Readers!

Wow, it's difficult to be chill when reading about my blog statistics!  It's been a long time since I looked into the readership of my blogs, and I had forgotten about all the twists and turns of the statistics page. 

Apparently, though most of my readers are from the USA, (much appreciated, though I don't make any money out of this blog—or these blogs; I have two—I can't be the great influencer that I am (not) without you) a large number of readers are from, of all places, India.  Also Ireland, Kazakhstan, Croatia, and even one lonely soul from Singapore :)

There are a large number of readers, identified as from 'other', so if you don't see your home country noted here, you're not alone.  Wow; that's so heartening ... I used to go by the number of readers on the list of posts; 2 readers for the latest posts.  But the Stats page says there were 10 readers.  Wait a minute; that must be the total of all readers of all my posts, who read the posts in the last two days ...

Most of all, this blog is a place for me to gripe about things that annoy me, since I don't feel right about griping to my friends!  (My friends, I'm sure, think of me as the sunniest person they know.  They have no idea that I gripe to the Web.)

AI Gives Mediocre Artists Something to Use

As I see it, being an artist has two parts: Finding a subject, and creating it.  Artists always have ideas for an image; only some of them can restrain themselves from creating self- indulgent images that have little esthetic value.  A lot of the time, poor artists—poor in talent, not finances—were held back only by the limitations of their skill.  But now, using AI, they can indulge their obsessions, painting the same unworthy subject repeatedly, until they get it just perfectly repulsive, the way they want it. 

In a sense, this is a sort of rite of passage; an image that tortures them from inside their heads, is brought to life on their computer or tablet, 

Day's Report

I'm exhausted.  For several reasons, but I usually explore the site DA, when I'm done with one thing, or when I've given up on something else I was trying to do.

I had been looking through the images—DA is mostly a site where artists post their artwork—and at first I was charmed by how sweet the young ladies were.  But soon I was overwhelmed by how fake it all was.  I spotted a really nice image; it was AI.  I saw just 6 images I liked, and they were either all AI, or had no information at all. 

Pretty soon, everything will be created by AI, even blog posts, music, videos, movies, the news; everything.  Half the books sold by Amazon could easily be written by AI.  I'm not saying they are; they just could be.  I'm going to take a nap. 

Adulting

I have to deal with adulting in two ways: writing about adulting, (and that should really be the second way) and adulting by myself. 

Obviously, I'm never going to say, in a book, OK, this is all about adulting; there might be no quicker way of turning off my audience.  In my opinion, what we call 'adulting' in this century is being considerate, and taking responsibility.  Most of us don't mind doing those things, but we probably hate to be asked to do them.  I know I did, and still do.  When I'm looking after pets, though, I don't mind; the little furry people are—usually—not a chore to take care of; in fact, I have to constantly restrain myself from torturing them with too much attention.  But in all other cases, I'd rather do adulting on my own volition than to do it on request.

Helen—I started writing with a book entitled Helen, which I chopped up into about ten books, which are the Helen stories that have been published—started out with Helen being just a kid, but soon, having fallen in love with Janet, she begins to take care of Janet in the cutest way.  Unfortunately, I took most of that out, which really destroyed the character development, but I sort of hoped that readers would know people like Helen, which would help them interpolate (a math word for joining up the segments) between the various stages of Helen's character.  When Cindy appears in the story, again, Helen's sense of responsibility leaps forward. 

Jane, the main character in Jane, starts right off being very much an adult, which is her main charm, in my mind.  Actually, her character is much more interesting in Jane—The Early Years.  In that story, she becomes responsible for Maria and Zuszanna, and, well that's the nucleus of the story.  In pretty much all my stories—and this is embarrassing—all the main characters gradually become more adult in each story, because love, and sometimes loss, makes you an adult.  And parenthood, I suppose, though I know of that last thing only through books.

There is another aspect to being an adult, which is at the heart of our national concept of adulthood: cynicism.  Many people regard the aspirations of the extreme Left as impossibly naïve.  "We've got to feed our own families, before we take on feeding the widows and the orphans."  They look at Bernie Sanders and see someone who doesn't live in the real world.

But that's the way adulting is.  To a baby, only its self and its mother matters; and gradually, as you age, you're concerned about more people.  When citizens begin to be anxious about public education, that's an aspect of concern for the community.

So, some aspects of politics is about adulting.  Other aspects of politics are about protecting your interests, and many conservatives are more concerned with those.

