IWSG: Writing While Distracted

Welcome to May! I hope you're enjoying the spring flowers if they're still around. (Spring seems to be coming earlier and earlier.) With the start of another month, we have another post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them on their website and Facebook. 

Our hosts this month are Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon, and Catherina Constantine.

Here's our question for this month: How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

As a working parent, I don't have much time to write. That means I have to make the most of sub-optimal writing time, when there are other things going on around me. I've had to write while waiting for my son to be done with an activity or write in places where people think it's OK to talk to me while I'm obviously got my tablet open. So yes, I do face a lot of distractions, but how problematic they are depends on the situation. If I'm already having trouble getting into the POV or I'm not sure what to say next, distractions become even more distracting. If I do manage to get into a state of writing flow, then it's easier to tune out distractions. 

As far as actively trying to manage distractions while writing, I do this by controlling my environment when possible. Sometimes working at a familiar location or picking music that works as background noise helps. Other times, deliberately going somewhere to write, such as to a library or a coffee shop, makes me feel like I have to be more productive to justify the trip. Putting in extra effort helps me focus more.

What are your tips for dealing with distractions? Free free to share your tips in the comments. 

IWSG: Blogging History

T.S. Eliot may have thought April the cruelest month, but I've always been fond of it. (I'm biased, since my birthday is at the end of the month.) In addition to bringing better weather, April brings us another blog post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Here's their website and Facebook page. 

Our hosts this month are Janet Alcorn, T. Powell Coltrin, Natalie Aguirre, and Pat Garcia.

This month, we've been asked to discuss blogging. Specifically, "How long have you been blogging? What do you like about it and how has it changed?"

I started this blog back in 2005, soon after getting married. At first, it was a way to keep in touch with some of my college friends who were also bloggers. Gradually, it morphed into a writing blog, though I do still post personal news on here occasionally. I enjoyed blogging the most when I was using it to connect with other writers. I'm still Facebook friends with some of the writers that I met through blog chains or the Blog Ring of Power. I've participated in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge several times. At my peak, I was blogging Monday-Friday regularly; now, I'm down to monthly posts. Life's gotten busier since 2005, since I'm now a parent. What writing time I do have I prefer to devote to my stories, especially the ones that have taken over my brain. Perhaps there will come a day when I drop this blog completely and focus on other social media sites. If that happens, I'll be sure to make sure people can still find me online.

What's your blogging history? Feel free to share in the comments.

IWSG: AI and Writing

Welcome to the March 2024 post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them on their website and Facebook page.

Our hosts this month are Kristina Kelly, Miffie Seideman, Jean Davis, and Liz@Middle Passages.

Here's our question for the month: Have you "played" with AI to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI's impact on creative writing? 

The last time we discussed AI for the IWSG, I posted a photo showing how Google had mined this copyrighted blog for its AI. I was neither credited nor compensated. Granted, my blog was a minuscule contribution, but it's the principle of the thing. AI has been developed using stolen intellectual property, and I personally don't believe anyone should support it or the capitalists foisting it on us heedless of the human consequences. 

As for AI's impact on creative writing, I don't like it. (No surprise there.) AI still lags human creativity when it comes to novelty. Using AI for creative writing demeans the process. Yes, it can be frustrating staring at a blank page or having to discard words you worked hard to write, but but without the frustrations, there are no rewards to writing. I'm always thrilled when my subconscious comes up with scenes that connect in ways I didn't intentionally plan. Writing "the end" is a fantastic high, as is hearing from readers who connect with your work. On some of my social media sites, I see memes circulating that readers don't want to read something no one cared enough about to write. AI can be trained to imitate an author's voice, but it can't develop a voice of its own. All creative people should stand together and support each other in our creative endeavors. We don't just do it for money; we do it to become the best versions of ourselves.

 How do you feel about AI? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

Keeping the Fun in Writing

(This post was supposed to go live at the end of January, but I saved it as a draft instead of publishing it. Apologies for the inconvenience. I did manage to finish the story I mention below.)

