Western Motel by Edward Hopper, 1957

Yep. There was someone on here going on about how they NEEDED AI to draw and they had TRIED every way to learn and it was impossible and… Maybe they just don’t like drawing? And that’s okay? And maybe they could try a different creative outlet? Instead of… that?

can confirm. am rewriting my first novel, which is an unmitigated mess, with a fountain pen. well, several. several places have different inks because the pens ran out, and I just grabbed whatever so I could keep working. when I say the manuscript is colorful, I mean that literally!

this is cool!

In light of immense reader backlash, we are walking back our announcement of AI-ONLY ISSUES, made yesterday on April 1st, 2026. We will continue offering exclusively human-made art and literature from the finest and oddest minds and talents.

I do think some "authors" are using AI, but they're also the ones that were a year ago using Fivver "ghostwriters", or putting up a dozen unedited poorly conceptualized novels on Amazon and looking to iterate themselves into writing ability while being paid for their first drafts, etc.

My fellow writers might not want to hear this, but AI is a useful tool for certain aspects of the craft, like for instance when you’re engaged in the process of being a talentless shitbag hack who is too lazy to do any fucking writing.

Things that are absolutely disgusting: Sweet pickles. I have made this very clear: I do not like sweet pickles, they are a perversion of god's creation and a sign of satan. Pickled beets can stay, everything else can go. I have talked to the Slavs and they agree with me.

A lot of beginning writers (and quite a few professionals) need to read this thread.

Don't tell me what to skeet. Don't tell me what not to skeet. Read my skeets before replying to them. Reply to the skeet as written, not to the imaginary other person who wrote some other skeet in your mind that made you mad at someone who is not me.

One reason this is my pinned skeet is because of posters such as these bsky.app/profile/nmam...

My writing friend @johnzeleznikauthor.bsky.social and I will be live skeeting #TheTenCommandments this Saturday. We do it every year, and you’re all welcome to watch! “Moses used to rail me hard, but then he found God.”

As a lifelong Star Trek fan, it's always bothered me that there is a presumed "responsibility" within Star Trek shows to talk about social issues. I just want to watch Harcourt Fenton Mudd getting castigated by a phalanx of android wives.

Teachers and professors know more about what's best for students in the classroom than parents and politicians do, and everyone should sit the fuck down and let teachers teach.

Don't forget to be one of the billions against billionaires. billionsvsbillionaires.itch.io

“Life is a war between loss and survival. People are songs kissed by God.” Available for order at Amazon, or your local bookstore. E-book and print. Thank you! 😀 www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B0BR...

I got @mmerriam.bsky.social new anthology today! Can’t wait to read it!

#CUBS WIN! FINAL: Cubs 10, Nationals 2.

This is like when the Victorians ”restored” Renaissance art pieces by gussying them up with then-modern beauty standards. Future historians are going to have their work cut out for them degunking AI “restoration”

Now Available! www.amazon.com/Transit-Shor...

Today is Opening Day! Play ball! #baseball #GoCubs

That Netflix broadcast of the first game of the baseball season was absolutely fucking awful.

In case you were wondering, yes, we used to play with mercury as kids in school. Explains a lot.

For those keeping score at home we are losing this fucking war.

Your mistake was liking that Harry Potter slop in the first place. That’s where you went off the beam.

what's funny/not funny is that my husband is a huge Harry Potter nerd and even he can't quite help feeling like he shouldn't be giving any sort of attention to that shit anymore. it's more theoretical on his part than anything else, I think.

I really want to write a version of The Witch from the exterior POV of those Native people you see at the start. “Yeah, those Puritans keep throwing people out and then they start praying to that spirit they brought with them and next thing you know, flying naked ladies covered in baby fat.”

I feel the UK has done a lot of false advertising over the years. I have been here a week and have yet to run into an eccentric-yet-brilliant detective who will let me tag along as he solves a baffling case of murder.

Betty Blythe hiding the scandalous navel in SHE. Navel censoring fascinates me, especially the way it collapsed and disappeared without a trace in the 1960s

chart of every way a game of chess can end:

I have gone native with tea and scones

A replica of such, actually. But if this president is interested in what Baltimore, Maryland tosses in the harbor, we can dredge and ship south. There's all kinda shit down there.

This is Benjamin Netanyahu's draft-age son lounging by the pool at his luxury condo in Miami. He is not headed for Iran. Barron Trump is lounging in luxury somewhere else. He is also not headed for Iran. Don't let political opportunists sacrifice your children to distract from their corruption.

“BRILLIANTLY BRUTAL!” —Publishers Weekly Do you like weird westerns? Of course you do, we all do! So you will love HAXAN! Enjoy! #HAXAN #BloodDustWind #darkfantasy #weirdwestern #darkfantasy www.amazon.com/HAXAN-Haxan-...

I don’t believe Hachette didn’t know ‘Shy Girl’ was written by AI. They absolutely knew it, but they got caught. I don’t believe their stupid story for one minute.

His day is coming.

Well, I wrote 300 new words on the Pony Express story. I guess Iechnically I am still a writer.

I have a Substack joke but the woke gatekeepers of the MFA-literary-fiction industrial complex (all white women with the same haircut!) have forced me to go indie by self-publishing it via Kindle Unlimited.

The experience of listening to Coffin Moon by Keith Rosson is like getting punched in the face over and over and wanting to thank him for it ;)

"Editors recognize that authors use A.I. in a range of ways... And publishing executives want to ensure that their employees can use the technology for tasks like creating marketing copy, audio narration and translation." It's true; many editors are lazy and most publishing executives are scum.

New pay increases will bring the “lowest annual compensation” for junior employees up to $57,000 for a 38-hour week, which will be the highest starting salary in the industry, according to the union’s press release.

I didn’t mind Norris that much. He wasn’t a good actor. He wasn’t even a great martial artist. But he was entertaining, and in a broken world you can’t ask for much more than that. #ChuckNorris

Here we go!

one moment you’re flirting with a French boy in an Upper East Side coffee shop because you like his accent and the next thing you know, you’re at your in-laws’ house in France eating cheese like you’ve run out of health potions in Skyrim

I will say this. I am a proponent of the iceberg theory when it comes to writing. Less is more.

So be sure to maliciously enjoy DRACULA and FRANKENSTEIN's public domain status this coming January. Universal's preservation record is a joke and they don't deserve to profit from their old stuff after the way they behaved.

My favorite kind of author is the wildly successful author that gripes about the market that made them a wildly successful author.

In hindsight, it was unwise to group the world's entire strategic reserve of influencers in one concentrated area, Dubai. Amateur mistake. Sun Tzu would never.

Proof copy of IN TRANSIT on the way. The tentative schedule is to release this in time for @minicon-mnstf.bsky.social this year.