Category: Writing Life

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.

End

Updates August 22-26

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Hello,

Thank you for the likes and follows.

Last week, I should have written about skipping this week’s update but that didn’t happen. This entry is late, my week works a little better for me when I post. I did write about my birthday on Sunday on this site and on Medium.com. I invite you to give me some claps over there. August 22nd is my sister’s birthday. We usually celebrate together and for two days we did. It wasn’t a grand birthday blitz. It was still a good one, I went to some new places, met some new people, and reconnected with some old friends. I enjoyed myself and I am glad about that.

Looking into how to spruce up the website. I am aware that most of what I write can only be of interest to me. I do it because writing about the struggles of writing clears the mind. The need to share with others who might be going through the same thing, I believe is helpful for my mindset and can be helpful to others. There might not be tried and true solutions; the suggestions are optional. As well as the acknowledgment that you are not alone. It is often said by authors more successful but I doubt it is ever understood by us on the lower tiers. I know we go through the same writing woes as successfully published authors but they break through in places where we haven’t yet.

I haven’t decided on what I am going to do. But I found the Midjourney app and others like it promising. I have ideas for my characters what they look like, where they live etc. Pinterest can only do so much. There are times when one image has the right hairstyle but the earrings are off. There are times when I need an obviously Black character but all the aesthetics are on another person. It can defeat my visual purpose, AI’s like Midjourney and artbreeder seem like fun exersizes that can help the writing projects along. These sites cost about $10 or more to have a subscription. I don’t have one officially yet but there are friends who really like them.

I don’t have any words to say about the craft books I planned to read. I haven’t really started them. It had to do with the work part of life and the fact that my birthday was coming up. I have started to read some comics on comic apps, like Tapas.io and TappyToon,com. I might a list later on this topic and share. I was pleased to learn that about half of comics I am reading are also being read by a well known author team I follow. The craft reading will happen just not last week.

The writing goal for this week is to complete the fast draft of the scene I started about 2 weeks ago. Not sure if it was mentioned in the previous entries, but I realized something about a character I didn’t notice before. It is not the main character but his actions effects her life. Taking some time to explore his GMC will help the story.

That is all I have for this week. I hope these words finds you in a good mindset, remember to be kind and don’t miss any opportunity.

End