Automation Anxiety? An open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Do you suffer from Automation anxiety? (the fear that advancements in technology, particularly artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, will lead to widespread job losses, rendering people's skills obsolete and potentially leaving them unemployed, causing significant worry and stress about the future of work.)

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 I've lived my entire life in a time of rapid changes in technology. 

For example, in my short 50ish years on planet earth, there's been shift after shift in how I listen to music. When I was a child, we listened to the radio in the car and the radio or Mom's 45 records in the house. When I was a little older we got an 8-track player and thought we were so fancy. I was one spoiled kid when I got a transistor radio I could dangle off my bicycle handle bars to have music while I cruised the neighborhood. 

By the time I was a teenager, we'd moved to cassette tapes and I had a boom box of my own as well as a walkman, portable music player with headphones. We got the fancy boom box with two tape decks so you could copy from one tape to another to make mix tapes and record music off the radio to listen to on demand. Eventually, I had a tapedeck in my car.

Later, we did the same thing but on CDs, learning to "rip" and "burn" music before it was easy to download it. A fancy car music system could handle both CDs and cassette tapes. 

Then I got an iPod when they were new. So, what's that now? Six or seven different technologies just to listen to music? And all of that before I was 25 years old. We hadn't even gotten to streaming services yet. 

It's natural to feel nervous about new technologies. They come with good and bad things intermixed, and someone will always try to use them to circumvent fair play and "get away" with something. It's also true that new technologies do result in changes to the job market. We're seeing that with AI already, but we're also quickly finding the limits of what the latest and greatest technologies can do. It's an industry in its infancy, and the ethics haven't been established…and about the time they are, something new will have come along. 

So, all that is a longwinded way to say, "No." 

 I don't expend a great deal of energy worrying about AI. I try to learn enough about it to steer clear of the worst uses and take advantage of any helpful uses. I don't really believe that AI -written books and stories are going to replace human creation. It's even less likely that they can be safely relied on in business settings, where accuracy of information and subtleties of tone are so important.

There have always been scammers, cheaters, and liars, and there always will be. It's not the technology's fault. I'll just keep on creating in the ways that work for me, and try to stay abreast of new technologies well enough to be able to communicate with younger folks.

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Revision: An open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Discuss: "Write the book you want to rewrite—because most of writing is revising! Don’t agonize over every word in a first draft; that will only slow you down. Just write the story. Get it onto the page. Drafting is the stage where you capture the idea. Revising is where you figure out how to really tell the story well." -Beth Kander, author of I Made It Out of Clay
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Revision works differently for everyone. Heck, I feel like it works differently for me depending on the project. Never the same game twice.

This quote from Beth Kander sounds to me like it's advocating for what I've heard termed the "vomit draft" or "garbage draft" where you write a complete draft without letting yourself go back and revise while you're still drafting. I have quite a few writer friends and critique partners who swear by this technique. 

It doesn't work for me though. 

I'm more of an iterative writer, working in loops. As we've discussed here before, I'm a discovery writer, or a pantser, which means I'm not working from an outline of any sort, but just following my writing where it takes me and shaping it into an effective narrative throughout the drafts. 

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 I write linearly for the most part, most of the time, but if I hit upon an idea that will significantly change the rest of the book, I've got a decision to make: fix it now or later.

Fix it later: Sometimes, I just pop a comment or a note into the document to remind future me to go back and change something later. That's usually if it's small and won't have a huge effect on the story, but is important to address for continuity. Something like changing a detail about a character like their name, appearance, etc. Or adding a bit that will change a particular moment in the plot, but won't spillover into the whole thing.

Fix it now: On the other hand, if it's a bigger change where it feels like it's harder to predict how that will affect the larger narrative, I might not be able to move on until I've figured out how that changes what I've already written. It all builds after all, and if this significantly alters a character, it might affect other choices they've made in the narrative and take the whole story in a new directions. So, I need to go back to the beginning and pull that thread through before I move forward again.

Now, that said, I definitely agree that, especially for a book-length work, it's important that you're invested enough in the idea to be really dedicated, because you are going to be living in that imaginary world for months, maybe even years. 

 It took me ten years to write the entirety of the Menopausal Superheroes series from the first page to the final "The End" and I couldn't have stayed with it without true passion about the story and the characters. It's a real commitment! 

Usually, by the time I'm ready to send a book off to a publisher for consideration, it's been through three or four of those weird looping drafts I do my own, plus one or two rounds of revision based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers. 

