Libby

impromptu

you’ll come to a bad end, said my dad in our hallway, in his pyjamas, hands at his sides, knuckles curled, though – as far as I know – he never raised his fists, and what’s more he was too clever for cliché most of the time, but that evening when I came home from the gig with a scent of sweat and beer, I was grinning, shifting from foo…[Read more]

I asked it for a 200-word synopsis for my 2,200-word Den Challenge story (which I haven’t posted on the Den yet). The result was mostly a true reflection of the story – about 90% right I’d say. It had the minor character’s motivations wrong; they went in the opposite direction to what I’d written, unless of course I haven’t described them clearly…[Read more]

This is very interesting, Ath. Have you tried giving it a word count, e.g. to produce a 300-word synopsis?

Thank you for posting this, Ath. Christmas has been so busy I’ve only just read it. It’s a touching story.

This links to a short piece in The Bookseller:

The Bookseller – News – Society of Authors calls for change to ‘acknowledge all writers involved’ in celebrity-written books

The main message is:

“The SoA is asking publishers, celebrities, booksellers, festival organisers, agents and all involved in the industry to recognise and reward all…[Read more]

Yes, it’s the old vanity approach of taking advantage of unaware writers’ naivety. There’s a common belief that editing more or less equals proofreading without so much as a beta read along the way. I imagine all vanity publishers will be using AI in the same fashion.

I think what’s notable about Spines is the number of books they plan to…[Read more]

Hi @janette

I agree it could bring self-pub into disrepute though the large number of self-pub books on Amazon that seem not to have had human editing, regardless of the availability of AI, is already doing that.

The publishing industry can seem very off-putting. I’ve never tried to be published by it so I haven’t been through that particular…[Read more]

If you haven’t seen it before this report from April 2022 on paid-for publishing is interesting and depressing. I can’t remember if it mentions AI. A questionnaire was sent to authors who’d paid for an all-in editorial and publishing package. These weren’t indie authors paying for their own editors, cover designers etc and doing the hard work of…[Read more]

Congratulations, Seagreen! Thank you, Knicks, for a great prompt and your judge’s insights.

What’s Brought to the Table

796 words

Grace was sitting on the floor of Lily’s bedroom, leaning against Lily’s wardrobe. She looked at Lily, who was lying on her single bed with her arms spread wide like an act of supplication.

Lily had just said she was aiming for paradoxy. Grace wondered what psychodrama had produced this.…[Read more]

Thanks, Sandra. I’ve started a story – it probably works better with the After the Funeral theme. I doubt I’ll manage two stories. September is a busy month 🙂 I like it, the busyness and back to school feeling.