2001st Post!

This is my 2001st post! I missed post 2000 because I wrote in answer to one of WordPress’s prompts. But I’ve actually stuck to this for 2000 posts!

My first post was Calling All Creatives, and it had four views. I get a few more views now, but would still like more readership. My most popular post was an anniversary post which got 65 views. My 2000th post was on the prompt “My Most Valuable Lesson” today.

What have I learned from 2000 posts?

One doesn’t get to 2000 posts by deciding to get there; one keeps writing one at a time until it happens.
Posts are better with pictures.
Using the supplied prompts boosts number of readers, and some of them stay on as regular readers.
WordPress does a far better job of sorting out riff-raff than Blogger. I have no more links from webcam girls showing up in my feed.
I can’t predict which posts will become more popular.
Not every reader likes the post, but enough do.
2000 posts is a lot of posts.

Here’s to 2000 more posts!

No Motivation (again?)

I have written nothing substantial for almost three weeks. I am panicking.

Writing is my flow activity, yet I don’t feel like writing. I have no ideas possessing me; the item I was writing seems to have bogged down. I have briefly thought of putting the writing down, doubting my ability to write. Standing at a crossroads, I ponder the path I will take (and cringe at this sentence.)

I need to get motivated. I need something to write, something that captures my imagination, which seems to have gone on strike. Not necessarily to get another novel written; I have too many novels already. But just to write something.

I’ve gone through this before, haven’t I?

Working out a Rhythm

At the end of week 2 of classes, I am still trying to get a rhythm to my days so I can write.

Three out of four Monday afternoons I will have meetings. Fifty percent of Tuesday afternoons I will have meetings as well. Unless I start writing in the evenings, and I’m often too tired by then, I will not be writing on those days. That gives me late afternoons Wednesday-Friday most of the time.

I have a Saturday routine that’s working. That’s a start.

I’ll keep you posted. I miss my flow activity!

Role Frustration

I need to get back into the swing of writing now that the semester has settled in.I need to find something more compelling to write than the Kel and Brother Coyote sequel; it’s a lot of fun but it feels like I’m doing it just to fill time. I’m absolutely pantsing the story, ignoring the outline I made for it.

I feel like my professor role has usurped my writer role. I figure this will get better when I’m more acclimated to the current professing duties; it is, after all, only the second week of the semester.

I have weathered this before; I will again. The right book will find me. I will get into the swing of writing. I just have to keep telling myself this.

5000 Views on my Blog? 2000 Blog Posts? How Did I Do That?

Yesterday, WordPress announced to me that my blog has had over 5000 views. That seems like a really big number. Then again, I’m a little over a week away from my 2000th post. I don’t feel like I have written two thousand posts. (Note: I believe this number counts the blog posts I transferred over from Blogger when I first moved here.)

How did I do this? A little at a time, without thinking of the number at the end. I didn’t think “Oh, I only have 256 more posts to write before I hit 1000!” I just wrote daily, and they all added up. I think the same happens when I write a novel. I don’t set out to write 80,000 words. I write the story until I’m done, and then count the words.

I’m sure this is a metaphor for life. Don’t count the steps; just go where you need to and check your progress later. This contradicts everything I know about resource management, however. Numerical goals (like 2000 blog posts or 80,000 words or 10,000 steps) are easy to track, far better than “when it’s done”. The goal has to be set so that one can tell whether they’re on track or not. But they’re tedious.

When there’s a great distance to the goal, the numbers can be daunting. This is where time management advice for procrastinators comes into play: Break the task up into smaller chunks. So the 2000 blog posts can be 20 chunks of 100 posts. That’s more manageable. Or the 80,000 words can be several chapters of 3000 words (which is the length of a chapter in my writing).

So there’s my advice. Don’t let the big numbers scare you — focus on the little numbers. Keep repeating. And then, eventually, they add up to 80,000 or 5000 or 10,000.

NaNoWriMo and Generative AI

The controversy in the writing world currently is that the NaNoWriMo organization has issued a statement not only supporting use of generative AI in its events, but dismissing opposing viewpoints as ‘ableist’ and ‘classist’.

To understand the impact of this, let me start with NaNoWriMo. This organization sponsors a world-wide writing festival every November which encourages people to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Admittedly, 50k is somewhat short for today’s expectations of a novel, but it’s 50k more than most people feel they can write. In 2020, 383,064 people participated in NaNoWriMo, the latest statistic available (Wikiwrimo, 2024). For full disclosure, I have participated in NaNoWriMo for several years.

The issue with generative AI is more complicated. Not all AI is generative AI; that is, not all AI is used to generate or create content. The fear of writers is that generative AI creates content, and it creates it from the materials it’s been trained on, which are existing works. This goes beyond analyzing patterns in grammar use and spelling (which I would argue are acceptable) into creative aspects. In other words, training generative AI is mass plagiarism of ideas without crediting sources. An entity like NaNoWriMo supporting mass plagiarism of ideas seems antithetical to its principles.

