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Early results of the A.I. experiment are in and they are mixed. Unless the results improve significantly over time, I think I will only rely on A.I. for projects that I’m not overly invested in. As I mentioned, I have over 600 stories sitting around started but unfinished. These stories were promising but either didn’t maintain my interest long enough or I wrote myself into a corner I just couldn’t get out of and they became abandoned. For these stories where my heart isn’t invested, I feel A.I. - properly supervised - can bring some of them to a postable completion; granted, I may be wrong but we’ll see. For other projects, such as Runesward and the CAPable series, I will stick to the slow, tried-and-true method of actually writing every word.
Speaking of Runesward and CAPable:
With Runesward I’m stuck in an early piece of Tome 3 where I just can’t get the visualization to the point I’m happy. So, I’ve put the new book aside and am in the middle of doing some minor additions and re-writes to Tome 1 prior to offering it on ZBooks. I’ve gone back to my original notes and am filling out the story the way I first envisioned it. When I wrote it for SoL, I threw away some parts that added complexity but, I felt, slowed down the narrative. Some of this is getting added back in. The sex parts are getting revisited and, because much of the book features underaged sex, being moved offscreen or being implied instead of being explicit. I tried to find a way to ‘age’ the characters appropriately but I just couldn’t make it work. An example of what I mean by a ‘cut’ piece that I’m adding back in - Brother Dal appears in Tome 1 but I felt he was a weak character with no moral value to the story, so I didn’t write his role - I basically cut him. And then I went and used him in tome 2 without any background (except an explanatory section) because I needed him to be a bridge from the time of remembrance to the story. I think it worked okay, but I think the backstory in Tome 1 might improve it a bit. Once Tome 1 is finished, I will re-write parts of Tome 2, then finish Tome 3. I will then offer all 3 of them at ZBooks before I begin posting Tome 3 at SoL.
CAPable is … on hiatus. I’m stuck. I want the 3rd story to be different from books 1 and 2 and delve a bit more into Calix’s psyche now that he virtually died. The Calix that is coming is going to be significantly different than what has come before - I’m told near death experiences will do that to a person. So I have to marry my vision of what an unstoppable Espanto becomes when he nearly dies, with the Calix that has come before because I want the reader to understand the metamorphosis and not get the feeling this is a completely different character … and I’ve found that to be difficult to do.
Marry this with the fact that my RL job has become near impossible and …
I work on a computer all day. In the past, I could transition at the end of the day from work on a computer to pleasure on a computer - and writing is a pleasure, an escape, for me. As my job has grown harder and stress has skyrocketed … by the end of my work day, I don’t even want to SEE another computer.
So, please be patient. I’m getting there but it is slow going. I can’t give you a firm release date; I can only tell you I am working as quickly as my brain - and my sanity - will allow.
Thank you and God Bless.
The company I work for uses Artificial Intelligence extensively. I am often surprised about just how good - and how bad - it can be.
I have a fertile imagination. In my storage, I have probably over 600 stories I've outlined and started writing, but never finished. I'm pretty good at turning a plot - but it takes work and dedication to get the imagery and emotion just right. Often, by the time I get it right, I've run out of time for it and have to move on to another work project that pretty much sucks me dry. Then, the story languishes in my 'dead story' pile and I never get back to it.
Well, I had an idea two days ago that I knew I needed to write - but it was something I find kind of 'squicky' so I knew even if I did write it, it was not something I'd ever share. I knew that I'd start it but never end it and I figured that was probably the best thing for it. I was all set to ignore it when I thought about AI. As an experiment, I decided to see what A.I. could do with it.
Now, this wasn't easy. A.I. fucked my idea all to hell and back. It was good - but it wasn't my plot. So, I started over. I'm using https://perchance.org/ai-story-generator because, well, it's free and I don't really want to spend money on this experiment. It's actually pretty good - I describe the prompt I want to use for the next paragraph or two (or more) and then let it generate it. I go back, make changes where the story fell off the map (didn't make sense) and clean it up. Sometimes, what it generates is complete lunacy and I update my prompt to be more clear and then have the A.I. regenerate it.
This is a LOT of work - but A.I., using my prompt to set the scene and tone, is really good at generating colorful prose which I'm not good at. I'm good at directing the plot - which A.I. is not really good at. Match made in heaven or hell, I'm not sure which.
Plus Perchance can even make suggestions about where the plot should go from here - a feature I never used, but I did check and some of the suggestions were not bad.
So, I give you the 'Naughty Nolans'. A partially A.I. generated (I have to give myself *some* credit) story based on extensive plotting from yours truly. Please let me know what you think and whether I should continue the story once I finish posting it.
Thank you.
I'm in an enviable place. I'm closing in on retirement with a company for which I've worked for nearly the past quarter century. This means I'm at the upper end of pay for my work. Other than becoming a manager - and taking an actual pay cut - I can't advance further. (Well, there is one way - but I don't like the thought of selling my soul...)