It occurred to me recently that this year marks the 30th anniversary of my first attempt to write a novel (at least, I'm pretty sure it was in 1994 during an internship.) I actually still have a paper copy of that draft, though it's destined for the shredder. While my writing career is nowhere near what I thought it would like at this point in my life, at least I'm still writing. I think the advent of indie publishing has a great deal to do with that. It's encouraging to know I can always make my work available to readers. I also have the freedom to experiment. Right now, I'm finishing up a Good Omens fan fiction story that's told in present tense, which is something I don't normally use in my other stories. It's an alternative universe story, which means that I've changed a major premise while still writing with the same characters. This allows me to take the characters in vastly different directions and do crazy things with them. It's fun to write, and I'm getting comments that readers enjoy it. Hopefully at some point, I'll return to my Season Avatars, solarpunk, and cozy mystery stories as well. That's why I always wanted to be a full-time writer: so I can work on all the projects I want to write!

Have you gone through periods where you didn't want to write? What keeps writing fun for you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

IWSG: Writer Websites

Here we are at February and another post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them at their website or Facebook page. 

Our hosts this month are Janet Alcorn, SE White, Victoria Marie Lees, and Cathrina Constantine.

Here's our question for the month: What turns you off when visiting an author's website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author's books? Constant mention of books?

My least favorite thing about visiting website isn't listed above or unique to author websites. It's a popup that appears as soon as I enter the website. I'm not going to sign up for a newsletter until I've had a chance to view the website and decide if I'm interested, so I'll always remove the popup. To be honest, I don't pay much attention to the newsletters I'm subscribed to. (I'm not good about sending out newsletters anyway; even when I do, they generate more unsubscribes than sales.) As a reader, I mainly want to know when the author's next book is coming out so I can preorder it if I'm interested.

Let's turn the question around: what motivates you to look at author websites in the first place? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

 

 

 

Juggling Multiple POVs

I'm close to finishing a story with three different points of view. When I started it, I didn't intend for it to have three different POVs, just one, but the other two became necessary as I wrote. What's interesting is how the POVs ended up interacting with each other. Character A narrates the first seven chapters of the story before Character B relates what happened to him while the two were separated. B's longest stretch is four chapters. Then there's a stretch where A takes over most of the story until Chapter 21, where halfway through the story, Character C enters. C is a secondary character, but they are involved in several significant events that the other two aren't present for. Once all three characters are split up, I make a deliberate effort to rotate narration among all three of them, with each one getting a separate chapter. At the climax, I give each character a short scene in each chapter. Character C's arc will end before A's and B's. I'm just trying to figure out the right emotional pitch for their final scene. 

When juggling multiple viewpoints in a single story, do you try to give all of them equal weight, or do some characters get more scenes than others? What factors into your narration decisions? Feel free to discuss in the comments. In the meantime, I've got to work on my current chapter.

Solarpunk Creatures and Equity Assurance

Today is the book birthday of the Solarpunk Creatures anthology by World Weaver Press. You can learn more about it here. The eBook is currently $4.99 and will be at that price until the end of January. Special credit should go out to the editors:

Christoph Rupprecht Mastodon: @focx@scholar.social Twitter: @focx
Deborah Cleland Bluesky: @patchworkdeb@bsky.social Mastodon: @debisda@aus.social
Melissa Ingaruca Moreno Instagram: mel_ingaruca
Norie Tamura Twitter: @tamura_norie
Rajat Chaudhuri Bluesky: @rajatchaudhuri@bsky.social Instagram: @rajatchaudhuri Twitter: @rajatchaudhuri

I have a short story in this anthology called "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park." The story is about the relationship between an escaped parrot and the crow that freed him, as the parrot is accepted as part of the crow's family. The parrot's former owner is a biologist who helps create and administer a bird flu vaccine. One of the people she speaks to during the story is an equity assurer, which is a new job I created for the solarpunk genre. Hopefully this is a concept that can be applied in real life.