In addition, artists and writers fear being replaced by the much cheaper generative AI. The quality of generative AI is not as good as the actual creations of human beings; but if generative AI takes over in commercial outlets, the public will become inured to lower quality. The loss of revenue to real live writers will become the loss of creativity to the wider world.

To address NaNoWriMo’s charge that opposing their approval of generative AI is classist and ableist, it is classist and ableist to assume that people with disabilities or of underrepresented social classes would need to use generative AI to compete in the marketplace of ideas. I suspect that the issue here is a lack of distinction between AI used to proofread and suggest grammar (such as in ProWritingAid, one of their sponsors) and the AI that creates entire segments or whole stories. I see a big difference between supporting a tool for improving form and a system for writing content. If this is NaNoWriMo’s dilemma, then they need to do some soul-searching and make a clear ethical statement as to where the line gets drawn between composition tools and content creation.

This is where I am in my ethical processing of the issue, that use of AI for translation, proofreading, or grammar correction is not at the same level as AI to generate ideas and content. The former is predicated on objective rules; the other on skimming subjective creative works. My struggle to define what is permissable is the struggle of the entire society in dealing with AI.

Wikiwrimo (2024). NaNoWriMo statistics. Available: https://www.wikiwrimo.org/wiki/NaNoWriMo_statistics#cite_note-3 [September 3, 2024].

Publication Dates Announced

Both my books for publication are ready to be published. They’re sitting on KDP waiting only for their publication dates. I will release Kringle Through the Snow on October 1, just in time for falling into your Christmas romance TBR pile. Kringle Through the Snow involves an event planner with a secret dealbreaker, a self-professed nerd with a big dog, and a high-class gala with the Grinch. And, of course, snow.

Reclaiming the Balance, a Hidden in Plain Sight novel, will be published on January 1st. I use the New Year as publication dates for this series (even though I could release it today) because of some sort of superstition on my part. This novel concerns Janice, a sculptor who flees her immortal ex-boyfriend with the help of Amarel, an androgynous Nephilim. The two face prejudice from the open-minded people of Barn Swallows’ Dance as they attempt to liberate Janice’s Nephilim son from her ex.

The e-books are available for pre-order; not so much the paperbacks.

Learning Curve

Yesterday, I put together the cover for Reclaiming the Balance, and it only took me an hour.

This used to be the hardest part of putting out a book. That was back when I didn’t know a thing about Photoshop (the program where I lay out my book covers). There were various parts of the process which stymied me: Highlighting text, working with layers, making some of the writing go down the spine.

Now I remember how to do those, and I made quick work of the cover. I will tweak the cover to make sure that the bleed (the overrun on the edges) doesn’t take out any important parts of the illustration and to align the spine. But it’s mostly completed.

It’s reassuring to know that the hard tasks will not always remain difficult and that I can learn new tricks. I am, after all, an old dog.

Avoiding Plagiarism

I was joking about the concept of Chekhov’s gun the other day, with the example of a cat that showed up early in the action and then turns around to save the day. That, in a phrase, is Chekhov’s cat.

Looking up Chekhov’s cat, I discovered that someone had gotten to the joke before me, a writer on Tumblr named The Bibliomancer, on a blog by the same name (The Bibliomancer, 2023, Nov. 10). They define Chekhov’s cat as when a cat appears in the story, it will play an important role later.

It’s important that we credit the original thought of others with citations, such as what I’ve done above. I use American Psychological Association citation style here in addition to a linkback to the original site. Blogs generally use the linkback, but I want to make sure the originator gets the full credit, so I use academic citation style. The full citation will be at the bottom of this page.

I have been the victim of plagiarism. Once, I gave a colleague an assignment of mine as a guideline for structuring her own homework in a class; she published it as her own without giving me any credit. I still seethe over it, twenty-eight years later, because she stole an idea from me by not crediting me.

I think we on the Internet need to credit the sources we use to make our content. That way, maybe people will cite us.

The Bibliomancer (2023, Nov. 10). Chekhov’s Cat. Available on Tumblr: https://thebibliomancer.tumblr.com/post/733615519135039489. [August 28, 2024].

Contractual Obligation

I don’t want to break my 52-day writing streak, so I feel obligated to write a short note. Day 2 of the fall semester and I feel like I’ve been at it for a week. It has been a busy day today; I was on task for six hours straight. Finally, I have nothing on my plate^* and I feel a bit let down.

Is work a flow activity? Despite the fact that I got things done like a boss^**, I felt like most of my tasks didn’t engage my mind optimally. Teaching is a flow activity most days. Answering emails is not. Revising documents is not. Not everything can be a flow activity!

I’m not feeling like writing right now. My brain is tired and not feeling really creative right now. I’ll sit with my work and see if I feel like I can engage.

Scottish straight baby cat on pink background, closeup

^* This is another Americanism for my foreign readers. To have nothing on one’s plate is to have finished all one’s tasks for the day. It’s a good thing.

^** “Like a boss” is another Americanism. It’s pretty self-explanatory; it’s also a good thing.