Kay

Writing Special Things

I'm reading a story—I'm still not decided whether I want to reveal the author's name right now—which, I don't mind saying, is interesting.  It's got me hooked, and, I guess, that's part of the job of any author of fiction.  All her characters are special.  At least, I started out thinking that they were special.  Now I'm wondering: is that good writing, to make all your characters special?  I've tried hard to make my characters sort of generic, but make the way they handle circumstances just a tad off the ordinary.

The author I'm reading does the opposite: she makes the characters super interesting, and the circumstance appropriately interesting as well, and—I guess—the story essentially writes itself. 

OK, it's time to reveal the name of the author, and the title: Penny For Your Heart, by Season Vining.  I guess our different approaches are reflected in the pen names we each have adopted: Kay Brown, a completely unremarkable name, and Season Vining, a preposterous name that could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be real, though I have a sneaking suspicion that it might be real, just so that I question my sanity. 

The main character of the story (first person narrative) is an out and proud lesbian, who does not believe in being subtle.  In fact, that's the driving principle in the plot; her love interest is restrained and proper, and unhappy.  And, of Japanese parentage, rather stereotypically.  In the literary world of today, stereotypes are almost a stock in trade; there are so many that it would be almost foolish to avoid them; they could be used as a crutch by indifferent authors (among whose number I ought to count myself).

Elves & Fairies

One peculiarity of mine is that, though I consider both elves and fairies fantastic creatures, I think of elves as if they could be real, whereas I think of fairies as completely imaginary!  I know that doesn't make any sense whatever.  But it makes a difference in how I imagined them. 

Elves, for instance—and as I have blogged earlier, I've actually begun a story about elves—seem to me to have little flaws in them.  I described my elf as having mostly a perfect complexion.  But when I imagine Tinker Bell, for instance, I imagine her as a perfect, 3-d cartoon character, perfectly smooth.

Somehow my elf is more flawed.  Her name is Fern; my human character, Lauren, is heavily questioned by Fern about how things are on Earth, and Fern describes what it's like in elf-land (I haven't yet thought of a name for the planet), and wonders why things aren't like that on Earth!  And I have to describe all the ways in which Fern is flawed, actually very tiny flaws, but it is those flaws that make her a real character!

Angels, however, are complicated.  Unlike believers, who have constructed in their minds a complete metaphysics of angels (c.f. His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman), my vision of angels is that (1) they're messengers; (2) they're protectors, in a minor way; (3) they're observers.  (4) They're incognito, and—at least in my mind—unobtrusive, so they must look fairly unremarkable, until they're revealed to be angels, at which point they'll just look very fuzzy about the edges, and even somewhat transparent.  In short, I don't think they're going to look very much like anyone's fantasy of angels.  Of course, reason never stopped DA artists from their fantastic creations. 

KHB

Actress vs. Pinup

I'm a little startled by how many really good actresses—women in demand for their serious acting skills—are willing to have magazines put up sexual images of them.  I guess it shows how much financial power guys wield in our society, especially older men.  I suspect that older men, probably Baby Boomers, still hold onto the reins of magazines, and both men and women like photos of female celebrities scantily clothed. 

Just this morning, I saw a photo of Sadie Sink in her underwear on DA, the website I check out at least once a day.  Some of the time, the posts put up there are from AI software, that can easily start with a clothed image and convert it into a nude image.  (I'm not absolutely sure about that, but I strongly suspect it.)  It's also possible that Sadie S. has posed for nude images, for various reasons.  With AI, it's impossible to tell. 

Trick or Treat!

I had forgotten about Halloween!  (No wonder, since the stores put out their candy so early.)  When I told this to my friend, they decided to come over, decorate my porch, and put their own candy pile out for me, for any kids who happened to come past my house. 

I live so far out of town that my street had not been a popular Trick or Treat destination in past years.  This year, though, we had almost 30 kids come by; or about 15 groups, anyway.  It was all candy that I'd never pick for myself, because I mostly like chocolate, not the sour candy my friend likes. 

The little kids were so perfect!  Some really tiny ones—pre-schoolers, I would guess—would bend down to study the candy bowl, which we had placed on the top step of my stoop, at close quarters, and pick a piece or two, and then stand up and make some unintelligible pronouncement, and her adults would thank us for the candy, and the kid would repeatedly call out Happy Halloween, as they walked away!  It was very cute, and hilarious at the same time!  Anyone who hasn't watched 'T or T' should definitely try it next year!  (Some people leave the bowl of candy out, and go inside and watch TV, which is stupid, because the little kids are way more entertaining than TV could ever be.)

Well, hope you guys had a good time, anyway!

K