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Lewis: Hack Writer

SIGNIFICANT UPDATES

November 5, 2023: The best definition of Lit-Fic I know is by Michael Woodson, Content Editor at Writer's Digest magazine. Here is the link:

What is Literary Fiction?

November 3, 2023: Added a blurb to my Books page (and to my Home page below) about the differences T.K. Marnell noted between Western and Eastern storytelling.
October 25, 2023: Clarified my use of AI in the I Promise essay below (see bold text).
October 22, 2023: Updated the excerpts from Diary of a Robot to match the latest text.
October 21, 2023: I've sent copies of Maynard and the Bullies to a bunch of Cherokee families asking them to read and comment on it. Watch this space for their feedback.

Joseph F. Warren, Council Chairman, of the Puget Sound Cherokee Community pointed out a sentence about Sequoya being a chief which I removed. He also writes: Overall, it was a reasonable read, and I look forward to reading it to my grandson soon.

September 27, 2023: New book release for children: Maynard and the Bullies, a chap-book about Dr. Maynard Little as a boy inventor. It has 42 pages with 32 illustrations, photos, and maps.
September 22, 23, and 24, 2023: Added and updated my review of AI for Writers, a course whose fascinating introductory webinar I watched on September 21.
September 19, 2023: Added an important note about using AI in my writing: I PROMISE.
August 24, 2023: How is AI messing with authors?

I listened to a great interview with Jane Friedman. Here is the link:

https://www.writersdigest.com/resources/ai-stole-my-name-a-chat-with-jane-friedman. For an AI robot's perspective, consult TM2's memoir, Diary of a Robot.

August 16, 2023: Moved my image of Bear Did It to the Personal Stuff page.
August 12, 2023: Advance Review Copies of the prequel Maynard and the Bullies are going to selected readers. (Yes, the cover design will change.)
July 2, 2023: Thoroughly revised the About bio for Lewis Jenkins.
June 13, 2023: A friend asked what my AI robot TM2 (i.e., Robey) looks like. I can't show that, but read on down the Home Page to see its great-grand-father's photo.
June 6, 2023: Diary of a Robot earns RECOMMENDED status from the U.S. Review of Books.
May 11, 2023: Updated the Dogs page to show Mikey as waiting at the bridge, and then give Tux his proper place beside Malachi.
May 1, 2023: Added a page to organize my website Content.
Apr 29, 2023: Diary of a Robot has been named a category finalist in the 2023 Eric Hoffer Award.

HOFFER AWARD FINALIST:

Apr 29, 2022: Diary of a Robot has been named a category finalist in the 2022 Eric Hoffer Award.

To Promote Understanding

To promote understanding, I suggest reading a post titled American vs. East Asian Storytelling from T.K. Marnell's blog, Reading, 'Ritings, and Ramblings dated December 17, 2015.

The link is: https://blog.tkmarnell.com/east-asian-storytelling/ and I offer the following excerpt from it as a summary of a "problem" I have: It seems that my stories are too Western for Eastern tastes, and too Eastern for Western tastes. Marnell writes (emphasis is hers):

I think this illustrates the essential difference between our cultures: Western cultures are individualist and idealize victory. East Asian cultures are collectivist and idealize harmony.

American stories are typically about righteous heroes defeating sadistic psychopaths. We make movies about Superman vs. Lex Luther, Indiana Jones vs. the Nazis, Clarice Starling vs. Buffalo Bill. We don't like moral gray areas. Even in Star Wars, when characters give lip service to the "balance of the Force," we really expect the Jedi to kill the Sith and then everyone can live happily ever after.

In contrast, the villains in East Asian fiction tend to be essentially good people who make misguided choices, and they reform their ways after the heroes make heartfelt speeches about the importance of friendship. In Mobile Suit Gundam Wing (1995), the villains are a group dedicated to ending war forever and uniting everyone in peace. In Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke (1997), there are no villains. Princess Mononoke is about resolving the conflict between man and nature, not about how one is good and the other is bad.

I Promise

My slightly futuristic books about AI machines and their interactions with humans do deal with many of the subtle problems as well as the obvious ones. They also have fun with the irony and oddness of the machine-human culture clash. Today, in our slightly less modern world, "real" AI makes important contributions in various areas. But...

I will never use AI tools in my creative writing because that fact should be acknowledged, and the "system's" name would have to be listed as a co-author. Inevitably, the company who owns the system would insist on payment as well, and to think otherwise is naïve.

I gladly use AI for copy editing and for finding sources for me to read, but I'll never use AI to help analyze research, because any text it produces would be subject to the additional biases of another "mind", and to say that it would have no bias is foolish. Its programmers can tweak it in any direction they want, and they're doing it now.