My day job is in quality assurance. Specifically, I work for an enzyme company that produces food-grade enzymes, and I help implement our food safety system. Although enzymes are used in small amounts during food production, it's important that they not contain any pathogens, undeclared allergens, or foreign material that may harm the consumer. We follow a food safety code that is the basis of our policies and procedures. We keep many records to prove that that we are following our procedures, and we also have corrective and preventative actions we take when there is a problem. Every year, an outside auditor comes to our facility to review our system and make sure we meet the requirements of the code we follow. (This year, it will be an unannounced audit, meaning it can happen any time in a two-month period.) By passing this audit, my company obtains a certificate demonstrating to our customers that our product is safe. It's a lot of work, but it's worth it to prevent food-related illnesses.

I think we need a similar system to insure everyone has the resources they need to not just survive, but thrive. Income equality in the United States has grown dramatically in the past few decades while our social safety nets have been removed or made less helpful. This isn't good for the long-term survival of our society or our environment. We need to transition away from exploitative capitalism and toward doughnut economics. (Basically, we have to work within the boundaries of our resources to eliminate poverty while not exceeding the capacity of our environment.)

Equity assurance would have two major components: a collection of codes or guidelines communities (ranging from an apartment complex to towns or even nations) would follow for equitable resource distribution, and local equity assurers who are responsible for making sure that people get the resources they need. (I use "equity" instead of "equality" because everyone has different needs. Sometimes distributing resources equally doesn't help everyone equally. See here for a more complete discussion of this issue.) This could mean obtaining gluten-free food for someone with celiac disease; education, assistance, and baby supplies for a family with a newborn; or the right medicine or equipment to help sick, elderly, or disabled individuals. It can mean helping children get a good education and opportunities to develop their talents as well as people getting the right amount of social interaction.

These two branches of equity assurance aren't new. We have examples of people throughout history who have sought to help others meet their needs, and we have systems like Medicare and Social Security to give resources to those who need it. What I want to emphasize with a term like "equity assurance" is the need to make this care for others a core value of our society. When you adopt a food safety system at a company, it becomes the basis for everything you do. We need this for our society. We also need to maintain this system. Without people to monitor the day-to-day aspects of this system, things can go wrong. We need to make sure this system works and figure out ways to fix it when it doesn't.

Anyway, I plan to make equity assurance a theme in any more solarpunk stories I write. I did write another short story last year that featured equity assurance, but I haven't found a home for it yet. Establishing equity assurance for the world is certainly a long-term project, but one we need to pursue.

Writing Goals 2024

As I try to finish my current work in progress, I thought I should consider what projects I want to work on in the coming year. I've mentioned before how obsessed I've become with the Good Omens show on Amazon. I'm currently writing an alternative universe story with the Good Omens characters for the Archive of Our Own website. There are at least two more stories that I want to write in that setting. This is the kind of story that won't leave me alone, so the only way to "cure" myself of it is to write it down. Unfortunately, once I write a story in one setting, I get more story ideas. Currently there are two more Good Omens stories I want to write (three, if I include writing an alternate version of an event I already wrote about.)

If I can ever get back to my own original projects, I still have my third cozy mystery to finish and two projects in the fantasy Season Avatars universe (a short story collection and a novel starting a sequel series). I haven't decided yet if I want to enter the annual solarpunk short story contest run by Grist.org. I have a couple of possible ideas, but nothing's fleshed out yet.

No matter what projects I choose to work on, there's plenty to keep me busy this year. Do you have any writing goals for the year? If so, what are they?

IWSG: 2023 Books in Review

Welcome to 2024! I hope it's a good year for you. Since this is the first Wednesday of the year, it's also the first Insecure Writer's Support Group post for the year.  Learn more about the IWSG on their website and Facebook page.

Our hosts this month are Joylene Nowell Butler, Olga Godim, Diedre Knight, and Natalie Aguirre.

