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I don't need therapy I need rabid gay people freaking out in my inbox

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You can fight AI in indie publishing by leaving reviews.

Seriously.

Ai-generated garbage is flooding the self-publishing market. It works as a numbers game- put out ENOUGH fake crap and eventually someone’s aunt will buy them the ebook as an unwanted gift, and you’ll have made two dollars. This tactic works at SCALE, which means real independent titles are now a needle amongst a haystack of slop.

If you have read a book this year that has less than 5 reviews, your rating is an algorithmic spotlight on that needle.

A one sentence review helps. Really. A star rating helps if you really can’t think of anything to say, but if you can muster up even “I laughed at the part about the tabby cat” you are doing indie authors a favor like you cannot believe.

(Also if you left a review on one of my books this year I am kissing you so softly on your forehead and I adore you)

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YOU can write whatever you want whenever however forevrr. i have to write something perfect and earth shattering and i have to do it perfectly the first time or else

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writing is so fun

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the only good art you'll ever make is the art you'll make btw

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I hate I when I get an idea for a novel. Like oh no here starts the slow sad slip n’ slide to dissapointment again.

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“As you read a book word by word and page by page, you participate in its creation, just as a cellist playing a Bach suite participates, note by note, in the creation, the coming-to-be, the existence, of the music. And, as you read and re-read, the book of course participates in the creation of you, your thoughts and feelings, the size and temper of your soul.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin

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You keep rebloging all your drawings, what is going on?

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As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

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Everyone: Please please please don't write your books in Google Docs. Frankly don't use Google Drive for personal stuff.

Their terms of service say they take down stuff like content related to terrorism and trafficking, but this Google Sheet was literally a list of movies I'd watched this year and books I'd read.

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When creating art, how do you deal with the fact that seemingly everyone's opinions and tastes are completely individual? Like, how do you make good art, when around 40-50% of what even is "good art" changes from person to person? Sure, we have points we can all agree, but I'm baffled by how three people can agree and disagree on the same pieces of media. I can like movies A and B, and feel like they're very alike, but a friend might love B and hate A and another friend thinks the opposite.

The confusion is because "good" is being used to mean several different things:

To My Personal Taste. If you like a piece of art, you could very easily describe it as good just because you had a good time with it.

Well Put Together. If a story is well-crafted, lacking in plotholes or contrivances, broadly carefully woven, makes sense the more you think about it, etc - you could deem it to be good because it's been put together well. If a work of art looks good, the light sources and shadows make sense with one another, the colors work well together, the composition has clarity, the anatomy is correct - then the work was put together competently and skillfully, and could be called good for this reason.

Objective Quality. When people describe a movie as good, this is usually what they are trying to judge. Whether an objective judgment can be rendered on something as subjective as art is something people have been yelling about for centuries. In my estimation, the quality of a work has to be judged based on what the artist was going for and how close their execution was to that goal. An attempt at photorealism might be seen as "objectively bad" if it doesn't look photorealistic.

And by the same token, "bad" can mean a BUNCH of different things:

Bad Because I Had A Bad Time

Bad Because It Didn't Deliver What I Expected From It

Bad Because It Hit Me With A Personal Dealbreaker

Bad Because I Couldn't Take It Seriously

Bad Because It Didn't Make Sense To Me

Bad Because It Said Something I Really Disagreed With

And many more. This is why I think it's helpful to unpack a story further than just "is it good or bad" because those judgments are almost always concealing a more interesting personal analysis. There are stories I find highly ineffective that are still professionally well-crafted and accomplishing the creator's goals. There are stories I enjoy the hell out of that are weighed down by ropey characterization and dubious values. It's usually more effective, in my experience, to narrow in and identify what parts of a work are working for you, and what parts aren't clicking.

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Want to read a week ahead? Join Pillowfort! It's free!

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Page 373

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reposting from bsky, but heres a cheat sheet for how to properly send a message to payment processing companies over the recent highly conservative shift in where youre allowed to legally spend your money

more info here!

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opens box that reads "i wanna draw again". inside lies a note. the note says, "mental illness and difficult circumstances have taken years of interest, accessibility, and skill away from me. i want to forgive myself for that. i want to heal my relationship to my hobbies. i want to feel connected to something that once made me feel good, but the cyclic discouragement is difficult to overcome." i turn over the note. on the back it reads "wannta drawe sexy bodies awooga"

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Page 373

(Links coming in afternoon reblog)