Getting Started

I always knew that the hardest part of writing a book was not going to be writing the book, but selling it. It'd be too much to ask for a world where all I have to do is shoot it out of a cannon hope the right audience finds it. I guess that's sort of what I'm doing by posting about it on the internet but it doesn't actually involve a cannon so it's categorically worse.

I will say I wasn't expecting AI to be such a presence in my line-up of personal difficulties. I mean, I wasn't unaware of AI. The rock I was living under did get WIFI. But I took for granted how hard it was going to be to find a website host that didn't have AI as one of its big promotional add-ons. How am I supposed to promote a book as being my own work when every piece of software I'm using is BEGGING me to let a computer do it for me?

I don't personally understand the appeal of AI. Laziness is one thing. I love being lazy. Fuck the grindset, let's nap. But using AI doesn't actually give you less work, it just makes the work less fun. Now, instead of getting to craft a story and watch it emerge underneath your fingertips, you let a machine generate it for you and now you're let with the job of quality assurance. I can't even call it editing since most writers consider editing to be the worst part of the gig and if you didn't want to write a book, you sure as shit didn't want to edit one. You're not going to develop a plot you didn't come up with. You're not going to refine a character arc for a character you don't care about. I guess if your diligent you'll refine the prompts you gave the AI if it doesn't spit out the product that you want but god does that sound fucking boring.

I can say this about the years that I've spent writing Cannibal Politics, they weren't boring. Pointless, maybe, but not boring. If no one else reads it, at least I had fun writing it. At least my girl, Mab, had a blast reading it. (She doesn't count as a person, she's family). And, who knows, maybe you will too. Or maybe you'll won't. Maybe you got a nap to get caught up on. Either way, thanks for stopping by.