"I keep hearing that one of America’s biggest problems is we’re “divided and polarized.” This is bullsh*t. The problem is that a significant portion of America is buying Trump’s violent, hateful, lawless crap. (A major part of these) are fundamentalist "Christians."

Poverty is a policy choice. Concentrated wealth is a policy choice. Inequality is a policy choice. None of it is natural or inevitable. Remember: We have the power to build a system that serves the many, not the powerful few.

Sharing for the last two lines. Self publishing is the old "pay to play" scam they used to pull on bands back in the 90s (famously skewered by Nirvana in the original version of "stay away", "pay to play.") No. This is not how things work.

Well it's query time again, I guess. After eliminating the duplicate agencies & such, I've managed to get out an even dozen so far. Strangely, few if any wanted my last several books...and what's utterly bizarre is that the grim mood of these times meant literally HALF of those got my 15th, from

Exactly. Quiet character moments, witty banter, tense confrontations and introspective self examination are what makes a story work and resonate with readers who identify with those very human moments. Save the rollercoaster rides and big explosions for a braindead Hollywood regurgitation machine.

As a science fiction writer I really fucking resent tech bros for ruining the phrase "artificial intelligence." 80 years of it being all about cool androids and interesting computers destroyed by five years of "Spicy autocorrect making everything shittier for money." NEVER FORGIVE.

It’s fucking bizarre how people are acting like something from 2022 is something they can’t live without. Like dudes, the emotional dependence on a sycophantic machine regurgitating nonsense to encourage you to stop engaging in critical thought and trust the slop is truly depressing to witness.

call me crazy, but i think forcing the adoption of tech that intentionally hollows out the human labor market and accelerates climate destruction in order to concentrate wealth is just mass-murder with extra steps

19 more pages, 29,775. And we've just seen through flashback exactly who messed our hero up so bad, and why.

7 more pages, 133p, 25,750. Last night's minor public scuffle has hit social media...and they're spinning it to dredge up some ugly business our lead can't quite leave in the past.

Less "influenced" than "stayed with." Posting together because I'm bad at sticking with things long term.

"In addition to ridding ourselves of Trump, we’ll also need to turn down the noise. peace & stability in our lives. Do we really need AI? Do we have to work this hard? Can’t this rich nation afford to give everyone at least a universal basic income? Can’t we just elect humble, capable leaders?"

Wow, this is peak bird intelligence. These birds saw someone feeding a wounded bird, so they started pretending they were also injured.

Amusingly enough, I've been calling them Barnes Ignoble for decades.

16 more pages, 24,275, 126 pages. Some drunken misadventures can be as good a thing as they are a close call to something very, very bad. Depends on when you've got yourself a guardian angel watching over you in the end.

And beneath, miles of metal scream Drenched in blood As madmen pick off an unsuspecting populace One by one by several dozen Out of little more than spite And the selfishness it takes To truly hate

Doors whish open not half so wide As necessary to suit the new American girth borne of an unregulated gluttony handed down from on high, A penury of mass malnutrition in service of an overfed oligarchy The needs of the many in submission to the petulance of the few

You asked for it. The straphangers jostle like billiards, All shoulders, elbows and hip checks As the rabidly squealing death throes Of a temporary trip through this subterranean tunnel Shriek in defiance at its brief conclusion

Another scene or so down, 21,500, 110 pages. And our hero is about to make things very uncomfortable at work by playing white knight for his lady fair.

Umm...and who, pray tell, is pulling this person's strings? #TrojanHorse #DarkEnlightenment bsky.app/profile/more...

The next query I encounter that asks if any part of this manuscript was written with AI, I shall refer to my feed, which is filled to the brim with exactly how I feel about the American Trojan Horse.

10 more pages in this insane heatwave, 20,120 and 103p. They're going to be forced into another meeting, whether she likes it or not. Because he's not about to let her get taken advantage of by...

Came up elsewhere. Once I finally get agented, what I most want people to take away from my works? That all us broken toys deserve a happy ending too. That found family ALWAYS > blood relations.

I too wrote papers without finishing books (more often than I’d like to admit), but learning to read strategically and how to find the most important/pertinent information to you is an extraordinarily important intellectual skill. Outsourcing it completely will invariably lead to global brain drain

First harvest of the season.

There is no career subject to more naysaying & predictions of doom than being a professional author. Not even being a professional musician subjects you to more putdowns, abject lies, scam artist barnacle types & concern from friends and family.

12 more pages, 18,310, 93p. It's always good to have friends to lift us out of a foul mood. Usually involving drinks. And clubbing.

Yeah, no. Yet another thing that came up in chats with various self published authors. That's on the publisher. I did my heavy lifting crafting, editing & polishing my work into release worthy format. Now it's 100% on you agents & the publishers you sell my work to, that's why you get your %.

“We have made a technology that creates nothing but will ensure you have no future while we get richer and richer wait why are you boooing?”

"Replacing Americans’ civic identity with Christian nationalism destroys that vitally important understanding of the role of citizens in a democracy. Instead, it demands that Americans do as they are told, turning them into subjects.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was booed throughout this commencement speech at the University of Arizona for his praise of AI. This comes just a week after another commencement speaker who mentioned AI was booed at a school in Florida. Read more: www.404media.co/ucf-ai-comme...

Go Packers, I guess!

80 pages, 15,825 now, and finally everyone has their names and suchlike ephemera all in place. Already blocking out and adding related material. This one's well underway.

7 more pages, 15,850. And at last, the worm begins to turn.

Brain-only lol. Lmao, even.

Just blasted through another 16 pages, 14,400 words, 72 pages now. From humble...and decidedly contentious beginnings? The birth pangs of an actual emotional connection begin to appear.

Stunned comment last night, after another sharing of one of my scenes to fellow authors: "I was utterly rapt!"

Ha! I was compared to Reed by a particularly nasty teacher in grade school, simply because I call 'em like I see 'em. Reed was a performative drama queen like Mr. Blackwell, but I adore his refusal to back down & bowlderize in the face of opposition.And honestly? Babs IS both lowbrow & impossible.

It's absolutely remarkable to me, and depressing, how quickly so many people have outsourced their brain to AI. It wasn't long ago that you were perfectly capable of writing an email or a resume, of doing a web search, of exercising your intellect. Now so many are trading their minds for pudding.

There are basically 5 ways to accumulate a billion dollars: 1) Profiting from a monopoly 2) Insider-trading 3) Political payoffs 4) Fraud 5) Inheritance Don’t believe the self-made myth.

56p, 11,130 words now. 3 chapters in to the madness, and our leads still don't have names, but they've already had quite the first meeting and are really starting to flesh themselves and their backgrounds out as we go. Nothing is ever as simple or conventional as it seems, eh?

the tech world has genuinely not grappled with how many people despise them and what they make

Who knew? What we all assumed was another Hallmark-created "holiday" actually had a feminist genesis...

45 pages, 39k words already, just from the first two chapters/scenes. And I still have the next 1 and a half scenes blocked out, so...still moving along on my 27th! youtu.be/b1zgmM2lalo?...

The Bicentennial came at a rough point in American history. We'd barely come through Watergate, Ford's pardon of Nixon's crimes, a Vietnam we'd only just (officially) walked away from in defeat, the memories of Kent State still less than a decade behind, serial killers & terrorist hijackers filling