Category: Just Life

Updates September 05-09

Hello,

Thank you for the likes and follows.

Photo by cottonbro on Pexels.com

ProWritingAid Science Fiction Writer’s week was great. I could not catch any of the lectures live, but they are available on replay for members. Glad that I joined earlier this year. The week was filled with more author interviews than workshops but it is all good. As a member of ProWritingAid, I try to keep up with all the services they offer, blog articles, webinars, etc. On September 5, they will be a zoom meeting for interested writers. It is hosted by Hailey Millman she is the Head of Education at ProWritingAid. She has also been the interviewer for many of the authors during many events like this. I am aware that this entry will post on Monday, September 5. Here is another ironic thing, while writing about ProwritingAid, each sentence is being read and corrected by Grammarly. Both services work well and I don’t have favorites. I use ProWritingAid on certain projects because I’m a paid member and they offer more. I have not worked the cost of Grammarly into my budget to become a member. When Grammarly highlights words or phrases they won’t elaborate on, the paragraph is copied and pasted to the ProWritingAid editor and they help me. Using the service had made me aware of word usage most of all.

The other technological service help that I love is Midjourney AI. It is so good. I have a basic subscription of $10 a month. It allows me to find and follow members on the Midjourney AI Gallery. I have liked other images generated by others but I have only followed my friend who also has a paid subscription. It has not been confirmed but I think you can’t get a following unless you are a paid member. I learning to be more descriptive with my words and even when the program does not get what I am thinking the images it generates gives me ideas. Things I make notes of.

In writing news, I have a mini breakthrough with the scene, written about previously. I have been able to define the motivation and conflict of two important characters. There was a misconception on my part about my main character. It had to do with her goal, motivation, and conflict. I was aware that she would have issues that are similar because of her ability or lack of it. However, each GMC is different even though she is the same character. No, what I mean is that this character changes over time. Her GMC will change as well. Especially in each novella. I realized the project can get confusing since I am writing each story in a non-linear fashion. I was attempting to hone my characters a certain way because their futures were written a particular way. That was very wrong. I can’t say when or how the epiphany got me. But it was understood how this misconception was hindering the story. I am writing a zero or fast draft, and was moving ahead not thinking that a lot can be fixed in revisions. This was something that was known but not at the same time. Sorry if this sound confusing.

Author and Book Coach Samantha Skal titled her lecture with ProWritingAid “How to Get Out of Revision Hell”, she bravely let the audience know that her novel went through 20 revisions. I am honestly afraid of getting into that stage. I am also looking forward to it at the same time because it would mean that I have completed a draft and am at a different stage of the writing process. Maybe I am a masochist, something to think about.

I don’t have any reading news or visual news. Rings of Power a LOTR prequel has been released on Amazon Prime. I have not watched it yet. House of the Dragon, the GOT prequel has also been released to positive reviews. I’m not watching that one either. I am waiting for the fever to die down a bit. Despite liking the genre I was not a fan of Game of Thrones, I don’t know why. There were aspects of it that were fun. I love the opening song. But I was not an avid fan of the series at all. Therefore I didn’t feel betrayed with season 8.

This week I will be focusing on Connection Lost, completing this scene, and developing characters for later scenes. I have two audio-books on hold that might be listened to this week.

That is all for now. I hope this entry finds you all doing well. Please remember to be kind to each other.

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Updates August 29-September 02

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Hello,

Thank you for the likes and follows. Sometimes I think no one cares about the quotes I put up. Then someone likes a quote I put up months ago. It lightens my mood. Thank you again.

Last week, the update was posted on Tuesday. It is fair to say that I didn’t plan that out as well as I should have. That week was recovering from a weekend. I officially accepted my level-up in vintage. I started to listen to/read articles through Speechify text-to-speech. It is an online app or service that reads documents on screen. I was aware of it from the YouTube commercials but didn’t start using it until reading Medium articles on my laptop. The website offered a listen-to option and I opted for it. Then I downloaded the service and added the icon to my taskbar. I find it very useful for articles about content creation and self-improvement. It also became handy when I realized I had saved over 50 articles on Medium to read. The only disappointment is that the service is not available on the app on my tablet It could be different on the phone but I have not checked.

Correction the Midjourney app is actually called Midjourney AI. You can access it through Discord with an account. I had a blast using it. These are the images generated from the prompt red mushroom in the forest; I have a thing for red mushrooms. The images underneath are the parent-generated image of two-tailed silver fox on a mountain. It was not exactly what I was looking for I had to think about the words I needed to use to be more specific.

It is a fascinating experience and my budget needs to be adjusted to add the subscription. Midjourney AI only allows a designated number of generated images before they request monetary compensation. It is worth it.

In writing news, I have come upon a snag in the development of my antagonist. The characters’ timelines are not exactly lining up. Connection Lost is a part of an anthology type of project. So far there are three story ideas, each planned to be a novella in size, about 25K to 30K in words. Each story is a window into the life of the main character at a different point in her life. I know there is a better term for what I am trying to do but the only thing I can come up with right now is a serial. In fact, last week I learned a new writing term the deuteragonist. The word sounds ominous but it is not actually Webster defines it as the person second in importance to the protagonist in a drama. For example in a romance, there is the female lead and then the male lead who I would consider a deuteragonist. Some might disagree. Honestly, I find that word a lot to say, so I will be sticking with the female lead, the male lead terms.

ProWriting Aid will be having another online ad event called Sci-Fi Week. It starts on Monday, August 29th til September 02. They have an interesting amount of new presenters from the science fiction genre and some regulars will be making an appearance. Due to my work life, I might have to catch all the lectures on YouTube. ProWriting Aid shares everything for about a week and then takes them down. However, if you are a member you can watch them anytime. I will let you know what happens. During Fantasy Writers week I signed up and paid the annual fee. During Crime Writers week, I bought the audiobook for the cozy mystery Arsenic and Adobo by Mia P. Manansala. I plan to other books before sharing my thoughts on the series. Next week you will know what I did.

That is all for now. I hope these words find you all doing well. Remember don’t miss opportunities and do your best to be kind.

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