If a publisher accepts it, then it will go through at least two more rounds of revision based on editorial and proofreading feedback. Then, there's the final "spit and polish" read through in hopes of catching any little errors that made it through all of that uncorrected. By my count, that's at least eight rounds of revisions--and that's when the process goes relatively smoothly. 

I have one published novel (the third in my series: Face the Change) that went through a revise and resubmit process because I tried to rush it and what I sent the first time wasn't really ready. So, that was the whole process over again. Whew! 

It's definitely a lot. But I actually enjoy revision. It can be very satisfying in the same way that reorganizing a closet or spring cleaning is--you see the difference it makes and you know that life will be better now because you made the effort.

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If I could be anything or anyone…an IWSG post

 

      

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking. If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG. The awesome co-hosts for the March 5 posting of the IWSG are Ronel Janse Van Vuuren, Pat Garcia, and Liza @ Middle Passages!

This month's question:

March 5 question - If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it inspire in you.

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What a fun question this month! So many possibilities. 

 

Should I be a dog? A bird? A whale? I've often wondered what it would be like to be any number of animals. To be able to fly, or swim, or leap with their abilities. I wonder if it would be like Selkie stories, though, where there's some danger I'll forget who I used to be and just remain forever in my animal form. Then again, maybe that could be amazing. 

 

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It could be cool to be a man for a minute. To see what all this business is like from that point of view. Maybe it would help me understand what's going on with some of the males in my life…or maybe it would be more like trying to drive an unfamiliar vehicle. Maybe I'd need more than one day to try this one out. 

 

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Is one day long enough to wreak havoc in the life of one of the bigwigs in my country? How quickly could I dismantle a financial empire and turn the money to uses I believe in instead? Avoiding names, but could I take over RichDude's life for a day and fund every GoFundMe out there, give scholarships galore, spoil scientists and librarians with resources, and fund every food scarcity charity in the country for the foreseeable future? I bet my signing hand would hurt by then end of day, and boy howdy, would RichDude be in for a surprise when he took his life back over. 

 

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Yeah, I think I'll go with that third one. If you see some RichDude out there seeming like he had an Ebeneezer Scrooge experience? That was me :-)

Being one of my characters, an IWSG post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

If you had to become one of your characters, which ones would you choose?
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 Oh my. 

A lot of my characters live some pretty dramatic lives. They've been through things, you know? And that makes good story fodder. But I, myself, have a lovely quiet little life that is mostly low drama and I'd really like to keep it that way. 

So, I don't think I'd want to be any of my Menopausal Superheroes

I don't think I'd like to take over for any of my horror characters either. They have to work too hard to survive…and some of them, um, don't. 

So, I guess my best hope lies in my current Works-in-Progress: a trio of romance novellas. 

• Mandy, the graphic designer returning to her hometown in Never Too Late (out for Beta reading)
• Abby, the punk band musician finding love while she faces the loss of her best friend in Acid Reign (with my critique partners now)
• Bekah, the single-mom veterinarian facing an empty nest in the third, not yet titled novella I'm still drafting. 

These are all smart, capable women in their fifties, who are all about to find love in unexpected places. I'm really enjoying writing these un-apologetically optimistic stories, and it wouldn't be a bad thing to find myself in one of their lives if I couldn't keep living the one I have now.   

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A letter to my readers, an open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

Write a letter to your readers.
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Dear Readers, 

Thank you! It means so much to me that you have been willing to spend time and money engaging with my imaginary friends and me. While I love writing, and would probably still write at some level even if no one ever read it, having an audience is very motivating and keeps me going when I struggle. 

That writer-reader connection is magic--reaching across space and time and finding someone who picks up what you're putting down? (or when I'm the reader--finding someone who articulate the truths of my heart and lifts me out of my woes with wonderful stories and imaginative characters) Wowzers. Powerful stuff.

I hope you're enjoying the ride! You're already doing me a favor by giving my work a chance, but if you're up to help even further, I can always use more reviews for my books and that even-more-valuable word of mouth recommendation to your reading friends. Making any kind of living from art is difficult, so anything that increases visibility of my work is a boon. 

In the meantime, I'm working hard to bring you lots of new things to read and I hope you'll enjoy them when I get them out there in the world. You rock! 

Love,

Samantha

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The Hardest Format, an Open Book blog hop post

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

What has been the hardest format to write in for you?
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I've tried on a lot of different literary forms over the years. They're all difficult at first, because they're new. And each project is it's own critter, so even if it's a form I've written before, it's still a new challenge.

I began, in childhood as a poet, in formal and free-verse styles. I stopped pursuing poetry seriously (i.e. with an eye to publication) in my thirties, but I still write it for myself and sometimes share it. I might still someday produce a collection if I ever have enough that fit together that way. (My published poetry is all under my maiden name--Samantha Dunaway).

