(Some More) Thoughts On AI

Art Flitter, human foreman of Warehouse 73B, after three years at his desk without having to do anything, began to suspect that the small sealed gift box included in his ‘Welcome to Warehouse 73B’ information packet handed to him on his first day on the job, with a note stuck on it saying, ‘Do not open for 30 years,' likely contained an inscribed gold watch thanking him for his 30 years of service and wishing him well in his retirement.

I swear, I thought that I'd never written a piece on AI before. I did know, however, that I had posted something using the robot/AI cartoons like the one above, so I searched down through my posts to see what I'd done, only to discover that I had, indeed, written a post about AI in July 2023. Rereading my 2023 piece, it seems like I've not changed my mind much, if at all. So this post covers much of the same ground as the previous one. But it also has a few different points as well. And having already spent several hours writing it, up it goes...

I recently watch a video on YouTube where an author, as a proof of concept, went through the entire process of creating an entire science fiction novel from scratch using AI. He had the AI generate the story idea then write the story, scene by scene. While it took an elaborate process with various checks and balances, and using several pro-level AIs, with some human proofreading to check for continuity, since the scenes were produced independently, the story it produced was good enough to be published, a big improvement from his results a year before. 

So clearly, AI generated novels are possible, and will only get better. And a tidal wave of them is likely on the way. I think most readers will never notice the difference. Commercially successful books in genre fiction are usually, with a few exceptions, not great art. Good enough is all that is necessary to please most people. AI will soon become good enough.

Should writers be at all concerned? I don't think so. For most of us it will simply be business as usual. For one simple reason. Books sell largely on the basis of how many readers become aware of them. Quality may matter, but they have to come across them before quality first begins to matter. It doesn't really matter how good, or not, the AI novels will become, since, the market is already very over saturated. Even now, we're talking about 30,000 to 50,000 books released every month in the most popular genres on Amazon. 

For the commercially successful writers, they too need not worry. If you can beat those odds, well, there's little different between too many books, and too too many books. They've already figured out how to deal with an over saturated market. Whatever works for best selling authors now will work just as well against ten or more times those numbers because they know how to reach their readers. Unless the generators of AI written books know their secret, all those books they turn out will never be seen, and thus never be sold. In short, AI publishers will still face the almost insurmountable odds of making a worthwhile amount of money as any independent publisher. And good luck with that.

When looking at the broader picture, I have no doubts many jobs are going to be eliminated by AI. Just Google a photograph taken in a factory at the turn of the last century and compare it to any one of today's factories. You will see that machines have all but replaced humans in manufacturing, arguably to our benefit.

Is art different or more important, than producing cars or toasters? Your call. Clearly however, capitalist don't see a difference. They see that creating all sorts of art will be more cost efficient and require smaller HR departments. It is simply a question of time, as they now have the machines needed to replace this set of human workers. This is what machines, and capitalists, have always done. And have done for centuries. 

Nevertheless, we're told that machines can never truly create art. That AI will never replace human artists because, well to put in a simple phrase, AIs don't have souls, and all the attributes assigned to having one. If they can't replace human artists, why such outrage, such angst?

I don't think the discussion is really about art and creativity at all, even if they make it sound like it is. AIs are not a threat to any sort of art, as art

Let's be cynical realistic here; it's because AI threatens artists' incomes. This discussion, this angst, is not about art. It's about money. Art as a job. Anyone who doesn't need money to motivate them to create art can still be creative. AI doesn't effect making art at all. It affects making money from making art. 

The real issue is that many commercial artists will have to get new jobs. 

Now, looking for work sucks. I know this from experience. But it is also part of most everyone's life. So there's nothing new here. Artists can still do their art. All that may be changing in the coming decade is the opportunity to profit financially from doing their art.

And, well, we all know that money is the root of all evil, so one can make the case that AI is here to save artists from evil. Or at least compromised art for the sake of popular taste and commercial viability.

Also, on the positive side, many of these commercial writers and artists are, or soon will be using, AI as a tool to supplement and streamline their workflow and become more productive, while still being considered human artists. Good AI, not evil AI.