I'm skipping the proposed question this month (it has to do with following people through Bookbub, which isn't something I do) to bring you my 2023 reading year in review, courtesy of Goodreads. You can see my books here. My original goal was 175 books, which I temporarily raised to 200 books before lowering it to 170 books. I ended up with 171 books. Goodreads does list book collections as a single item, so the total number of books I read is actually higher. My genre breakdown is slightly off (I think I missed a couple of rows when I went through the list), since it only adds up to 161 (the missing 10 are probably more mysteries):

Fantasy: 27

Science Fiction: 8

Mystery (including fantasy mysteries): 87

General Fiction: 5

Non-Fiction: 34

Here are some of my favorite books I read this year:

The Last Days of the Dinosaurs

Kindred

A Mirror Mended

Justice for Animals

Outlive

That Self-Same Metal

For 2024, I'm lowering my goal to 150 books. The reason I'm doing that is because I would like to stretch myself and read a wider genre. I enjoy cozy mysteries and can find many of them offered for free or for a reasonable price, but I would like more incentive to read more non-fiction books and more books on my to-read lists. I belong to a local book club and a Good Omens book club on a Discord server, so hopefully they'll help me find books I wouldn't normally read.

If you track your reading, how many books do you read each year? Did you have a favorite book? Feel free to share your answers in the comments.

IWSG: Reviews and Kudos

 

It's time for the final Insecure Writer's Support Group post for 2023. You can learn more about the IWSG on their website or Facebook page.

Our hosts this month are C. Lee McKenzie, JQ Rose, Jennifer Lane, and Jacqui Murray.

Here's our question for December: Book reviews are for the readers. When you leave a book review, do you review for the Reader or the Author? Is it about what you liked and enjoyed about your reading experience, or do you critique the author?

As an author, it's hard for me to read as a pure reader, especially since I spent many years reviewing other people's work in an online writing workshop. This is part of the reason I seldom write reviews. I worry any comments might be perceived as critique and might invite retaliation by other authors. I mostly use Goodreads to track what books I read and occasionally to read other people's reviews.

I do make an exception for fan fiction. Fanfic writers write not for profit, but to share their passion with their community. Kudos and comments are a key motivator for fanfic authors, so I do feel obligated to leave them. Any comments I make are about the reading experience; comments aren't the place to critique the author.

Do you review other authors? If so, what's your reviewing approach? Feel free to share more in the comments.

Olga Ulbrich, 1932-2023

Sometimes things are happening beneath the surface that you don't see until it's too late. We found that out the hard way this month. My mother, Olga Ulbrich, was admitted to the hospital in late October for dehydration. A couple of days later, we found out that she had Stage 4 liver cancer. It had already metastasized from elsewhere in her body, but we never found out where it had started. She was admitted to hospice on November 11th and passed away on November 19th. She was 91. Here's a link to the funeral notice; her obituary hasn't been added as of the time I'm writing this post. Attached is a photo of my mother from when I was a baby. She's on the right; my aunt is on the left, and my great-grandmother is holding me in the center.

Although I'll probably post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group next week, I plan to take the next few weeks off. My final post for 2023 will cover my reading challenge.

Gods of Writing and Stories

A recent show on Disney Plus (I don't want to identify it in case of spoilers) saw one of the characters become the God of Stories. In this situation, the god took on responsibility for maintaining the multiverse, allowing a multitude of stories and different lives to flourish. I really like this idea because in my Season Avatars universe, there is a goddess who calls Herself the Grandmother of Stories. She is one of the primary gods of the Hidden Archipelago, but Her interest in stories draws Her to events around the world so She can witness historical events. (She not only provides story recaps for the reader but also appears in the climax of the series.) The Goddess of Stories grants Her Avatars gifts with language and public speaking, and one of them will feature in the next book in this setting (it's tentatively called Avatars Abroad.)

Inspired by the show and my work, I tried to come with an actual god or goddess of stories from mythology. I'm not sure there's one devoted specifically to storytelling. The Egyptian god Thoth is associated with writing; when I visited the British Museum in 2006, I brought back a small statue of Thoth (pictured) and offered him my leftover English money. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough of a sacrifice to jumpstart my writing career, but there are plenty of other gods also associated with language and/or intelligence (see this list from Wikipedia.) The Greek Muses are probably the best known goddesses associated with creativity, but plenty of other pantheons acknowledge the importance of creativity. Here's one such list. It includes Hindu and Japanese deities in addition to some of the more well-known ones. 

