Weekly Round-up, March 23, 2024

John Winkelman

Facing south down the connector from northbound Division Ave to Michigan Street.

[I took this photo when walking home from work. The viewpoint is facing south down the connector from northbound Division Ave to Michigan Street, just west of the hospitals.]

We’re in the final stretch of the big project at work so I spent most of this week, well, working. Any time spent not-working was spent recovering from work. I suspect much of the rest of spring will be like this.

Reading

I finished Loaded, which was a good history of the Second Amendment, and its basis in, and magnification of, the built-in racist flavor of American culture. Now I’m reading a few shorter works, like last month, which is appropriate for my unfortunately limited time and attention availability right now. Right now I am working my way through “Bartleby, the Scrivener“, the short story by Herman Melville, in a collection of two(!) short stories published in 1995 as part of Penguin’s 60th anniversary collection “Penguin 60s”. Other than Moby-Dick, this is the only Melville I have read. I love it.

Writing

Bupkis.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Relic, Environment
Setting: Bar
Genre: Utopian

Listening

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, March 16, 2024

John Winkelman

Looking East across the Grand River at the Sixth Street Bridge Dam, at sunrise.

[The photo this week was taken from the fish ladder on the west side of the Sixth Street Bridge dam, facing east into the sunrise.]

This past Sunday, feeling exhausted and also nostalgic, I dusted off an old Lenovo ThinkPad 11e, fixed some issues it had with continually dropping its internet connection, and turned it into my retro gaming machine. I have scores of games purchased over the years from GOG.com, so I installed a few of them – Hammerwatch, Ultima IV, and others.

One of my favorite games from back in the 1980s was Telengard, a sort of graphic roguelike which I played A LOT on my Commodore 64. There are a few ports and remakes available now, but while I found a few that could be played online, I didn’t find any which I could successfully install on the ThinkPad. No big deal; there are ways to get around this, including porting the Commodore BASIC source code to Javascript and having it run in the browser. It wouldn’t take long; anything that could run on a C64 is miniscule compared to even the most rudimentary of games available now.

But my research turned up one interesting bit of trivia: Back in 2005 someone released an updated version of Telengard, which I had downloaded and played once upon a time. That person was Travis Baldree, who wrote the absolutely wonderful book Legends and Lattes. Baldree is one of the developers of Torchlight, also one of my favorite games, and one which I played A LOT back around 2012 – 2015.

Reading

Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. I picked this up in June 2018 at City Lights Bookstore, when my partner and I spent several days in San Francisco at the end of a two-week vacation that started with stops in Las Vegas and Phoenix.

Writing

Another week with little writing, though I do have a plan to start some deep worldbuilding for the rewrite of my 2022 NaNoWriMo project Cacophonous. Just too much noise in the world right now.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Reincarnation, Fae
Setting: Frontier
Genre: Literary Fiction

Listening

John Zorn, Baphomet.

I’ve been a fan of John Zorn since I first heard his album The Gift while sitting in Common Ground Coffee House in the early 2000s. “Baphomet” is a single track and also an album, prog rock by way of avant-garde jazz, and a fantastic listen. I think the theme music for writing Cacophonous, when I finally get around to it, will be Zorn’s oeuvre, mixed and randomized and on heavy rotation.

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, March 9, 2024

John Winkelman

Revolving door into the Keeler building in downtown Grand Rapids

Another super-busy week. The only time I had to myself was on the walk to and from work on Monday and Wednesday. That’s when I took this photo of the entrance to the Keeler building on Fountain Street.

Reading

I am close to done with Babel by R.F. Kuang, and loving every page of it.

Writing

Not much writing to speak of this week, other than the March 2024 Insecure Writer’s Support Group post, which discusses generative AI and its effect on creative types.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Aliens, Super Powers
Setting: Bar
Genre: Noir

Listening

John Zorn and the New Masada Quartet

Interesting Links

 

IWSG, March 2024: So This Generative AI Thing…

John Winkelman

Pepper, looking out the window.

February sprinted as much as January dragged. Now here in March maybe we can settle down into something resembling a predicable routine.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for March 2024 is: Have you “played” with AI [sic] to write those nasty synopses, or do you refuse to go that route? How do you feel about AI’s [sic] impact on creative writing?

First, the answer to the first question: I haven’t written a synopsis in a very long time, and in the event I write another I will do it myself. I suppose one of the LLMs (e.g. ChatGPT) could be used (if not necessarily useful) but given the time I would undoubtedly need to spend fine-tuning the output, I might as well write the thing myself.

