Dusting off the 'ole Damn Boots

It’s s stupid metaphor for getting back into writing.

“Dusting off boots”

Makes ya think of these, doesn’t it?

…maybe more dust and less snow.

Like I said, a stupid metaphor, and a stock photo.

I stopped writing back in January of ‘22—maybe longer than that.

Sometime back before then my Editor gave back my edited 2nd Novel. The experience was humbling. Truth be told it was a slow-burning reality-check, punch to the fucking gut. The thing is, I know I’m a good writer. But only I know this. Maybe a few other people do to—maybe. But a few hundred people don’t know this—certainly not a few thousand. And I’m untested. Getting my incomplete 2nd Novel edited was a test. And I wouldn’t say I failed. I had to fucking regroup—get my shit together and do a lot of thinking.

I took some time off. I didn’t write. I let me creativity out in other ways. I started a YouTube Channel building Legos. I had another kid.

ChatGPT and MidJourney came out during this time away from writing. I started prompting AI Generated art that you can buy here in my store. Some of it is based on the world I am writing into existence and some of it is quirky pop-art—shit I find interesting.

DJ Stark

Back to those dusty boots…

I’m plotting out my story again. I’m not writing—not just yet. I’m laying the foundation. I’m doing several somethings that I’ve never done before:

1. I’m writing on a Mac. Yeah I know. What the fuck, right? But hear me out! David Bowie—yes I’m comparing myself to David Bowie—went through all these phases in his career. He was Ziggy, Aladdin Sane, Halloween Jack, The Thin White Duke and the Blind Prophet. Up until now I’ve been the Windows Guy. Now I’m entering my Mac Guy Persona. It’s kinda groovy actually. The software I’m using, Scrivener and Aeon Timeline were sorta built for this type of hardware. The ease in which I can switch between the two apps is nothing short of amazing. Don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll evolve into my next persona before too long, or become some kind of weird pan-technical chimera.

2. I’m making an outline. I’m not going to use the dumb writing terms involving “pants” and “plans” but I was always of the “pants” variety. It was physically jarring to try and outline—to plan out a story, which has always been something of an organic process for me. But the reality of this story is, it’s been swimming around between my synapses now for years. I know all the beats, all the scenes, and all the not yet conceived scenes that will come into being based on the ideas and rules of the story that I’ve already established. So it’s time for me to stop spinning my fucking wheels and literarily jerking-off with writes and rewrites. Time to get my shit in order. I’m not writing right now. I’m outlining, plotting, and carving a fucking map—a story bible to follow when I actually start writing. I’m doing everything short of etching this motherfucker in stone and then I’m going to look at it, pick a section, and start writing out the pros, start check off the boxes and getting it done, once and for all.

3. I’m not putting any time limits or pressure on the Hows and the Whens. It will be ready when it’s ready. It will also be ready when I don’t have a steaming pile of shit for my Editor.

4. Lastly, I’ve given up Coffee thanks to the-virus-that-shan’t-be-named. After that little nuisance coffee makes me anxious to the point of panic attacks—another something I’ve never ever done before.

I think that covers my year-plus off of writing, thinking of writing, and doing anything having to do with fiction.

Oh, and I’ve started reading fiction again.

So what have I been reading? Glad you asked:

1. The Court of Wings and Ruin by Sarah J. Maas—Pretty good but the antagonist was about as 2D as one could get before being 1D, very lame. Hated the bad-guy for all the wrong reasons.

2. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood by Quentin Tarantino—Just started this. Loving it like I loved the movie. Add a lot more depth to the characters that cinema just doesn’t have time to convey. Gonna rewatch the 3-Hour movie again afterwards.

3. In the queue I have Dan O’Malley’s Blitz, Justin Cronin’s The Ferryman, David Wong’s If this Book Exists, You’re in the Wong Universe, and some James Axler pulp-apocalyptic sci-fi for when I feel like taking this whole literary thing seriously.

Cheers!

