pointy Chances 43:39 -- A Deserving Conference 1:22:53 -- Super Date 1:49:50 -- Conversation and Q&A with Amy and Robert
I am glad to finally get the courage to share blogs! So here is mine, a blog that has two blogs. But you get it. rant.li/apple-in-bulgarian/ and rant.li/thesystem/ The system, because a reference to Blakes7 #Blakes7 It's great! The other blog is aimed primarily at Bulgarian users but if you would like to translate and read the page, go on. #blogging #blog #writing I am new to this, so bare with me, please. It is enough I decided to share. I'll be fixing the CSS soon, hopefully, but I need to get my exams out of the way first.
Download and add the Not By AI badge to showcase your AI-free & human-first approach to content creation (writings, art, photos, paintings, videos, and music)
Produced by WBEZ in Chicago, this clip from the Mortified event in 2021 showcases an essay Robert Kingett wrote in the second grade about how old people can save the world by paying their taxes.
Mortified is a show where people showcase their most embarrassing art on stage they made when they were children.
Robert Kingett is an author and you can find him online at robertkingett.com
[ETA: Lots of folks saying this is fake. It could be, yes. But I know many authors, especially women authors, especially romance authors, who get treated exactly this way over their "silly little books."
"Enough small biz money to pay the bills" is serious business, no matter what the business is.]
My favorite outcome so far: a student remarked (paraphrasing here) that she didn’t realize how much she had to say in her paper until she saw how wrong the AI was, how much it missed the point.
Observing her own reaction to BS about her topic made her realize she’d underestimated the extent of her own newly-forming knowledge. That…that is the sort of outcome an educator dreams of.
Italo Calvino was born today (10/15) in 1923. A good day to read some of his stuff then later name drop in your own writing! "The heavily illustrated Magical Rites from the Crystal Well was my favorite even if the numerous guided meditations did make it seem as if Italo Calvino was your Dungeon Master." #quotes #writing
Once upon a time, there was a community called Little Details on LiveJournal. It was a place where fiction writers of all kinds could ask for help with their fact-checking and research. It was a huge, amazing resource before the collapse of LiveJournal took it down.
I recently decided to try resurrecting it on Dreamwidth. It's now open and ready for questions. Come check it out, and boost if you're so inclined!
This seems like a good time to plug my new novel. The Poisoned Chalice is Book 4 in the Sempronius Scipio series. This one covers the bloody events of the Year of Six Emperors, so Scipio has his work cut out, especially as he has to contend with devious Senators, murderous assassins & angry soldiers led by a vengeful Emperor. The book is available from Amazon in paperback & Kindle formats. #HistoricalFiction #Rome #Writing #Books
this was a very interesting read! although us-centric, the same effect can be seen all around the world, as literature programs in so many countries are modeled after the trends arriving from the usa. so give it a read, even if you hate us politics.
executive summary for writers: don't just fucking show, but also TELL!!!
This being @SAPIENS_org, it is well thought through, fully supportive of trans folks and focused on debunking some of the #myths that the right perpetuate.
I'm really pleased to see serious #academic #writing focused on supporting trans folks. Will the right wing read this? Probably not. Will people who are unaware of the attacks trans folk experience every day read this? Quite probably. Will it help to increase understanding, empathy and allyship? I sincerely hope so.
Wow, the ethics of this seem dubious to me… but also kind of fascinating as an outsider looking in - How Kindle novelists are using ChatGPT / An interview with an AI early adopter theverge.com/23520625/chatgpt-… #AI #writing