Now on to the second question.

In every case where the (creative, not business-related) output of an LLM has been compared to “real” writing, the output is inferior to text written by a human, unless the original text was also…not that great. Since the output of an LLM is not writing, as such, I will focus on the reaction of writers and the craft of writing, rather than the impact on the culture of creative writing.

As I stated in an earlier IWSG post, the biggest issue is the flooding of markets with the output of LLMs which (in an analog to Gresham’s Law), will inevitably drown out the work produced by real people. And if these machine-produced texts aren’t as good as that which can be produced by a human, that won’t matter to readers who settle for “good enough” when looking for reading material. And, frankly, that’s the majority of readers.

So the current, ongoing, and inevitable flooding of the marketplace with LLM-generated texts will have two major consequences.

First, writers will need to continually improve their craft in order to produce work which is notably more accomplished than that created by algorithms.

And second, the percentage of works which are human-created and genuinely good will continue to dwindle (even if their actual numbers increase) simply because LLMs can produce texts much (!) faster than humans can, and statistically, the number of genuinely good works produced by LLMs will increase (even as, again, the percentage decreases, as the artificial output continues to flood the marketplace), which puts additional pressure on human writers to (a) improve their skills, (b) increase their output, (c) make their writing voice uniquely their own, and (d) spend more time marketing themselves and their works in order to distinguish themselves from the mountain of scratchings extruded by stochastic parrots.

So the effect on creative writing will be that generated writing drowns out creative writing. Readers will be less able – to the extent that it matters to them – to distinguish between text which was written and text which was generated.

There are few easy ways to counter this trend. Such is the world we live in.

For authors the easiest is probably to create, build, and maintain real-world connections with other real people. Establish and strengthen your bona-fides by proving that you are a real person, and by interacting with other real people – readers, editors, publishers, fans, all of them. And this means having a presence outside of social media (which on the major platforms at this point is well over 50% bots and spam accounts). Even a personal blog is a big step in the right direction.

That’s the one thing LLMs, neural nets, and the other technologies can’t do: Impersonate us in the real world.

Yet.

 

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Weekly Round-up, March 2, 2024

John Winkelman

Maple Tree Budding, February 27, 2024

Life is still busy, leaving little time for relaxing and sinking into the state of mind where reading and writing is frictionless. Since the previous update we had a record-breaking warm day, then a sudden drop in temperature which broke the record for the largest 24-hour drop in temperature (50+ degrees F). The maple trees started budding a week ago, and spring peepers are making their little noises in the swamps, and mosquitoes are beginning to swarm around porch lights. And all this in February.

This reminds me somewhat of the previous Year of the Dragon in 2012, when the outside temperature reached almost 80° on St Patrick’s Day. That’s only a couple of weeks from now, and the odds of something like that are looking better every day.

Reading

Currently reading Babel, by R.F. Kuang.

Writing

I am attempting to re-start a writing exercise I practices before the COVID lockdowns – on those days I walk to work, pay attention to the small details of the world, and when I get to work, jot down five things which captured my attention. So far I have managed to do that exactly once. It’s been a busy year. But I am adjusting.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Fae, Artificial Intelligence
Setting: Ship
Genre: War

Listening

“Eyeball Kid” is on Tom Waits‘ 1999 album Mule Variations. I listened to this a lot when I worked at Cybernet Engineering, my first “real” web development job, and the second of several terrible web developments jobs. It’s a fantastic album and well worth a listen, particularly when laboring under a bout of existential angst.

I know you can’t speak,
I know you can’t sign;
So cry right here on the dotted line.

Interesting Links

February 2024 Books and Reading Notes

John Winkelman

Now that I am no longer trapped under a volume of Dostoevsky I can resume my normal reading pace. In February I completed 16 books and journals. Sure, that sounds like a lot, but I purposefully picked the shorted unread books on my bookshelves. The combined word-count of these 16 books is probably less than a third of what I read in Dostoevsky’s Demons, which took almost two months to finish. And a lot of that was not because of the length of the book, but because it was Dostoevsky, and 1,000 words of Dostoevsky is, like, at least 1,500 words of anyone else.

A lot of these shorter works are graphic novels, or works in translations from works-in-translation publishers like Deep Vellum, And Other Stories, Open Letter Books, and Two Lines Press.