The Presumption of AI Artists

This blog post was not written by AI…

But it could have been. You can now pay a company to write blog posts for you. With a few simple ‘prompts’ to help capture the theme and the feel of your post, you can completely automate the writing process. Think of all the content I could ‘create’ if I could type less words than what I’ve just typed here, and had the AI spit out screed after screed of content on the daily!

Another productive Facebook thread.

The same thing is currently all the rage in the realm of visual art. Legit artists are feeling disenfranchised because the AI is doing in seconds what it would take hours or days to produce. Folks like me, who can’t draw worth a damn are creating content like this for mostly fun and possible profit:

Library II

from $45.00

The Library stands formidably in the center of the Fields of White to the north of Coravan City. The books held within are numerous. Some titles are familiar, while others more obscure. Some of the books are stories their authors never intended to write. Yet they all reside within the ancient walls of the Library...

• Acid-free, PH-neutral, poly-cotton base
• 20.5 mil (0.5 mm) thick poly-cotton blend canvas
• Canvas fabric weight: 13.9 oz/yd2(470 g/m²)
• Fade-resistant
• Hand-stretched over solid wood stretcher bars
• Matte finish coating
• 1.5″ (3.81 cm) deep
• Mounting brackets included
• Blank product in the EU sourced from Latvia
• Blank product in the US sourced from the US

I am no artist, nor do I pretend to be one. Where I worked hard to string sentences together in a somewhat coherent fashion, I did little to do the same with pen, pencil, cray-paws and paper. My interest in comic books was equal parts story and visual appeal—sometimes the visuals outweighing the story. Don’t judge a comic by it’s…content? I knew what appealed to me both in the artist as well as the writer. I’m embarrassed to say that it took me well into my late 20s before I was able to fully appreciate Neil Gaiman’s, The Sandman, because as a teenager I was too hung up on how it looked. My tastes matured. I developed—I’d like to think for the better.

I view this AI generated art similar to asking an artist for a commission. In my own experience this involves telling the artist my idea over 1-2 emails, paying them, and getting something in the mail. The artwork is that artist’s interpretation of my idea. Was my description too vague, too literal? How did the artist interpret my description? If I sent along an image and said “…in this style” it is up to the artist I’m commissioning to make a judgement call as to what the hell I mean. Does he follow the sample image to the letter or use is as a vague point of reference?

Sometimes the artiest gets it right. Other times it’s way off the mark and I’m left with paying for something I really didn’t want.

AI is the same way. You feed it a prompt and get a result. Nothing more. Only with AI you can tweak your prompt to get something closer to what you desire…or not.

If I had the capital to keep an artist on retainer, or if I were a company with an entire art department, I could achieve the same results through regular meetings, a plethora of visual aides, mood boards, etc.

And ultimately, through the human artist, I would get exactly what I’m looking for.

With the AI, in this current state, it’s a gamble. I may gut lucky from time to time with something that is visually compelling, but it won’t be exact. Which is why AI generated art is great for joe-consumer but not for anything professional in it’s current state.

Maybe one day it will be, or maybe one day I will learn how to manipulate the prompts just enough to reproduce what is in my minds eyes.

So what am I, if not an artist?

The cynic would say that I’m a master manipulator.

But I like to think myself more as a curator. I’m feeding the AI an idea and I’m assessing what it gives me based on my own unique tastes. What I find visually appealing is different from what you find visually appealing—in fact, depending on who ‘you’ happen to be, I might find it appalling! That’s how art—like writing, works—not everything is everyone’s cup o’ tea.

And that, my friends, is what ultimately makes art…art, whether it’s crafted by a human, AI, or a goat.

If you found value from this post, please consider contributing financially. You may have noticed that I’ve not written here in a while. This is in part due to life being busy. But money is always a great incentive and motivation in writing for reals instead of letting the AI do it. Consider becoming a Patron or even giving a one-time donation.

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I’m going to keep writing and posting from time to time. But I’ll do it a lot more if I feel that someone out there is receiving some value from it. Thank you and good day.