Casually Oblivious

19 | A Mess | She/Her | Writer • Artist • Musician

[eridanidreams]

...and fuck NaNoWriMo.

Christ on a cracker.

The condemnation of AI is anything but categorical. Even the most fervent opponents of LLM-based generative AI acknowledge that there are uses of Machine Learning (see what I did there?) that have the potential to (even, already have) make positive change in the world. AI is not a monolith. There is a difference between analytical machine learning and generative AI.

Of course generative AI has classist and ableist undertones. Because LLMs are trained on biased media, they include all the biases of the media they learned from.

Finally, there is currently no major generative AI system of which I'm aware that has not been trained on stolen media. Writing, art, music: all stolen by a bunch of rich guys, largely from poor people. Because these assholes have outright said they can't make a buck from generative AI if they have to gasp pay for the training data!

Do we even need to go into the ridiculous environmental costs of generative AI? Yes, yes we do. ChatGPT-4 uses a bottle of water per query, ~500 MWh of energy per day, and costs $500/minute to run.

I am severely disappointed in you, NaNoWriMo. I expected better.

[jayalaw]

I am wondering what is going on. How is the NaNo head Kilby digging herself deeper with each update?

[seananmcguire]

Also, the use of spicy autocorrect has already been found in court to interfere with the ability to copyright your work. So it's apparently classist and ableist to believe that authors should be able to get paid?

[idgie-stark]

Been watching this on Threads. It’s become a disgrace. I cannot in good faith promote this org anymore after last year. This bs just seals it.

[endlessburningdarkness]

how to go from daydream to draft:

begin by daydreaming as you normally do, or just after you've finished doing so. write down every thought you have. one after another. do not reread. do not stop for spelling mistakes. just dump out every thought. this is called stream of consciousness writing. you can do this for every scene you need a first draft for.

struggling to draft the scene? try to daydream about it. start thinking about how it would look, feel, what the characters would say, act it out in your head and then write out the stream of your thoughts as they arrive.

by now you have a few scene dumps. you may be tempted to go back and edit. do not do this expect for obvious spelling mistakes. do not read closely and start thinking "i need to rework this sentence." that is for later. now you're in the zone. draft more scenes. or work out what the next scene needs to be, scaffold it with a few comments. this will be the inspiration for your next deliberate thought stream that you will write out. repeat this process until you have the whole draft.

now that you have a draft or part of a draft you get to do this very fun thing called revise until you're happy. sweep through your draft with specific goals each time. one sweep to fix spelling/grammar. another for character voice. another for plot. repeat until you're happy with it.

leave it alone. just leave it for a bit. at least a few hours or days or even weeks. forget it exists. this will allow you come back with fresh eyes. then you can do your revisions with an eagle eye. now you may realize you need to add/remove scenes. you know how to get the first version down. close your eyes and daydream at your desk if that's what takes!

remember that fiction writing is persuasive writing. you are trying to persuade the reader to care about what happens next, the character's, the world, the feelings. as you're revising, consider whether you are persuaded. is the feeling/thoughts you wanted to provoke being felt by you when you read it? when working with beta readers, be sure to communicate what you're trying to convey so they can tell you if you've been successful or not.

this got a bit beyond getting the first draft done. hope you found it helpful.

bonus tip: check the spellings of names and places and other nouns that are not typically used, like the name of a magic tool!

[prokopetz]

How to go from worldbuilding to an actual plot:

1. Pick a time in place in your fictional world

2. Imagine how current events in that time and place would play out if no outside forces intervene

3. Imagine the sort of person who would most drastically fuck everything up for everyone concerned just by showing up

4. Introduce that person to that time and place and tell the story of he resulting catastrophe

[baejax-the-great]

Microsoft really out here trying to stifle my creativity

[timeandspacelord]

I know “oh no”, “oops”, and “uh-oh” are the suggested substitutes, but it really just looks like Microsoft is prompting you for an apology to your potentially offended readers

[mysharona1987]

By Tom Gauld.

[gr8writingtips]

writing tip #3004:

your first line has to be, ‘i hope this novel finds you well’. the second line should be the first line of the actual story

[homesteadchronicles]

alternatively, the second line should be “because it will not find any of my characters well” and cue the drama.

[insert-writing-blog-name]

How new WIPs are born:

[emberris]

I've accidentally taught my housemate’s cat how to play fetch and now it's her favorite thing ever

[earthmoonlotus]

“I don’t think that every villain in the world actually thinks they’re being a good guy, but I do think that everybody creates a value system that justifies the actions they’re taking, and and I think there’s a difference between those two things. Not everybody believes that they’re on the side of righteousness, but everybody has a way of justifying the actions they’re taking. Not every villain has to be a misunderstood hero, and in fact I think there are a lot of instances throughout history of people who were obviously doing the wrong thing and probably had an understanding of that on some level, but had some rationale or justification for it. A lot of villains in literature and media have these weird, Thanos-esque philosophies of what it is that they’re trying to do, and I think human motivation tends to come from more primal places than that. So a lot of the villains I write can be brilliant or clever (and, in fact, probably should be), but their motivation tends to be primal. They wanna be rich, they wanna have power, they wanna live forever. There’s something deep down that is, when you break it down, not too complex. Right? If you look at the real world, the people that are doing bad stuff don’t need complex motivations. They wanna rule the world! They wanna be rich! They wanna be unafraid that other people can ever screw them over, so they screw other people over. Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundanes of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.”