Bottom line for authors is that AI won't starve writers. The industry has been quite adept at starving them for centuries. Writers, and most other artists, are used to little pay for their creativity. Most of them already have to have, you know, real jobs, to make money. AI is going to eliminate jobs that produce art, which is sad, but that doesn't mean AI is eliminating art. It's just eliminating jobs. And, maybe, dreams.

Like it or not, replacing humans with machines pretty much defines capitalism and the march of progress. Arguably, it has made the lot of humans better. Will it continue to do so? Stay tuned.

Disclaimer

I use free Google Docs, Grammarly, and Scribbr online grammar tools to proofread my manuscript for typos, wrong words, and comma placement, to the benefit of my readers.

I use Google, Apple, and Amazon auto-generated narration for my audiobooks, giving my readers more options.

I don't use any Ai tools in either my writing or art. I do use the old school spell checker for my manuscripts and photo retouching tools in Gimp for my art - all aids that have been around for several decades.

The Darval-Mers Dossier -E book FREE on Amazon

 

I just noticed that Amazon, all on its own, has slashed the $2.99 ebook price of The Darval-Mers Dossier to $0.00 price matching all the other ebook stores. I don't how long this sale will last, but get it while you can!

The Darval-Mers Dossier on Amazon can be found HERE

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 112)

 

Another Regency Story this week as well. Did it fare any better than the last two? Am I growing tried reading this genre?

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer  C

To answer the lede question, sort of. For both questions. This book is the third book in a loose series of stories starting with These Old Shades. That book had as its main character the cold and ruthless Duke of Avon. The second book, The Devil's Cub tells the story of his son, and in this one, we meet his granddaughter, Barbara, and two of her brothers. Most of them take more after the Duke than his wife, meaning that they are bold, seemingly heartless, and prone to scandals.

While the story has a romance, such as it is, of the wild and headstrong Barbara with an aide de camp to Field Marshall Wellington, it is at its heart, a work of historical fiction set during he 100 Days after Napoleon returned from his exile to his defeat at Waterloo. The first three quarters of the story is set in Brussels and begins several months before that famous battle, as the English slowly gather an army of local allies and their own troops. Meanwhile, the wealthy society, having flocked to the continent after the defeat of Napoleon (the first time) find themselves seemingly in the way of the French army, though it is only a distant storm cloud at first. In this part we have all the domestic drama of an ill-advised romance, and the affairs of the wealthy families residing in Brussels - lots of names, lots of people, lots of parties and such. Heyer also weaves in historical characters into her story, drawing on the memoirs of the people involved in those events to recreate the time and mood. Truth be told, I did not find the story all that engaging, perhaps because all of the side characters as well as with a focus on Barbara, who's not likable.

The last quarter of the story is a description of the battle of Waterloo, in great detail, as she weaves her fictional characters into the action of the battle's final day. As I have remarked before, not having the ability to create pictures, much less movies in my mind, I find that all the elaborate description and detail accounts of the action to be wasted on me. I just find them tedious, a string of words that create nothing but confusion. These days I don't even bother to read them. I skimmed the battle almost entirely, picking things up again in the final pages to find out what happened. 

I haven't been very lucky with my last several Regency books. I probably should take some time away from them. Ah, but what to read next? At the time I'm writing this I still have a month plus of Kindle Unlimited, but I find it very hard to find books that appeal to me there. I find it hard to find books there, period. They only show you so many of them in certain categories. I think you need know what you're looking for to find what you're looking for. At the moment. I don't. Stay tuned to find out what I did find to read next.

Fields and Fence Lines

Lately I've been wandering about the field of my imagination and storytelling, walking its fence lines, and looking over the green fields beyond.

That, I believe is a simile. If I had said; "I have been considering my writing talent like walking in a field, enclosed by the fences of my limitations," that would have made it a metaphor. I think. Maybe. I looked up the differences a month or so ago. I things like that never quite stick. 

And yet, I've been writing for more than fifty years.

This tells you what sort of writer I am. Or maybe not.

I consider myself an organic writer. I've not been taught how to write fiction. I haven't taken courses in fiction writing. I haven't read books on how to write. I know next to nothing about the terminology of the written word. But for better or worse, none of that has kept me from writing.

This is due, in part because I developed my taste and talent long before the internet. Such information was a lot more inconvenient to acquire back then. And in part because I'm not a book learner. Instead, I came to appreciate the writings of a variety of authors I've come across over the course of my life and several thousand novels. I've "learned" from them, informally, and with practice. 