I really got into personal essays in my later twenties, writing a few that made it into magazines and newspapers. I was especially proud of a few that made it into We Alaskans. That led directly into some newspaper work as a book columnist for the Bering Strait (now defunct) and the Nome Nugget and attracted me to blogging where I could "sound off" more freely in this not-journalism-but-not-fiction area. 

I played with short stories off and on along the way but didn't really start to feel like I understood and made good use of the form until 2014 or so. Now I LOVE writing short stories, especially for anthologies, for the opportunity to try on different styles and genres without the long-term commitment that a novel entails. At this point, I've had 25 or so short stories published of 73 that I currently have in my pieces list on Duotrope. I'm in the middle of writing two new ones right now.

(SIDEBAR: Duotrope has been really useful to me for tracking submissions and helping me find places to submit my work. I pay $5 a month and consider it well worth it. It's great for folks like me who struggle to organize this stuff, and it's searchable, so I can make sure I didn't send that same story to that venue a year ago and just forgot.)

After my second child was born (2007) and I needed something to help pull me out of Post-partum depression, I joined a group of novel writers and started trying to write a novel. I started and abandoned three before I finished one. That one remains unpublished and is shelved for now, but I've since written an entire five novel series (The Menopausal Superheroes I'm always talking about) and seen it accepted for publication by two different publishers. So excited to bring that one to a close this summer! I've got several other partially completed novels I plan to finish up soon.

Novels are BIG, and it took me a while to develop a process and be able to track work that large and keep it consistent over a longer creation period. But discovering Scrivener software helped me a lot. It's so easy to re-arrange work and use color coding and image labels to help track things like POV or then-and-now timelines.

I've also written a couple of novellas along the way. I quite enjoy this form--longer than a short story, but not as involved as a novel, bridging what I love about short stories and what I love about novels. In fact, the project I'm working on now is a trilogy of romance novellas and I'm loving working on them. 

So that's a long-winded answer to a relatively simple question. The short version: short stories took me the longest to feel competent at, so I guess they've been the hardest for me. 

But I LOVE to try new things. Maybe screenplays will be next. I've got some friends who do some writing for indie films and that could be amazing to try my hand at.

So, how about you? Have you tried a variety of formats? What proved most challenging for you?

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Fact-finding missions, an open book blog hop post

 

 

Welcome to Open Book Blog Hop. You can find us every Monday talking about the writing life. I hope you'll check out all the posts: you'll find the links at the bottom of this post.

How do you find the facts that inform your work?
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You end up needing to know a lot of strange little things when you're writing a book. Sure, you're making things up, but your story still needs grounding in reality, especially if your work is set in a realistic or near-realistic setting. 

For my Menopausal Superheroes series, there's obviously a lot of "hand-wave-ium" about the science of how things are possible. Jessica "Flygirl" Roark can fly and there's some exploration as to how and why, but I'm not trying to make this impossible thing realistic, so I was free to be playful and imaginative in making that part up. 

Still, I did research about buoyancy and flight, trying to decide if I'd pull more from bird, balloon, or machine in my decision-making about how Jessica's flight works. I enjoy that reading, finding facts to extrapolate from and play with. In fact, I enjoy research so much, that if I'm not careful, I can fall down a research rabbit hole and get distracted from actually writing my story. 

For many things, I pull from my own experience and from stories I've heard all my life from other people. I know what it feels like (at least from my own experience) to fall in love, to be ill, to become frustrated, etc. So, I can use my own experiences and what I've observed as a baseline.

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On the other hand, I don't know what it feels like to be shot by a gun (and I hope I never find out), so when Leonel "Fuerte" Álvarez took a bullet wound in Book 2, Change of Life, I did a lot of reading and asking questions in online groups about the medical aspects of that, making sure he was shot in a way that he could recover from, and that his recovery could be reasonably realistic. 

For some of my other work, I've needed historical details of dress and legal status, so I read nonfiction books, look details up online (always corroborating with more than one source because the Internet lies), and ask questions of experts. I'm in a couple of Facebook groups where writers can ask lawyers and doctors legal and medical questions and that's SUPER useful as those kinds of things come up in fiction all the time. 

Those little details add veracity to a story and make it easy for the reader to stay engaged in a story, so they really do matter. I know I've been frustrated by books I've read that got details wrong that conflict with own knowledge and experience. If there's enough of them, I stop reading. So, I try not to do that to my own readers. 

How about you? What do you do to make your own work feel real? Where do you learn what you need to know? What kinds of details throw you out of a story you're reading? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

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