Yes, it's partly that there may be unanticipated upside. But I don't think we need to know how much. It's really that this falls under the broader category of artistic freedom / freedom of expression, and we have at this point a pretty well-established history of regretting it when we restrict that.

For the record, I would dissent on this. There's a long history of anxiety around simulating humans. It's part of Plato's objection to writing, and it's why novel-reading has often been viewed as weakening young people's sense of reality. But I don't think we really want laws against make-believe.

They Are The Same Picture

“The human tendency to focus on the inconsequential to avoid focusing on the traumas at hand could be completely ridiculous at times.” — Chimera (Parasitology Book 3) by Mira Grant

If you want to try it out, it's freely available here: tracker.marylowd.com It works on desktop and mobile. All you need to sign up/login is an email address to get the magic link.

This was partly to help @marylowd.bsky.social track her words and partly an excuse to try out vibe coding. I hate CSS and I don't know Javascript, so I couldn't have made this without AI. In a few hours, I had an initial prototype. Then I spent a few days iterating and creating version 2.

I made a thing! Since the NaNoWriMo website is gone (RIP), I vibe-coded a NaNo-style word tracker, including many stats, UI options, and a cat picture reward for each daily milestone.

I always loved the picture book “Sylvester and the Magic Pebble” as a kid. My story “Geese and Gingerbread” is kind of my homage to it, and it turned into a very nice fairy tale song: youtu.be/TCZ9nX-RWfk?...

My novella, “Commander Annie,” is very strongly inspired by a friendship breakup I went through in middle school. It was fully my first heartbreak. And there’s something just so healing about this catchy 80s-style song I’ve made to go with the story: youtu.be/p9mt3Ke-SBI?...

I wrote my ultra short story, “Greatest of Them All,” at a conference about women in fantasy called Sirens. It seemed like the perfect intro to COMMANDER ANNIE AND OTHER ADVENTURES to tie the whole book together. And now it makes a pretty little song: youtu.be/mcxOU3ew3dQ?...

I had to do a fair bit of tweaking and reworking of the lyrics and prompt for the song version of “The Muddy Unicorn.” I wanted more background vocals than Suno kept giving me, but in the end, it turned out really pretty: youtu.be/TISirV8yYTM?...

My husband made a joke about a place looking like Treegadoon… and so, of course, I had to spend several months writing a novella about an otter swept up into a disappearing-reappearing squirrel city, which you can now listen to in song form! youtu.be/O08Izdqx_rc?...

So, I took the first chapter of Pride & Prejudice and converted it into a parody about a cat and dog arguing over a cardboard box… and then I converted that into a song… you know, just normal things to do. youtu.be/R0-mYfX8vL8?...

My story, “The Best Puppy Ever,” is from the point of view of a Bernese mountain dog who’s unknowingly a pregnancy surrogate for her owners. I bet there aren’t a lot of other songs out there with that premise… youtu.be/HXMYNYhrOfI?...

I’d been meaning to write a story about a rabbit befriending a carnivorous plant for many years before it actually happened, and the result, “Frond Farewell,” turned into such an incredibly beautiful song about unlikely friendships: youtu.be/pzqkOxVmtkM?...

Did you ever wish for a song with the moral that the best comfort comes from eating dragonflies? Well, fortunately, I turned my story, “An Otter’s Soul,” into a song, and it’s exactly that! youtu.be/YuZBcEToi1Q?...

Someone who should have known better told me that I’m not as special as I think I am… so I wrote “Sarah Flowermane and the Unicorn” as a place to put that feeling. And it converted really beautifully into a song about not needing the approval you seek: youtu.be/Gd_8CNf__H8?...

There’s just really not quite any other feeling like having whole albums of music perfectly, carefully tailored to my own tastes, filled with messages that mean something to me.

Being able to make my own music with Suno these last few weeks has been such a massively seismic shift in my life. Famine to feast literally overnight, and it’s been taking everything in my brain to process it. I’ve never had enough of the kind of music I want ever before.

We were playing Catan with friends, arguing about trading sheep, and the line, “but it COULD have been 1 sheep with 15 other sheep!” happened. Which led to a flash fiction. Which led to this delightfully silly song: youtu.be/eImcqLtWHGI?...

My kid had to write a research essay a few years ago with the title “Jellyfish for Dinner,” so I promised to work on a short story by the same name while he worked on the essay… anyway, this means there’s now a song by that title too: youtu.be/TRGdiEwwGk0?...

My story, “Hide the Honey,” was inspired by my first experience drinking caffeine when I was a kid. It was such a giddy high, and this song absolutely captures the bubbly, fizzy nature of it: youtu.be/MaWVBZZXYj4?...

“The Freedom of the Queen” is one of those weird flash factions I dashed off while feeling really tired and overwhelmed by parenting… and it turned into such a gorgeously haunting song: youtu.be/USx7lkt2qog?...

I’d forgotten what a wild story “Frankenstein’s Gryphon” is until I was turning it into a song… both story and song really go places… youtu.be/5qieH0NDJic?...

The song version of my story, “Fox in the Hen House,” is probably the catchiest bop I’ve managed to create in my extensive two week history of music producing. The story itself was nominated for an Ursa Major Award and won a Coyotl Award. youtu.be/jZXdTDmVhT8?...

If you want campy, cheerful, sing-a-long fun check out the song version of my story, “The Canoe Race” co-written with @lowd.bsky.social. The original story won a Coyotl Award! youtu.be/ruO9YU3SRWI?...

My favorite part of the song version of “The Otter’s Mermaid” is the refrain, “not a thing to be fixed with gears and bolts and metal sticks” — I just love how the music shifts down for it, really giving it a groovy, cool vibe: youtu.be/gNnIRi1Ly6M?...