Do you have a "patron muse?" (As a Beatles fan, I consider John Lennon my muse since he also was a writer.) Can you think of any other deities who might be a god or goddess of stories? If so, feel free to share in the comments.

Old Story Drafts/New Tumblr Account

The other day, while I was looking for a document, I came across old printed drafts of some of my novels. I even found a copy of the very first novel I attempted to write. I used to save drafts as ways to prove I was the original author of my work. However, most of the stories (except the first one) have been published, often in versions quite different from the drafts I've saved. I've glanced at lines here and there, but I don't intend to hold on to these drafts anymore. I intend to shred them when I have time. I also found some poems I wrote in high school. Some of them make me cringe now, but a couple of them weren't too bad. I'm not sure what else to do with them, so I might publish them on my Tumblr account. If you use it, I'm smua70 there.

Do you keep printed copies of your old drafts? Why or why not? Feel free to share in the comments.

IWSG: NaNoWriMo

How is it November already? With a new month comes a new post for the Insecure Writer's Support Group. Learn more about them on their website and Facebook page.

Our hosts this month are PJ Colando, Jean Davis, Lisa Buie Collard, and Diedre Knight.

Here's our question for November: November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?

For those who might not be familiar with NaNoWriMo, it's an annual challenge to write 50,000 words of a new work in thirty days. This requires an average of 1,667 words per day. I've participated twice, once in 2007 (when my son was still a baby; I figured it was a good way to kickstart my writing again), and in 2010. Although I hit my writing goal both times, I never finished either novel. For me, writing at that speed doesn't produce quality work. I suppose I could try to find those drafts and revise them, but I have so many other projects that it's unlikely to happen. I currently have three different stories in progress, though one is consuming much more mental space than the other two and therefore devours most of my writing time.

To those who are participating in NaNoWriMo, I wish you luck and offer you this tip: try writing on your phone. Save your work in cloud storage so you can access it anywhere on any device. I write in Word, so I have the Microsoft 365 app on my phone. Although writing on my phone does occasionally introduce extra spaces and odd characters into my work, I can fix those errors when I'm on my laptop. A phone is much more portable than a laptop or even a tablet.

Time to end this blog post and return to my story. If you're participating in NaNoWriMo, feel free to share a description of your work in the comments. 

 

Restaurants and Revenge: Full Cover Reveal

Just a quick post today to share the full paperback cover for Restaurants and Revenge:

 

 

 

 The actual file was too big to load properly, so I had to take a photo of it. I've ordered a paper proof of the book, so hopefully the paper version will go on sale next month.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solarpunk Creatures Cover Reveal!

I'm blogging early this week to participate in the cover reveal for the Solarpunk Creatures anthology by Worldweaver Press. (I'll update this post with more information once their blog announcement goes live.) 

I have a short story being published in this anthology; it's call "The Colorful Crow of Web-of-Life Park." It's about an escaped parrot that joins a murder of crows while its former owner develops a bird flu vaccine for wild birds. 

The anthology will be available January 16th, 2024. You can preorder it through the following links: 

Universal Amazon/Apple Link: https://mybook.to/solarpunkcreatures 

World Weaver Press Product Page: https://www.worldweaverpress.com/store/p186/Solarpunk_Creatures.html

 Paperback pages will take a few more days to appear, but the book will eventually be available in paperback from Amazon, Book-a-Million, Barnes & Noble, etc.

I'm excited to be part of this anthology and look forward to reading the stories by the other authors.  

Reader Expectations

I finally caught up with the first season of Ahsoka a couple of days ago. Without going into plot details, my impression was it should have been called a live-action version of Rebels. The impression I had going into the show was that we would see more of Ahsoka's backstory; however, her story seemed to be a minor part of the show compared to Sabine's, Hera's, and Ezra's, let alone Thrawn and the other antagonists. Consequently, I enjoyed the show less than I would have if I'd been thinking of it as another season of Rebels. 

