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.