Hello, friends and fans!
Welcome to another “Peek At My Week” – March 17, 2024! Here are some things that happened this past week!
News About Writing & Publishing: This Is The Current State Of Things
- What Readers Say: I know I can’t please everybody (so I’m not trying to!). That said, it really pleases me when I see that I’ve managed to do it anyway!
Bibliography – A listing of all my books so far:
You can find them at and my shop page on .
Other Stuff
That Pesky AI Again…
Imagine the stink it would cause if the authors getting their knickers in a twist about AI being trained on their writing, started suing writing schools, colleges and varsities for “breach of copyright” for training human students and new aspiring authors on their writing… 🙄
I understand the implications of the market allowing AI generated books to be sold in the market (it already is, openly) – and there definitely is a quality issue – it’s mostly mindless nonsensical crap that has to be heavily edited by a human being – event though there’s no real point as far as I’m concerned – but that wasn’t the point of my post 😉. It was about the hypocrisy of authors crying “copyright infringement” in one case but not another, when the only difference between cases was the nature of the “student” being trained on their material.
When it comes to the matter of AI gen material being published and sold with marginal tweaks by lazy or untalented individuals;
a) the writing market is already totally flooded with an ocean of substandard crap actually written by human beings who are really bad at it in their own “write” before you even factor in the AI issue,
b) the publishing field is already a cut-throat business for authors because it’s flooded – meanwhile the audience is actually growing smaller over time since reading appears to be fading out of “fashion” – we’re all already competing with each other for our own little spot in the sun with varying degrees of success, and have been for more than a decade,
c) realistically, it will happen anyway – and has happened already, so there’s nothing I can do about it but to keep on keeping on and to hope that the AI “book” fad will fade as soon as people realize it’s not of any real value or worth wasting their money or time on. This will allow AI to be more a tool as intended, rather than as a “cheat”.
Either that, or the general populace will just keep on getting dumber, and actually think reading soulless, meaningless tripe generated by a machine that will never understand the meaning of its own “writing” is perfectly fine for them.
Either way, we won’t have to worry about the outcome forever. Sooner or later it will resolve itself.
At least, that’s how I see it.
The Sound Of Crickets
It’s amazing, looking back at the last 16 years of my life, the years I spent involved in doing activism for various communities, both locally and internationally. It feels so long ago now – and yet, it feels like it was only the other day.
I look back at how much of myself I put into my activism, the time, the effort, the resources, the sacrifices I made… The needs of this community, or that community, or this or that NPO or CBO always had to come first – and they did.
We achieved some great things together.
It’s funny how, when I finally turn around to ask for something – at a time where I’ve been offered an opportunity and I need references, so many I’ve reached out to recently have chosen to just shrug off my requests for a simple letter.
Don’t get me wrong – I’ve had some amazing responses so far… thank you to those that already delivered, and I’m still expecting a few that are in process – but let’s put it this way, there are a lot of *crickets* out there.
I know I advertise my books and videos out here often, but those who know me know I really loathe tooting my own horn, so for once, it’s nice to have someone else do the blowing 😉
Imagine, if you will
Imagine being an author on this frequently drama-filled platform, who abruptly and summarily blocked another fellow author over a minor public difference of opinion several weeks ago, and then suddenly remembering – weeks later – that, oh yes, they’d agreed to assist you in promoting the release of your newest book… and you still need something from them after all.
Oops.
Imagine then STILL having the sheer gall to make a post to market your books in THEIR author group – probably while thinking that because you’d blocked them, they wouldn’t even see your post. Sneaky, right?
Well, guess what?
With sheer nerve like that, one could derail runaway locomotives, or deflect hails of bullets – or even unscrew the inscrutable. This dude can put on a cape and call himself Super Banned.😏
Latest Videos
Last week’s Tina Talks Tech video went up on my YouTube channel on Saturday.
On Wednesday, I also put up a video “All About Crabbygrass“!
and of course,
Work, Work, Work!
As always, I’ll keep you posted about any new developments, so until then, I wish you all a pleasant week!