Category: Fresh News

What's been going on lately

“It all looked good on paper.”

AI has stepped  in it again! This time, in Glasgow, Scotland. A children’s event called “Willy’s Chocolate Experience” — a none-too-subtle allusion to Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory — opened in a sparsely decorated warehouse to parental reactions so violently dismayed some wound up calling the local police. The story is below. …

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The Romance Writers Association endorses the use of ChatGPT for writing… or not.

I recently became aware of how far the use of ChatGPT as a writer’s aid has come. NOT the use of it to write a whole book without human aid, because that is very far from the technology that’s available now. But this current trend towards it has a lot of fiction writers upset.

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Passing Obsessions 2-24

Rolling Stone: Life and Death of Brian Jones, a documentary about Rolling Stones guitarists and founder Brian Jones and how and why he may have died. Hint: It was murder, and it was covered up by the police. r/fantasyromance. Youtube livestreams of airport arrivals and departures. My favorites are London Heathrow and LAX. Nirvana and …

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The Romantasy Explosion

Since we’re nearing Valentine’s Day, let’s talk about… Romantasy. As implied by the name it’s a mashup of Romance + Fantasy, a subgenre exemplified, perhaps platonically, by Sarah J. Maas’s A Court of Thorns and Roses series, whose eponymously named first book came out in 2015. Marketed as YA, the fantasy novel was about a …

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Passing Obsessions 1-24

Creating Chinese New Year coloring book images in Midjourney. Author Jenny Trout’s’ lengthy recap of Sarah J. Maas’s Faerie fantasy A Court of Thorns and Roses. If you’ve wondered what all the fuss was about, but don’t want to read the book itself, read this instead. Shipping container houses. Face/Off, an original Syfy show about …

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2024 Reading Challenge

I haven’t had much success with reading challenges these past years. In 2023, I finished 5 out of 12. In 2022, it was eight out of twelve, with a little cheating: three-quarters. So THIS year, I’m only going to pick six. That’s make it a little easier to chew. 19. Like a novel, only real: …

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Worldbuilding Wednesday 1/3/24: Best of Twittersnips 2023 (Magic Items)

My favorite Twittersnip magic items of the 2023.   2023 Magic Items (Best of) Basket of Adoration: Whatever is put into this large woven basket elicits oohs and aahhs of admiration from viewers, and if it is a living being, the desire to nurture and protect it… no matter what sort of creature it is. …

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Merry Christmas!