ellatholmes

[ellatholmes]

esims are low again. check out connecting humanity for more information on directly sending esims or for a linked to crips for esims for gaza's fundraising. you can also set up a recurring donation on chuffed for esims. i have a weekly donation here because being able to keep as many people as possible connected to the rest of the world is critical for documenting the situation and allowing individuals to continue their own grassroots fundraising/organizing

[ellatholmes]

has anybody else been struggling with thoughts

[ellatholmes]

AI is built on stolen work and resources and it is contributing massively to the creation of harmful emissions and climate change. What you put into AI systems is stored and shared with others, so the tips and tricks and stories you're "plotting" are built on exploitation and theft, and your input is being exploited too.

TLDR: If you value art and, ya know, life, please find other ways of plotting your stories!

https://www.wired.com/story/fanfiction-omegaverse-sex-trope-artificial-intelligence-knotting/

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ai-boom-could-use-a-shocking-amount-of-electricity/

https://www.npr.org/2024/07/12/g-s1-9545/ai-brings-soaring-emissions-for-google-and-microsoft-a-major-contributor-to-climate-change

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.technologyreview.com/2024/05/23/1092777/ai-is-an-energy-hog-this-is-what-it-means-for-climate-change/amp/

Jennifer, I'm hearing from creators that some publishers either are or will require authors to disclose if they used AI in any way to write their book. Even brainstorming. Is there any truth to this?

I use AI to help me plot out my stories (I'm Horrible at plotting, honestly) and to help me battle writers block. Not to generate my stories!

will people look down on me for this? I'm definitely not going to lie, but some part of me wonders why it's their business if I'm not using AI to generate text. I feel so conflicted.

Well, yes and no?

Short answer: Just don't use AI to write your book. You will probably have to sign a contract that says you didn't use AI to write your book, and you shouldn't anyway, for lots of reasons. However, using AI tools is not the same thing as AI writing your book, so relax.

Long answer:

There are two (main) ways AI might come up in a contract. One is in the Warranties clause** (which I'll explain in the footnote be), and the other is in an AI clause -- not all publishers have them (yet?) but generally the AI clause has some wording like, neither the publisher or author can sell or license or give permission for the text to be "Scraped" by AI technology -- additionally, something like either the publisher or author may use AI tools in the course of normal business, but nothing in the text was generated by AI, the editor will be human, not AI, etc.

You'll notice here that both the author AND the publisher are held to the same standard -- that's important. And you'll also notice that it acknowledges that AI is a tool that MAY be used in the normal course of business. Zoom, google/gmail, adobe photoshop/acrobat, microsoft outlook/office-- all programs that publishers and authors use every day, any of which might have AI things woven into them. Autocorrect? Spellcheck? Grammarly? The thing on my tumblr RIGHT NOW that is highlighting words I should have capitalized in the sentence above? That's all AI technology. Obviously you don't have to "disclose" that you use normal tools of doing business.

If that includes "give me a list of girls names popular in the 1970s" or "what are some accidents that could happen at a skating rink" or "give me an example of plot beats in a mystery" -- OK. I still consider that a TOOL.

As long as you, a human, understand that generative AI technology uses other people's words to "create" -- so for fiction, OK if you want to brainstorm names or beats or whatever as above, as long as you are NOT USING IT TO WRITE THE BOOK -- YOU MUST WRITE THE STORY AND THE WORDS IN THE STORY.

And for nonfiction, AI makes up answers to questions that SOUND good but are actually just lies -- so PLEASE don't use AI technology to do actual research -- do your due diligence, make sure that any research you do online in any capacity (including Google) is factual, has primary sources to back it up, etc, etc. It's not actually a useful shortcut if all the info it gives you is straight up bad.

--

** In all publisher contracts there's a clause called Warranties and Indemnities. In that clause, you are warranting (swearing) that you have not plagiarized your book, that you personally created and own the rights to the book so you have the ability to sell/license them, that you have full permission for anyone else's work that you have quoted in the book, that nothing in the book breaches the law, yadda yadda.