These days I will sometimes read blog posts and watch videos on "how to write,"  just because I'm curious as to how other writers do it. Not to learn, since, I know how to write. Or I believe I do. I find these how-to-write articles and videos interesting because I couldn't imagine writing they way they approach it. So often it seems almost an mechanical process that is alien to my thought process. 

Still, as I said, it is interesting, going back to that simile or metaphor, to look over the fences of my field to others beyond.

And then consider my field.

I've come to realize that the size and shape of my creative field is fenced in by my personality. While I credit all those novels I've read over the years for shaping my writing style, finding what I liked and disliked those likes and dislikes are a product of my personal taste. I wasn't taught what or how to appreciate what is good, what is great, and how to write. I just decided for myself.

The beauty of my approach is that I never have had to un-learn anything to find my own style. My voice is all mine, for better or worse. My style is my own, for better or worse. It is, as I said, organic. Homegrown.

That said, I also realize there is a price to pay for this approach. Perhaps my field of talent would be larger and richer if I had taken a more formal approach to writing. Looking over the fences, I recognize what I missed with my approach. But they are fields that I haven't, can't, or perhaps, just don't care to roam through them.

Since the limits of my talent and imagination in storytelling are largely the fences of my personal traits and preferences, I do have choices. Some of those green fields on the far side of the fences might be accessible to me, if I cared, or dared, to climb over the fence, or in the case of barbed wire fence, slip under it. You don't really want to climb over barbed wire fences. But to do explore those fields, I'd have to leave my familiar field behind.

To be honest, I have no real desire to do so, even if possible. Too old, too late. And, well, or better or worse, I am content in my talent, my field is large enough for me. Leaving it would make writing feel like an writing exercise, a writing assignment. Class work. Work. 

Work is a four letter word for me. And as I wrote in last week's blog post, I'm writing for fun.

Still, I think there is some value in walking its fence lines, thinking about what they are, why they are, and what lies beyond them. As well as the price I pay for staying on my side of those fences. I expect to have a lot to say about my limits and the fields beyond. This post is just an introduction, or a warning of things to come. I don't know how many posts that might take or when I'll be posting them, but I have a weekly post to fill, so they will be coming.

An Age of Wonder!

 

We live in an age of magic and wonder. I don't say that lightly. I say it because on Saturday, Draft2Digital sent me a notice that, seventeen months after submitting The Prisoner of Cimlye to Apple for conversion to an audiobook, it has finally been released as an audiobook. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I have no explanation as to why this has happened, one can only say, miracles still do happen.

The burning question now is will they get around to releasing the audiobook versions of The Girl on the Kerb, Beneath the Lanterns, and The Lost Star's Sea, all of which have been sitting in limbo since January 1 2024?  Anything, folks, is possible.

The Darval-Mers Dossier is also awaiting Apple Audiobook release, but it's only been like ten days, so far. Which is too soon. Fingers crossed.

The Prisoner of Cimlye, like all my audiobooks on Apple, is a FREE audiobook.

Stay tuned for, hopefully, more miracles.

The Saturday Morning Post (no. 111)

 

Sadly, this week we have two Regency Era DNF's. It happens.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

A Convenient Marriage by Georgette Heyer DNF 31%

The story involves a marriage between a rather raffish duke who wants to produce a heir to keep the title and estate out of the hands of his obnoxious cousin, and the daughter of a noble family whose males have gambled away their fortune. The elder daughter is selected to marry the duke, but she's in love with a poor, but good soldier, who she must give up to save the family. Her 17 year old younger sister decides to save her, so she visits the duke and offers to marry him herself so that her sister can marry for love. She says that she won't interfere with his life, (and mistress) and so he agrees. A story with potential, the reverse of the Reluctant Widow. Alas, it didn't work for me.

It didn't click because I didn't like the two leads. The thoughtful little sister turns into a gambling spendthrift, becoming the darling of the ton, which seemed out of character, since she was supposed to be the thoughtful daughter. Her husband the duke was the typical Heyer male - cool, soft spoken, who has everything under control. His new bride decides to string along her husband's enemy because she wants to gamble with him - gambling being the family addiction. Nothing seemed very convincing, and while I'm sure we get the happy ever after ending, all I could see where familiar games to get there. Oh well, you can't win them all. Hopefully the next one will be better.