Acquisitions

Reading material acquired in the month of February 2024

  1. Andrzej Tichý (Nichola Smalley, translator), Purity (And Other Stories) [2024.02.24] – The newest arrival from my subscription to And Other Stories.

Reading List

The books I read in February 2024

Books

  1. Wolfgang Hilbig (Isabel Fargo Cole, translator), The Tidings of the Trees [2024.02.01] – Well written and well-translated, but just couldn’t get into this one. Fortunately I have more Hilbig in my library so I can give him another chance.
  2. Saladin Ahmed and Dave Acosta, Dragon [2024.02.01] – Fantastically written and beautifully-illustrated graphic novel. I will now need to seek out more of Ahmed’s comic writings.
  3. Elizabeth A. Trembley, Look Again: A Memoir [2024.02.01] – An amazing memoir about how the stories we tell ourselves (and about ourselves) change over time, and with the telling.
  4. Duanwad Pimwana (Mui Poopoksakul, translator), Bright [2024.02.05]
  5. Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #41 [2024.02.08]
  6. Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages, Wakulla Springs [2024.02.10]
  7. Chris Abani, The Face: Cartography of the Void [2024.02.10]
  8. Ruth Ozeki, The Face: A Time Code [2024.02.11]
  9. Tash Aw, The Face: Strangers on a Pier [2024.02.11]
  10. Oleg Sentsov (Uilleam Blacker, translator), Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  11. Maurice Broaddus, Buffalo Soldiers [2024.02.15] – Excellent novella in the steampunk tradition. Truly enjoyable reading experience. My only complaint is that this wasn’t a full-size novel.
  12. Anne Garréta (Emma Ramadan, translator), Not One Day [2024.02.17]
  13. Kim Sagwa (Sunhee Jeong, translator), b, Book, and Me [2024.02.21]
  14. Fouad Laroui (Emma Ramadan, translator), The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  15. Carmen Boullosa (Peter Bush, translator), Before [2024.02.26]
  16. Valérie Mréjen (Katie Shireen Assef, translator), Black Forest [2024.02.27]

Short Prose

  1. Rachel Ayers, “Magicians & Grotesques”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #41 [2024.02.07]
  2. Nicole Kimberling, “Quarantine Pantry Challenge”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #41 [2024.02.07]
  3. Holly Tamsin, “Fogdog Films”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #41 [2024.02.08]
  4. David Fawkes, “Letterghost”, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet #41 [2024.02.08]
  5. Oleg Sentsov, “Autobiography (In Literary Form)”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.11]
  6. Oleg Sentsov, “Dog”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.11]
  7. Oleg Sentsov, “Childhood”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.11]
  8. Oleg Sentsov, “Hospital”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  9. Oleg Sentsov, “School”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  10. Oleg Sentsov, “Testament”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  11. Oleg Sentsov, “Grandma”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  12. Oleg Sentsov, “The Makars”, Life Went On Anyway [2024.02.12]
  13. Jim C. Hines, “The Blue Corpse Corps” (Patreon subscriber story) [2024.12.15]
  14. Fouad Laroui, “The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.21]
  15. Fouad Laroui, “Dislocation”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.22]
  16. Fouad Laroui, “Born Nowhere”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.22]
  17. Fouad Laroui, “Khouribga, or the Laws of the Universe”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  18. Fouad Laroui, “What’s Not Said in Brussels”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  19. Fouad Laroui, “Bennani’s Bodyguard”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  20. Fouad Laroui, “The Invention of Dry Swimming”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  21. Fouad Laroui, “Fifteen Minutes as Philosophers”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]
  22. Fouad Laroui, “The Night Before”, The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers [2024.02.25]

Weekly Round-up, February 24, 2024

John Winkelman

Grand Rapids, Facing East from the corner of Monroe Ave and Louis Street.

This was another extremely busy week, so not many updates to report, unless ServiceNow debugging is interesting. Managed to read quite a bit in the spare moments in the mornings, and worked out a lot, so as I finish this post I am tired and sore.

Reading

Currently reading The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers, a collection of short stories by Moroccan writer Fouad Laroui.

Writing

A little creative work this week. A poem and some world-building for the story I wrote most of during NaNoWriMo 2022. So that idea, at least, still has legs.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Dragons, Mutants
Setting: Ocean
Genre: Adventure

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, February 17, 2024

John Winkelman

Ice sculpture of a castle at the Elliptic at Rosa Parks Circle, Grand Rapids, Michigan

The warm weather comes and goes, and it seems that all of winter was packed into a couple of weeks in late January. I have a friend, Mark, who I get together with weekly to practice martial arts. This is much easier outside, because we don’t need to worry about walls, ceilings, and cats. Of course practicing outside in the winter is difficult, except for this winter. Our last outdoor practice session for 2023 was the week before Christmas, and our first of 2024 was the second weekend of February.