IF ALL OF THAT IS THE TRUTH, and somebody sues you for plagiarism or copyright infringement or whatever, and you really didn't do it, the publisher will defend you and you won't have a problem. If, in fact, you lied in the Warranties section, then the publisher will not defend you and will cancel the contract and you'll be liable for whatever happens and can twist in the wind as far as they are concerned.

Some publishers are adding / have added / will add something in the Warranties clause where you also attest that the text is not generated by AI. (This is for several reasons aside from the fact that AI generated stories are crapola -- 1. AFAIK, AI generated text cannot be copyrighted, and 2. AI generated text may be plagiarized, soooo you'd be in danger of being in breach of your warranty even if it DIDN'T specifically call out AI!)

[ellatholmes]

“your characters need to be likeable” allow me to introduce you to the very worst guy who ever lived

[ellatholmes]

the most powerful writing tool is actually Brainstorming With The Girls

[ellatholmes]

I got a message from @/cartersarts offering art commissions. It was a little weird and I was questioning if they were a bot so I checked their blog. I mmediately knew they were not posting their own art since everything was made in such different styles. I reverse image search couple of them and was able to confirm at least some of them were stolen. For example this was one of their posts and it's actually art by Serge Tsvelykh, an illustrator at Blizzard. It's not very smart to steal the art of a successful industry professional.

I was not sure if they were a bot so I answered by asking why are they posting stolen art and they did answer like a person, so not a bot. They first feigned ignorance saying they didn't claim the art wasn't their own (not crediting is still pretty much theft), but when I told them to credit the artists they have been stealing from or delete the posts of stolen art, they just blocked me lol. I checked to confirm that they haven't credited the artists or removed any posts.

They seem to be targeting writers - from their bio: "Digital Artist #freelance-artist for Authors, Writers & Publishers. I make character designs, book covers, illustrations. NO Al." - and I assume they are sending DMs offering their commissions to other writers too. So even though I think it's pretty obvious they are a fraud, I thought I might still warn others that they are using stolen art to promote themself.

[ellatholmes]

yeah “i can teach you” is kind and gentle and warm and comforting. it’s also hot. right

[ellatholmes]

Why are so many romantasy dudes just "hi my name is Elias Dark’ness Demon Raven Brave and I have short ebony black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches the hilt of the sword on my back and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like rhysand (if u don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to rhysand but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a vampire but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a shadow master, and I learned magic in The Shadow Court where I’m in the seventh in line for the throne (I’m one-hundred-and-seventeen). I’m traumatised (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black tunic with matching lace around it and black leather pants, no girly pink fishnets but yes black combat boots. I was not wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow, i just look like that. I was walking outside the castle. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of females stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them."

[ellatholmes]

someone should write some kind of book

[ellatholmes]

revising your writing is just like "is this weird. is this a weird sentence. is this the weirdest most poorly-worded sentence ever written by anyone" and the sentence in question is "he walked across the room"

[ellatholmes]

when the objectively bad person has traumatic and honestly reasonable reasons for why theyre like that but it doesnt excuse their actions and only serves to make them more tragic as a character

[ellatholmes]

words to use when writing:

sludge, slop, glug, womble, antidisestablishmentarianism, wenis

follow for more writing tips

[ellatholmes]

Some friendly beta reader reviews on my short story, "A Tale Not About Frog Princes" in the Once Upon an Autumn anthology, now up for pre-order! 😇

[ellatholmes]

if you're writing your story and you think 'hm, this might be too weird' Wrong. Make it weirder

[ellatholmes]

I hate work I should be at the (remembers I don't want to go to the club) the imagination

[ellatholmes]

This wouldn't happen to me if i were a huge dragon

[ellatholmes]

In cartoon comedys for grown ups and adults there was alwwys a little sad fellow or other getting torment and torture over and over for the amusement of the fans, well I dint fucking laugh

I will to save him