—

Brennan Lee Mulligan, when asked how to create villains for ttrpgs

(I found this quote to be really meaningful in like…life in general which is why I posted it here. When he said “evil is boring”, it felt like something clicked in me that I had known deep down but hadn’t had the words for.)

[writing-prompt-s]

You are an anonymous professional assassin with a perfect reputation. You lead an ordinary life outside of your work. You’ve just been hired to kill yourself.

[caffeinewitchcraft]

My first thought is that the middle man I use–calls himself ‘Leader’, real name Brett Thompson, 46, balding, lives in PA–has uncovered my identity. Why else would I be staring down at a picture of my own face? I think it’s a warning, that he knows about the Sanchez job, and I nearly reach for my go bag.

Then I see the client’s name.

Vi Larson, the file tells me, male, 32, computer analyst.

I close the manila folder, tossing it away from me. The whiskey sour’s gone warm in my hand, but I drink it down anyway, eyes distant. I don’t need to read any more of the file. I can fill in the gaps well enough.

Funnily enough, this betrayal is just as sharp and unpleasant as the first one, the one that got me into this business in the first place.

“You at least owe me a crime of passion, you bastard,” I mutter into my drink. I close my eyes and sigh, willing away the stinging in my heart. I knew that my relationship was in trouble, but this is just cold. 

 In a way, I can’t believe it. Is a divorce really that hard?  But, no, I know Vi. He’s methodical, analytical, and competent. If anything, hiring an assassin with a reputation like mine is right in line with his personality. Nothing but the best, even in the murder game.

I should be flattered, really. My rates aren’t cheap. Whatever I did to make him send this in–and he did, there’s his social security, his fingerprint, everything–it must have been killer.

I set my glass down on the counter and tuck the folder under my arm. I need to think and I do my best thinking in the tub. Vi won’t be back from his “business” trip for another three days, during which I’m supposed to kill myself.

As I head up the stairs, I can’t help but laugh. Finally, after three years of marriage, my husband does something interesting. And it breaks my fucking heart.

——————————————

He wants me to make it painless but horrific. There’s a script in the document, something that’s more common than people think, and it’s hard to read it, even surrounded by bubbles and soothing music.

“Your husband sent me. Said he needed to shed some dead weight.” I snort at the pun and close my eyes, resting the file against my face so it doesn’t get wet. Unfortunately, the tears do that anyway.

“Fuck,” I say. “You bastard.”

Keep reading

[eternalwritingstudent]

Delving into the the writing side of twitter has been interesting.

A few things that PUBLISHED AUTHORS have shared in tweets.

- They hate the advice to ‘write everyday’ because it’s unattainable. Life happens and there are going to be days where you just can’t. Don’t be mad at yourself for it.

- Don’t stress so much about the synopsis. It’s important, but it isn’t make or break.

- Don’t be afraid to talk to authors, publishers, and editors on twitter, they will talk to you and they will answer questions you have. Yes, they may point you to their website, but the answers you need are there.

- Authors, publishers, and editors are people. That makes writing subjective. Just because one person doesn’t want to print your book, doesn’t mean someone else won’t.

- Take chances. Write for you, not for an audience.

[pheita]

I love that you gathered these things because the only thing I see from the writing side of Twitter is “Ahhh pitch madness” or “You need to find your agent over Twitter” or “I write this book, Buy it” It is one of the reasons I am not that active on Twitter.  These statements made by actual published authors, editors and such put it in a more realistic light in my opinion. 

[eternalwritingstudent]

I’ve made a point to google all the agents I’m interested in working with and the authors I read to follow them. I do follow some self-published authors and smaller authors, but not a ton. I figure I’m looking for info from people who have been doing this a bit. I am following pitchwars, but they’ve been doing a ton of Q&A for people about it along with help with synopsis and query writing. It probably also helps I made a new twitter just for my writing instead of my personal one which has become very political in the hellscape of America that I live in, so all I’m seeing on it is writing, writing, writing.

[avi-why]

you ever really get in the Writing Zone™ and everything’s going super great and awesome and then you write that one sentence. and you have to take a break and think about how to phrase it for 6 hours

[derangedrhythms]

Margaret Atwood, Interlunar; from ‘Eating Snake’

[sunsounds]

[text ID:

All peoples are driven to the point of eating their gods after a time: it’s the old greed for a plateful of outer space, that craving for darkness the lust to feel what it does to you when your teeth meet in divinity, in the flesh when you swallow it down and you can see with its own cold eyes, look out through murder.

end ID]

[quasi-normalcy]

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Foreshadowing

vs.

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Just Something That They Opted Not to Spoon-feed You Because It Would Be Obvious If You Thought About It For 20 Seconds

vs.

It May Be a Plot Hole, But It Still Works In Terms of the Story’s Themes and Character Logic

vs.

Okay, It Is a Plot Hole, What Are You Going to Do, Cry about It?

[quasi-normalcy]

vs.

All Works of Fiction Represent Constructed Realities and by Demanding a Lack of Plot Holes, You Are Improperly Importing the Rules of Objective Reality into a Subjective Creation that Must Be Judged Primarily on Its Aesthetic Merits

vs.

Dude, Just Come-up With a Headcanon Like A Normal Human Being

[verecunda]

There’s also: It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Not the Writer’s Fault Your Favourite Headcanons Bear No Resemblance To What’s Actually Happening in the Story.

[emberris]

I am allergic to cats. My housemate has two. Let the games begin.

[inebriatednovelist-deactivated2]

Lawful Disaster...

[androgyne-angel]

[jturn]

sell it bob