September 2022

I am watching the movie Gaia, while working on this month's post. It's a spooky fungus-based eco-horror and good so far. Not good for focusing on writing, but it works well enough.

This month I finished my short story about AI and bots. It came in at about 16,000 words. It's the first story I actually purposefully outlined and created characters based on some of the writing advice from the books I've been reading. 

I was able to pause in between writing sessions... I could just write whenever. That was a bit freeing. I didn't feel locked in because as I was writing if I wanted to change something I had outlined, I just did it and then adjusted the outline. Now that I'm typing this, I think it went really well and will do it again. Hopefully, when I reread the story, I still like it. 

I read Stephen Graham Jones Last Final Girl and struggled with the style. It was written as someone describing a slasher film. I had a hard time with the flow. 

I'm reading My Best Friends Exorcist by Grady Hendrix. I'm digging it so far. 80's references are spot on, and I'd be interested in someone's take who didn't grow up in the 80s. I'm also reading Stephen King's new book, Fairy Tale, on a Kindle because I will never read a physical copy of a Stephen King book again. I won't do it. Those books are too big and unruly. If I fall asleep reading one and drop it on my face, I die. Not worth the risk. The only critique of the book so far... the 17-year-old kid uses words no kids would use...  Call things like money greenbacks... It's good, though. In classic Stephen King form, I am flying through it.

This week I am trying to decide what short story to read at Adult Scary Story night at Quiet City Books on October 21st. Picked up The Albatross by Anthony D Farr, another writer who'll be reading along with Emma J. Gibbon, the writer of Dark Blood Comes From the Feet, and Lexx Ducharme, the writer of An Uncanny Madness. All of the books, including my own, can be picked up at Quiet City. 

That's it for this month. Below are some pictures to feed the google algorithm and AI stuff.

(This image was taken at night - not run through any AI program)


Here's a fun one. There is a graveyard next to the office I work at. I have been walking there on my breaks for many years. Sometime in the past three years, one of the giant trees died and fell over, leaving a giant rotted stump. 

I was walking by the other day and noticed it was covered in mushrooms and mardi gras beads. It was odd, so I took a picture.

Then I wondered what Dall-E 2's AI would make of the words "Mardi gras beads draped over a large tree stump covered in mushrooms," and it wasn't far off.

 


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