What has been going on over the past few weeks?
In my capacity as main editor (and sole editor, though it hasn’t anything to do with flatfish) of Once Upon A Crocodile e-zine, I have been reading and writing reviews of people’s books (usually anthologies, though I am open to novels / novellas too). Unlike the content I consider for story / poetry submissions, these works do not have to be funny. Bizarrely, I get sent a lot of horror – perhaps not too bizarrely, as my debut novel contains horror, but anyway, you can read the latest review, of Victoria Dalpe’s “Les Femmes Grotesques”, here:
I am currently reading “Dracula’s Guests” from Hellbound Books with the intention of penning a review, and it’s about 800 pages long. After that, there’s another review waiting in the wings for an anthology from Quill & Crow Publishing. What can I say? I am a free book addict, especially in the colder months.
Once Upon A Crocodile is still closed to fiction and poetry submissions until late 2023 / start of 2024.
I am still writing Codex Corvidae, which is now 59000 words and rising, and once I have done that, I will likely comb through it a few times madly changing things to make it look like I knew what I was doing all along (the joys of writing by the seat of your pants)!
I stumbled upon the usage of AI apps to create art for this website a few weeks back, and then the issue of AI being “trained” using online artwork by artists who haven’t been asked for consent cropped up with the story of Lensa. I haven’t ever used Lensa, but on finding out the app I was using has an AI based on Stable Diffusion 2, which I understand is what Lensa uses, I have decided not to use any more AI art on this website or for commercial use, only personally as a hobby. It is a shame, as it looks more interesting than anything I could paint and does it in a matter of seconds, but I don’t like the idea of artists’ livelihoods being compromised. I will be replacing AI images on this site with stock photos and my own photography and drawings (which are decent, I just don’t have a body that allows me to keep going at a fast enough pace). Humans don’t take kindly to being replaced by machines.
There’s also a worrying itch in my head about Twitter, hearing the news that Elon Musk has been banning journalists for linking people to a site about his private jets (which is public information anyway) amongst other things. Most of my followers are on Twitter, so I am currently wondering if moving them over to Mastodon would be possible.
But that can wait for a few days. It’s almost Christmas, and I am psyching myself up for surgery at the end of the month. It’s been a weird time with phone calls, letters that don’t arrive, emails, appointments, tests not being carried out properly, and general confusion. I have to say the past few years have left me dog-tired (and aren’t we all).
Nightwalks 