Reading

Still working my way through short books. Currently reading Not One Day by French writer and Oulipo member Anne Garréta.

Writing

Not a lot to report, though I did come up with a couple of ideas for last week’s writing prompt (Genius Loci, Reincarnation, Lost City, War). There is something interesting to be mined from that particular random assemblage of words.

This Week’s Writing Prompt

Subject: Colonization, Kaiju
Setting: Ship
Genre: Literary Fiction

Interesting Links

Weekly Round-up, February 10, 2024

John Winkelman

Happy New Year! Today is the first day of the Year of the Wood Dragon. As I am an Earth Rooster, this is potentially an auspicious year for me.

Reading

I’m still feeling some post-Dostoevsky reading stress, so I have been hitting the big stack of short fiction. A couple of issues of Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, some Patreon short stories, and the like. I also have a great many short novels and novellas which have been gathering dust on my shelves for some years now. So I am working my way through them, and enjoying the process. It’s nice to be able to both start and finish reading a work in the same month.

At the moment the book in front of me is Wakulla Springs by Andy Duncan and Ellen Klages. I picked this up at ConFusion in maybe 2016, and am finally reading it.

Writing

Not much to speak of. This year has been busy to the point of distraction.

Writing Prompt

Subject: Genius Loci, Reincarnation
Setting: Lost City
Genre: War

Interesting Links

IWSG, February 2024: Website or Webshite?

John Winkelman

Frost on a car.

Good morning/afternoon/evening everyone! Welcome back for another visit to my humble blog, where I talk about whatever is front and center in my mind at the moment.

The Insecure Writer’s Support Group question for February 2024 is: What turns you off when visiting an author’s website/blog? Lack of information? A drone of negativity? Little mention of author’s books? Constant mention of books?

I have been a web developer, and have run this blog in one form or another, since 1999. Therefore on the topic of what makes a good website, I have Opinions.

In order from most-worst to least-worst, these are the things which will most turn me off about an author’s website:

  1. Not having a website. If you are an author who publishes, then you need a website of your own. Full stop. Social media is good for boosting your signal, but social media platforms are ephemeral and, as we have seen with Twitter (and, increasingly, Facebook), vulnerable to the whims of the petulant billionaire manbabies who run them. Any author who wants readers to be able to find them needs their own website which will be the final source of truth for any information about their person and writing.
  2. Unusable/unreadable website. Bad font and color choices, broken images, broken links, background scripts which consume so many resources that the page never loads, or a browser freezes or crashes. So much style that there is no room for substance. As a corollary, websites which look okay on a computer but which are completely unusable on mobile. Smart phones have been around for decades now, and having a website which can’t be accessed or read on a mobile device is immediately cutting out at least 50% of your viewing audience.
  3. Website full of ads. Nothing wrong with bringing in some passive incomes from Third-party ads or affiliate links or the like. Displaying third-party ads on your website is fine, as long as they don’t consume so much real estate or so many resources that they become unusable. Also if your site doesn’t show more real content than ads by at least two orders of magnitude, then you are actually running a clickbait site with a thin veneer authorial intent.
  4. What is this website even for? If you are an author with a professional author’s website, and on that website the information about you as an author and the works you have written and published is difficult to find, then I as a user will give up after about 30 seconds. Take my blog for instance. I have not published much, but right up at the top is the PUBLISHED WORKS AND LITERARY MATTERS link, front and center. If I ever become a Famous Author, my readers will immediately know where to go to see the complete list of my published works.

Other than that, the things which turn me off of a website are all content-related, like gatekeeping fandoms, displaying a world-view which would cause me to insta-block them on social media, or complaining about evolving tastes and reading habits without also putting in the effort to learn to navigate the increasingly diverse and fragmented pool of potential readers. An author’s website is their personal space where they can post whatever they want. If their content turns me off, I’ll go elsewhere.

And that’s all I got to say about that. How about y’all’z opinions? What makes for a good or bad web browsing experience?

Insecure Writer's Support Group BadgeThe Insecure Writer’s Support Group
is a community dedicated to encouraging
and supporting insecure writers
in all phases of their careers.