Hello friend, 👋🏾
It’s nose to the grindstone this week as I work on revising my current WIP. I’ve already re-written this book once from the ground up in response to the initial feedback from my editor. Now I have about a month to address her latest concerns: to strengthen the conflicts & characters and make sure the themes are connected and appropriately impactful. It’s mentally exhausting work that is at the same time deeply satisfying.
Revision is when I feel most like a writer. It’s my favorite part—draining and invigorating at the same time. (So if I’m not entirely coherent here, please forgive me.) I’m moving the pieces of my 3D chess board, flying a bit by the seat of pants in that I’m working entirely on faith that my brain will pull it all together and I’ll end up with everything in its proper place by the deadline.
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📝 Are We Being Faked?
I admit, I’m having a lot of fun playing around with AI tools Midjourney, Canva Text to Image, and ChatGPT. I have deep concerns as well about issues like copyright, the livelihood of artists, and Skynet, and I think it’s up to all of us to develop our own codes of ethics about AI usage, just as with anything else.
I have no plans to use AI for something I would have otherwise paid an artist to do. (Speaking of which, I’ll be looking for an illustrator to create a book cover for a short fantasy romance story, so hit me up with a portfolio if you do this kind of work.)
Thus far, I’ve created images that I would otherwise have found a (probably free) stock image for, and used ChatGPT mainly for research and brainstorming that I would have done manually pre-AI.
This story from NPR, “AI-generated images are everywhere. Here's how to spot them” is already out of date at a whopping 30 days old, but still has useful info on determining when something is generated by using techniques of media literacy that, honestly, more people need to use for content that is definitely created by humans.
One model, created by research scientist Mike Caufield, is called SIFT. That stands for four steps: Stop. Investigate the source. Find better coverage. Trace the original context.
The overall idea is to slow down and consider what you're looking at — especially pictures, posts, or claims that trigger your emotions.
"Something seems too good to be true or too funny to believe or too confirming of your existing biases," says Gregory. "People want to lean into their belief that something is real, that their belief is confirmed about a particular piece of media."
So please, don’t re-tweet or forward that incendiary post everyone is wagging their tongues about without even reading the article or doing a little bit of research to see if you can verify it. As I’ve said before in this newsletter, tech problems are really just people problems, and sometimes people are the worst.
📝 Design Within Reason
When I was young and dreamed of being a writer, I never expected that graphic design would be such a big part of my career. But between evaluating cover designers for my indie books, to creating social media posts, and swag like bookmarks and postcards for both indie and traditionally published books, to developing logos for my author website and podcast, design is required fairly often.
Being a web developer for the past twenty years (which is different than a web designer, though I’ve stopped correcting people because, in my case, they often overlap) has left me with some graphic design know-how, but I’m always looking to brush up my skills.
Design guru Nate Kadlac has recently re-started his newsletter, and if you are at all design inclined, I recommend giving him a follow. This post, “If you can pick a font, you can create a logo” has some great advice for simple logo creation.
🚀 Quick Bites
Speaking of logos, I’ve used Tailor Brands a few times to create simple, very low cost logos. Often I’ll just play around with their logo maker and then take an idea and recreate and customize it on my own in Canva.
And if you’re looking for a great little course to improve your side hustle as a writer/designer, check out author Erin Bowman’s Fundamentals of Design workshop. I signed up for this a while ago and found it super useful!
I’m just a little bit addicted to DeskSituation which is just a gallery of people’s workspaces. Looking a desks, chairs, and monitors shouldn’t be so enthralling, but it is. Makes me want to revamp my entire home office…
“None of us should have to maneuver through this life depending only on our own strength or cleverness, and the world would be a much better place if we stopped expecting that of others.” — Kate Stradling
🎙️ My Imaginary Friends
The podcast is on a summer break, but check out previous episodes here.
The My Imaginary Friends podcast is a weekly, behind the scenes look at the journey of a working author navigating traditional and self-publishing, where I share insights on the writing life, creativity, inspiration, and this week’s best thing.
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Thank you giving my design course a shoutout here!