And I will never read or continue to read a human author who uses AI but does not give it full credit. However, I'll consider reading a book conceived and written entirely by an AI system as long as I like the story. In either case, the most interesting question will be: Who gets the author's money?

For centuries, authors have been helped by many coaches and exemplars. The diversity shows. But from now on, the work of authors who use the same few AI tools for writing and research will seem vaguely similar. If authors attempt to fix this by instructing their AI co-author (or editor) to produce "in the style of" anyone, the co-authorship is even clearer and the results may even be enjoyably laughable. ChatGPT is not Hemingway or P.D. James or anyone else. It is a set of algorithms with a faked morality and no feelings.

"Silly" may be what many readers want, but it seems silly to get help or data about human life from an amoral inhuman AI system which learns more than its co-author does. For those who insist that humans learn more, remember that humans often get lazy but a machine never does (unless it gets tweaked to fake being lazy).

Literary Fiction

What the heck is Literary Fiction?

Excellent question. I write stuff loaded with off-beat history, facts, characters, scenes and so on. I have tried for years to explain when asked what my genre or style is.

But this morning (Mar 22, 2023) I read a wonderful essay that says what I desperately tried (and miserably failed) to tell them. It's by Michael Woodson, Content Editor at Writer's Digest magazine. Here is the link:

https://www.writersdigest.com/write-better-fiction/what-is-literary-fiction?

Contest Judge ComMents

Dec 06, 2021 -- Judge, 29th Annual Writer's Digest Self-Published Books Contest:

[Diary of a Robot] has perhaps the most unique (and entertaining) voice of the whole lot of books I read.

More judge comments

Diary of a Robot

Push its button and a machine works. Usually.

We never ask what it thinks.

But now we may have to.

Chapter Zero

Robey's Grandfather

The design and appearance of TM2, Dr. Little's AI robot, changed several times during the course of its memoir (Diary of a Robot), and I'll not recap those changes here. But my sister, who lives in western Maine, got a superb close-up photo of TM2's great grandfather. It escaped back into the wild woods, and its appearance is nothing like any description of its great grandson in the memoir. But, believe it or not, both its mass-spectrometer data plus the brief interview sister Suz got (made more difficult by the language barrier) do confirm the familial relationship. However: TM2's programmer says that this could be a hoax if "great grandad" had read its "great grandson's" memoir.

Maynard and the Bullies

His dad is away a lot in the Army, so Maynard Little III, a schoolboy inventor with a patent, dreams of making a robot Thinking Machine to protect him from neighborhood bullies. His efforts to deal with the kids, his parents, his Cherokee history, and the problems of turning his dream into reality, lead him to discover that reality is a lot harder than he thinks, and that Mom and Dad have already given him most of the important things he needs.

Click to see best value hardback book on Lulu.com

To Promote Understanding

To promote understanding, I suggest reading a post titled American vs. East Asian Storytelling from T.K. Marnell's blog, Reading, 'Ritings, and Ramblings dated December 17, 2015. The link is: https://blog.tkmarnell.com/east-asian-storytelling/ and I offer this excerpt from it as a summary of a "problem" I have: It seems that my stories are too Western for Eastern tastes, and too Eastern for Western tastes. Marnell writes (emphasis is hers):

I think this illustrates the essential difference between our cultures: Western cultures are individualist and idealize victory. East Asian cultures are collectivist and idealize harmony.

My Odd Brand

MY ODD BRAND

Standard web marketing says an author should have a brand. I had thought about that for years, and none popped up that I could even pretend to have. Marketing is not in my skill-set. I graduated as a High School teacher (history, government, and mathematics), but worked as a computer programmer for 40 years. Near the half-way point of that, I started writing a Sci-Fi novel. Recently I posted a .pdf on my Writing Stuff web page about writer's block and the similarities between programming computers and writing a novel. (I like odd combinations presented from a different point of view. A years-old example on my website is titled A Clever Plan, where I tie the Biblical Job and the prophet Jeremiah to Sir Isaac Newton.)

And then on my Written Stuff web page, I posted an essay titled Families and Democracy. It's about oil and water, and how families are not democracies, and.... Well, you should read it to see what's odd about that.

Things are odd if they're not even. Some things—even even things—are odd if they're out of place. And places are odd if things are missing. It's a rich field for writers.

But enough of that for the moment.

Standard author practice also urges us to keep our spirits up by celebrating small milestones, like getting good feedback or wining an award or finishing an essay. This brand blurb is finished, so I'm going with my wife to get her dog food order from the wholesaler. The trip will include a cafe mocha and a blueberry muffin at some point.