Let’s start off with the Story of the WeekAnother Family Teachable Moment“Ever notice how Mom doesn’t like to say no to us?” Jamie asked her brother. “Yep. Instead of no, she’ll say maybe or something like that.” “Hey, Mom,” Jamie leaned into the kitchen. “Can we go to the waterpark today?” “We’ll see.” “So that’s a no.” “I didn’t say that.” “You pretty much did.” “Not true at all. I’m saying it’s a possibility—if you get your other stuff done first.” “What other stuff?” “Cleaning your room…doing your homework…Things I asked for. Can you do all that first?” “We’ll see.” “Are you trying to be annoying?” “It’s a possibility.” Prompt: Perhaps
A few other quick items…⦿ I’m making great progress on FAST FICTION vol. 2: Man vs. Machine. I finally got the AI machines (I’m using ChatGPT and Google Bard) to spit out 50 semi-decent 101-word stories using the same prompts I used to write the 50 stories I’m including in the book. It was quite a learning experience for me. My biggest takeaway: If you’re worried about AI stealing a lot of jobs belonging to authors and screenwriters, take a breath. Based on my experiences trying to get 50 decent stories out of the machines, it’s got a long way to go before it’ll be able to match up to human creativity–at least in the 101-word arena. I also found an artist who will be designing my book cover (front and back). I’m very excited about collaborating with her and I’m feeling confident right now that I made a good choice. I’ll keep you posted (and maybe even ask you to weigh in on cover drafts). We’ll see how it goes. ⦿ Midwest Book Reviews just sent me the draft of a very nice review that will be out next month. As soon as I get an official link to the two sites that will be running the review, I’ll be sure to share. ⦿ Finally, for Independent Bookstore Day (Saturday,April 29th, for those of you keeping score at home), I’ll be making at least two appearances and possibly three. I’m committed to being in Morgan Hill and San Jose, and still working on lining up another appearance for the end of the day up in the East Bay. I hope to share details next week on all of the appearances. Should be a really fun Saturday. OK, that’s it for now. As always… Thanks for listening. Scotty out |