I think it's important to set reader expectations before they start the story. For me, the title didn't set the right expectations for this show, and I have to admit I didn't pay much attention to the series or episode descriptions. Of course, images and book covers also set reader expectations. 

Was there a book or show that gave you a different initial impression than what you had after reading or watching it? Feel free to share examples in the comments.

IWSG: AI Stole This Blog

It's hard to believe October is here when it's so warm where I live. The calendar still changes even if the seasons seem to be at a standstill, which means it's time for another Insecure Writer's Support Group post. Learn more about the IWSG on their website and Facebook page if you're not already familiar with them. 

Our hosts this month are Natalie Aguirre, Kim Lajevardi, Debs Carey, Gwen Gardner, Patricia Josephine, and Rebecca Douglass. 

Our question for October is a controversial one: The topic of AI writing has been heavily debated across the world. According to various sources, generative AI will assist writers, not replace them. What are your thoughts?

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, I'm not a fan of AI. Please refer to the photo below:

If you look at the third line, you'll see this blog was harvested for Google's database for training AI. This was done without my knowledge or consent. There's a copyright notice at the very bottom of this page, so harvesting my words this way should be a copyright violation. Even if this blog is a minute part of the AI database, Google will profit from my free labor, and I'll receive neither recognition or compensation. I know other writers whose entire books were harvested for other AI engines. (So far, I've found no proof my books were affected.) 

Artificial intelligence may be a tool, in theory neutral until used. However, in a world of late-stage capitalism, this tool comes equipped with original sin. The creators of AI steal other people's work in an attempt to replace human writers and artists for profit. AI work has flooded KPD and magazine portals, making it even more difficult for humans to gain recognition. If you consider creativity the peak human endeavor, then leave it for humans. We don't need AI to give us ideas when there so many ideas out there, waiting for the right mind to notice them. And while it might not always be easy to put those ideas into words, it's the struggle that makes writing a calling. We all need to demand tech companies stop embedding AI into everything while making it nearly impossible to escape. We need to demand better regulation of this industry. If we don't, we will lose ourselves.

What are your thoughts on using AI? Whether or not you agree with me, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

September Writing Update and Cover for Restaurants and Revenge!

Only three more months left of 2023. I still have so many projects I want to work on but so little time. Hopefully now that the annual recertification audit for work is over, I'll be able to use some more vacation time. I'll need it to clear some of these projects listed below:

Short Stories: I have one short story currently on the market, and I just finished reviewing my short story author proof for the forthcoming Solarpunk Creatures anthology.

Restaurants and Revenge:  I just got the cover for Restaurants and Revenge! Expect to see the ebook coming soon to the major distributors!

 

I'm about halfway through the next book in the series (Bubble Tea and a Body), but it's currently on the backburner.

Season Avatars/World Avatars: Once I finish up Restaurants and Revenge, I can focus on The Season Between, a collection of short stories that will bridge the gap between the Season Avatars and the sequel World Avatars series. I'm currently drafting the first book of the World Series, Avatars Abroad, which will feature mostly new characters. I'm also trying to plot the overall arc of the series. I know how I want it to end, but getting there is always the challenge.

Good Omens: Confession time--the main characters of this show have taken over my brain (in case that wasn't obvious from some of my previous posts). Yes, I'm writing fanfic about this series as a way of coping with the Season Two finale. Hopefully Season Three won't take another four years to air!

What projects are you working on? Feel free to share in the comments.

Characters/Scenes Living in Your Head

How much do you think about the characters from your stories? For me, some of them (like the Season Avatars) take up more of my attention than others (like Abigail from my cozy mystery or characters from my short stories). For me, the more I think about certain characters, the more I want to write them. Sometimes it helps me plan scenes so that they actually flow when I can write them down. Other times, it helps me get ideas for events, but it's still a struggle to get the words out. Just some random thoughts at the end of a long work day when it's easier to write about writing than actually writing.