"She gave me everything before she gave me nothing". Oh man, does that ring like a bell for me...

...I'm *tired*.

"Show me a character’s junk drawer, and I can tell you precisely how they will damn—or redeem—themselves."

Just gonna go ahead and post this again, 'cause it's still fuckin' relevant.

Oh my god I almost fell out of my chair when a senior colleague told me he was using ChatGPT to evaluate a tenure file as an external reviewer because he wanted to help the candidate but didn’t have the time to read all the work.

The bane of those of us with arthritis: American packaging. My dude, I'm not trying to break into Fort Knox. I just want to open a package of frozen turkey burgers.

@bluejo.bsky.social you were a FEATURE for all of this month on my Patreon. A post about one of your older (but still one my favourite) books is just up today. Thank you for writing.

It's hard to believe this was so LONG ago...

[frantically dialing the Dad Joke Hall of Fame]

Well. I just sat down and wrote nearly 3000 words of the WIP. That was... unexpected. #AmWriting

What Beth said. Not on TikTok. Won't be there for reasons. Use my Linktree to find me.

Like he said. Being a writer is not a thing where you get a "participation trophy". If you do not enjoy writing for writing's sake, if you truly cannot write without cheating by using AI... then you aren't a writer and you never will be. Find something else to do. Be someone else.

Alien: And how did you run out of water? Earthling: Machines drank it. Alien: Machines. Earthling: We had to feed machines the water. Aliens: So the machines were holding your planet hostage for water. Earthling: No, we made the thirsty machines. They worked for us. Alien: End communication.

Happy #Caturday from the crew.

Milo tried very hard to understand all the things he'd been told, and all the things he'd seen, and, as he spoke, one curious thing still bothered him. "Why is it," he said quietly, "that quite often even the things which are correct just don't seem to be right?"

Funny things still happen over at the bad place This guy put a prompt in his LinkedIn and now AI recruiters are writing him in Old English and calling him "my lord"

(For the "AI" apologists about to tell me the problem isn't "AI" it's the user, well no, it's both, as a matter of design LLMs can't not hallucinate, and also people don't know how to use them, maybe all y'all should stop fucking marketing them like they're actually useful for 99% of humans)

Roses are redde Noble are the manatees For a bettir future Teach artes and humanityes

Oh god yes. Please don't let Jackson anywhere near the Silmarillion...

I wish I could push my inner cynic down and tell you, why, sure...

I met someone who was shocked at how rabidly I despised GenAI. For others curious why writers appear to have an irrationally strong reaction to the chatbots, a rough breakdown of why so many of us are going full luddite: 🧵

Reminds me of "business ethics". There is none, the Ford Pinto proved that decades ago even though it was blatantly obvious throughout human history. Unrestrained capitalism is slavery with extra steps.

Welcome to the age of model collapse.

folx, I’ve been working on AI "ethics" for almost a decade now & hate to tell you there’s no such thing as "ethical AI" the only "ethical principle" that works is regulating the shit out of the industry & to take back control of our autonomy, fundamental rights, freedoms & right to exist w/out AI

Writers traditionally shed words in May, which can make them awkward and skittish. Don't worry, they aren't sick, don't have rabies, and probably won't bite. If you see one in the middle of it, toppled over, words spilling out of them, just put a cloth or cardboard box over their head. Do not feed!

...aaaand the computer just pitched some sort of fit with the speakers which got stuck in a screaming growl noise kind of thing. Rebooted. Monitor wouldn't turn on. Rebooted. Monitor turned on but now my desktop seems to be just gone. I hate computers.

Always. Rawbraining writers R us.

This is your periodic reminder that word of mouth moves more books than any formal advertising! I invite you to rec something you've recently enjoyed -- preference for the stuff that's *not* already extremely well-known and talked about everywhere.

Per Deirdre, Harvard University currently has NO Assistant Professors of English on its faculty. (An “assistant professor” is typically the entry level for a position that might lead to tenure, though as noted in the thread Harvard has some quirks In this regard.)

I recently learned of something that Vivien Leigh once said - "I am an actress, not a film star". In terms of the wretched AI, this - I am a writer, not a 'bestselling author'. The goal was not getting my name in lights (or on a book cover). The goal was stepping on that stage. Of having *written*.

You cannot AI a soul. You CANNOT. something that is programmed to "love" you only parrots the words, it can never understand the emotion behind it.

There's a thread. Go read it.

few things amuse me more than opening a catfood tin and hearing the leap-and-sprint from upstairs of an instantly awake cat... ...then seeing him saunter round the corner into view pretending to be all casual about it. l have ears. i heard you running, you furry little fraud.

The discourse around "This is a tell for AI writing" really only serves the AI bros, because (they believe) it will tell them how to change the AI to make it indistinguishable from a human. We need to keep our em dashes. Our rules of three. The tell for AI is: is it hollow, does it say nothing.

We lost Douglas Adams 25 years ago today. This has made a lot of people very sad and has been widely regarded as a bad move.

From the Archives "Out of Draconia" @almaalexander.bsky.social (has a new story & podcast in BCS #456) "until the day she came back, at dawn, staggering, thin to the point of being gaunt. And cradled across her body in a makeshift sling, a dragon egg." www.beneath-ceaseless-skies.com/stories/out-...

"Under babied"? WTF does that even mean? OK then Dr Oz, let's see YOU pop one out.

I have to say, the ghostwriter cut was CHINTZY given the amount of the advance for which the "author" had to do not work whatsoever...

As you wish. (This cat weighs 16 pounds, just sayin'.)

Idk man, provide paid maternity leave, free or at least subsidized childcare, and full reproductive rights or hush up about how important mothers are

The other thing is the robots are stingy with the porn and drugs. COMIC ◆ www.smbc-comics.com/comic/terminal PATREON ◆ www.patreon.com/ZachWeinersm... STORE ◆ smbc-store.myshopify.com

This is an interesting piece and connects to a convo i was having with friends yesterday, about how one of my challenges recently is persuading students that I want *their* thoughts and analysis about things, and that it coming *from them* is the entire point. www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-i...

In fact, yes, I do think it’s a widespread social crisis that students are going to be graduating without the capacity to think critically and without subject matter knowledge. At a time when technofascism prevails, more of us should be terrified about the consequences of universalizing gAI use.

“We, the creators of the Torment Nexus, are now suing the writers of the classic science fiction novel ‘Don’t Create the Torment Nexus.’”

NOOO!

Peekaboo #Caturday. "Hey. What'cha doin'?"