I'm still writing, but it's hit or miss. I work on a computer all day, and my boss has decided that since he's paying me an exorbitant amount (that whole 'quarter century of good conduct' thing), he expects me to do the work of two or three other people. I don't mind, but by the end of the day, I'm sick of computers. This means I don't have much time for reading OR writing (though I have been buying a lot on Bookapy and reading on my tablet before bed).
I didn't hear Lazeez's news or about his struggles with the server hosting provider. Obviously, I disagree with his provider(s), but I understand his recalcitrance in taking a stand against them. No one wants to be David in a David and Goliath battle. Even worse, no one wants be seen as 'waging war' for what could be described as 'the porn industry'. Also, he's in an unenviable position of having to 'defend' what some consider child porn. We don't think written (and often unbelievably fantastical) depictions of sex between 14-18 year olds is child porn - but it looks like we're in the minority.
So, to meet the new requirements, I'll be looking through my library and - where I can - removing such depictions from my stories. If they go away, don't worry. I think I have most of them stored somewhere, and I'll post them again as I clean them up. Besides, going through them will help me clarify some grammar issues and maybe do some rewrites to improve them.
Today I wrapped up Tome 2 of Runesward. I'll be honest in that it didn't end quite where I wanted it to end - but it seemed a logical conclusion to this section of story. Tome 1 was about the journey to Hasp and all the different paths that lead there. Tome 2 was all about the journey to Callisto and some of those paths converging. Tome 3, to my mind, is the journey to the Elven city Muir'tiat'amorellen and a more in depth understanding of exactly who/what Yren really is - and where the gods, D'agowyn, Elves, Dwarves (oops! Spoilers!) and so on fit in. It will also begin to bring us face to face with what the Church of Tyln is. I can say no more without giving away some important clues - and half my fun is reading the theories the readers put together about what is really going on. Luckily, no one has figured it out yet - though some have come close.
In the meantime, I'm working on InCAPable. I had the story for the end of Calix's trilogy worked out in advance two or more years ago. Real Life™ just got too busy and I lost the path to writing for a bit (stupid Covid). Now, re-reading the notes I'd put together... I'm not happy with it. It doesn't advance Calix as a character... it's just more of the same. So, I'm in the middle of changing things and moving back to what Fairly CAPable was all about, at least to my mind. I'm partway through the new first chapter - even without completing my storyline notes - and I'm fairly enthused about it. It feels much better. As always, the ending is already 'written' (at least in my head) so I'm just trying to get from NOW to THEN.
I have a tendency of writing myself into a corner... frequently. Then, I have to take a few days to a few weeks off while I let the idea percolate in my head and try to figure a way out of it. This time, I'm going to try to do something different. When I write myself into a corner, I'm going to try changing stories.
While I considered a new, more poignant way to get Calix from NOW to THEN, I started on Runesward Tome 3. However, while I'm rather happy with Chapter 75 (it needs some tweaking yet), I hate what I did in Chapter 76 (it reads like an instruction manual - ugh!). While I'm trying to figure out a different approach in Runesward, I've started a new story I hope to finish tentatively titled From the Dead. I'm going to kind of round-robin these three, moving from one to the other as I get stuck or the mood hits me. The three are different enough, I think I can write the different points of view without overlap... if I can't, I'll go back to concentrating on one or the other.
Next, though, I need to begin reposting all of the chapters with all of the changes my crowd-source editors found. I will apologize in advance, but I've lost SOME/MANY edits people have made. I'll try to credit where I can, but if I don't list you it's not because I'm snubbing you but I've legitimately lost what you helped me with. I sincerely apologize.
Finally, I'm working on bringing some of my work to Bookapy. I have some stuff to do (my completely unartistic butt somehow needs to come up with covers!) but I hope to have some of them posted in the coming few months.
Thanks for reading!
Kenn Ghannon
Crowd-sourced editing worked very well for the first two Tomes. Thanks to my readers, my mish-mash of random words actually reads something like a story so I'm eternally grateful to them.
Unfortunately, the constant posting and updates for the changes and crowd-sourced bits was something that was difficult to implement and keep track of. Basically, it entailed a great deal of work. So, I didn't update Tome 2 at all - though I will start posting the updates soon.
What got lost, unfortunately, was who did what. This wasn't because I wanted to forget but rather because I didn't have a workable system until recently.
Unlike Tome 1, I didn't want to actually add to the end of every chapter in the master manuscript. It made going through the manuscript very difficult. It wasn't until recently (maybe chapter 60 or so) where I started adding them as comments to the master manuscript (before, I was keeping them inside the email box to go over afterwards - but I've found that is unworkable). As a result, I have not saved the changes made by my crowd-sourced editors for Tome 2 except for the last 10-15 chapters or so. So, I'm not going to include crowd-sourced edits in the final Tome 2. I only hope that my thankful email to everyone who has contributed will be enough thanks and recognition.
Moving forward, I will use the comment system to keep track of issues and problems found by the wonderful people who read my work. At the end of Tome 3, I will publish all of these corrections with attribution.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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