My story, “One Night in Nocturnia,” was inspired by Owl City… all of Adam Young’s ridiculously lyrical lyrics combined with that super evocative band name… Anyway, the song version has none of Owl City’s vibe, but it did turn out pretty cool and catchy: youtu.be/_fQtuYEDAYE?...

An editor friend challenged me to write a story for an anthology he was editing with a deadline in eight hours, while I was single-parenting for the weekend… and “Sheeperfly’s Lullaby” happened. The song version turned out really pretty: youtu.be/_6-4ozmZtcU?...

The song version of “Gerty and the Doesn’t-Smell-Like-a-Melon” turned out so well that I ended up making the style into a persona and using it for the entire first half of The Necromouser. Seriously, this turned into such a charming little song: youtu.be/9wPGH4qdbUY?...

My story, “Stranger Than a Swan,” is about bonding deeply with something… scarce… when you’re too young to realize, leaving you looking for it for the rest of your life. For me, it was Brian Wilson’s music. And now, I can make my own music… youtu.be/7IgpHR4trM8?...

Alright, I’ve posted links with blandly positive comments to all of the songs from my soundtrack album for THE OPPOSITE OF MEMORY. I think people should go listen to it! I’ve found it to be a very fun album to play on repeat, and if people want to bug me about individual songs…

I wrote “Where Have All the Mousies Gone” after the 2020 election about how I wished my grandma could’ve been there. Then it won an Ursa Major Award. It was really meaningful getting acknowledgment like that for such a personal story. And now it’s a song! youtu.be/tylRztx9TQI?...

Translating my story, “Two Roads Diverge,” into song was tricky, because unlike a lot of the others I’ve done, it’s not driven by either plot or place… it’s absolutely about capturing a very specific idea: youtu.be/1Oecno5qBWU?...

I love, love, love how “Heaven is the Best Moment of Your Life, Infinitely Remixed and Played on Loop” turned out as a song. The story itself was originally inspired by the song “Yeah Sure Whatever” on The Afterparty, make of that what you will. youtu.be/bswkjBF9PBw?...

A lot of people in my writing group have told me that they think “Foreknowledge” is my best story. It was originally written to submit to the Machine of Death anthologies but actually landed in Apex. And now there’s a song inspired by it: youtu.be/uinyFfMq6Dg?...

I wasn’t sure how it would go converting such a weird sci-fi story as “The Hand-Havers” into song… but I’ve gotten the “mother of children I didn’t ask for” refrain from this one stuck in my head soooo many times. So, I think it went well! youtu.be/YHRHUsFRvsk?...

I just love the part in “The City in My Toaster Oven” where the lead sings “and I’m oblivious and cruel.” This was a fun one to make. youtu.be/-sOWinZEHIQ?...

Sometimes when I put a song into Suno, what I get back is pure magic. My Flowers for Algernon-esque story, “Techno Babel” (co-written with @lowd.bsky.social) is one of those cases… Also, new wave as a genre of music can be kind of amazing. youtu.be/GCxLMWIMFKY?...

My story, “Flowers Want to Be Free,” was a short little thing I dashed off on my birthday a few years back, and I think it turned into a nice song: youtu.be/dhLNfQ0Xheo?...

Okay, okay, so “Necessary as a Rose” is probably my favorite song I’ve made so far. It absolutely captures the unhinged space madness quality I was going for with the story… but while being so damned catchy. Seriously, I just love this song so much: youtu.be/gKUISt1k7UY?...

My story, “Crystal and Rainbow” from THE OPPOSITE OF MEMORY, was always more of an experimental, prose poem, mood piece than a full story, so it was very suited to becoming a song: youtu.be/FRC0PbJEfgc?...

My story, “Memory Sprites,” is about trying to return to the site of childhood magic later in life, and I think the song turned out fairly magical: youtu.be/tegxBKw_tkA?...

Okay, okay, Reading Rainbow is coming back. That’s good. But next we need Square One. Maybe starring Danica McKellar as a Mathnet detective and featuring Pentatonix in all kinds of musical skits. Yes. This would be good. Sending thought into the universe.

POV: The new singer of the Reading Rainbow theme song and the new host of Reading Rainbow meet for the first time in Canada 🥹📚🌈 Video Description: Mychal and Bukola meet for the first time! They joyfully dance to the Reading Rainbow theme song, sung by Bukola ✨ youtube.com/@kidzuko?feature=shared

It’s hard to get people to read fiction. It’s hard to get people to listen to music. Me: I know! I will make soundtrack albums for my books with a song to accompany each short story! Fortunately, I’m my own audience, and I love being able to listen to my books as music now.

“The Fish Kite” is a sequel story to “Forget Me Not,” so I used the same musical persona in Suno to make the songs sound like they’re sung by the same character. Worked out beautifully. Once again, very jazzy and catchy. youtu.be/iXuWtQz5UBg?...

Okay, so, “Returning the Lyre,” is obviously my gender-flipped take on Orpheus and Eurydice, but it’s also about how horribly brutal the tenure process is, even on people one step removed from it. And now it’s a delightfully catchy song! youtu.be/I_0mYDPWY38?...

My story, “Anger is a Porcupine, Sadness is a Fish,” caused such a kerfuffle in my writing group with people breaking the foundational rule that we don’t assume fiction is about the author that I’m still not really over it. Anyway, makes a powerful song: youtu.be/Ahpro1RKR0c?...

I had to be really careful when turning “My Magic, My Spell” into a song, because I wanted to be able to enjoy listening to it… but it’s also, at its heart, about a traumatic moment. My first few tries… were too raw. But this one landed beautifully: youtu.be/40cHxT46x8I?...