Emma by Jane Austen  DNF 6%

It had been my intention to read all of Jane Austen's novels. I'm not so certain now. I do know that I won't be returning to this one, anyway. I have two complaints about Emma.

The first is that its beginning is incredibly tedious. A mundane recounting of the marriage of Emma's governess/companion, her subsequent relationship with her father, the arrival of a new young lady, and other sundry events, seemingly of little consequence. I don't mind slow starts, but this seemed to promise nothing of interest, at least to me.

My second objection can be applied to all the Austen books I've read, And that is that Austen inserts herself between her story and her readers. Sometimes overtly, making comments on the actions of her characters, but always, in my view, in the rather remote manner she tells her stories. You always know she's telling you a story, rather than allowing the story to take on a life of its own. Austen is always there, an unseen, but present, narrator, lurking liked the Cheshire Cat, with a little smile, watching and reporting on her characters; their appearance, their thoughts, flaws, triumphs and failures. It's like a layer of glass between the reader and the story. While it can be amusing to read at times, it removes any resemblance of living life out of the story, at least for me. Her stories are just that, a story. Gossip as literature. And in this case, extremely mundane gossip, at least as far as I could make my way into it, which wasn't far before I decided that I had better things to do with my time.

The Darval-Mers Dossier Available Now on Amazon

 

The ebook and audiobook versions are now Available on Amazon.

PAPERBACK VERSION

Amazon  for $9.99

RETAIL PRICE EDITION FROM AMAZON

Amazon $ 2.99 Ebook

Amazon  or Audible $3.99 Audiobook 

Redinal “Red” Hu had been given a simple message to deliver. ‘If you care for her, stop seeing her.’

A message that could be considered either wise advice, or a dark warning. Considering that it was delivered to the young scion of one of the wealthy Great Houses of the Commonwealth of Lorria, it was probably both. Especially when, with only a little investigation, Hu discovers that the “her” in the message is the future Head of the House of a bitter rival.

Alas, young love.

Young love between the contending Great Houses had always been a daring and dangerous thing. But never more so than during the ruthless secret struggles between the Great Houses that ruled Lorria which soon led to the Humanist Manifesto and the Second Founding.

The Darval-Mers Dossier is a mystery story set in the world of Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, some fifteen hundred years prior to those stories, which is to say, in the era when the advanced technology of the First Founding was fast failing, and a new course of society had yet to be decided on.

It is written as if it was the prequel novel to a series of fictional novels of intrigue known as the Red Wine Agency books which played a role in the novel Chateau Clare. The Darval-Mers Dossier is the story of how Redinal Hu, an ex-attorney, now majordomo of one of the Great Houses of Lorria – with a sideline gig of taking on odd assignments for his old law firm – becomes Red Wine, a gentleman for hire, serving the Great Houses in their secret struggle to shape the future of the Commonwealth.

C. Litka spins tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richly imagined worlds. In The Darval-Mers Dossier he has a written mystery story with his usual cast of colorful, fully realized characters. If you seek to escape your everyday life, you’ll find no better company, nor more wonderful worlds to explore, than in the stories of C. Litka.

The Delightful Lightness of Writing as an Amateur

I have, from day one, approached my author/publishing career as an amateur. I have had no regrets for doing so. Indeed, it was the best decision I've made both as a writer and a publisher. It made both writing and publishing simply fun, as it should be, since, as a decade in the business has shown me, writing fiction is a rotten career; a "career" where failure is the norm. Take it seriously at your own (considerable) risk.

I should define the term "amateur" as I mean it. I take up the banner of K G Chesterton who defended the amateur in his biography of Robert Browning thusly:

“The word amateur has come by the thousand oddities of language to convey an idea of tepidity; whereas the word itself has the meaning of passion. Nor is this peculiarity confined to the mere form of the word; the actual characteristic of these nameless dilettanti is a genuine fire and reality. A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame or money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well. Such a man must love the toils of the work more than any other man can love the rewards of it.”

Or, as he put it more succinctly; “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”

The brilliance of this approach is that, while it allows for success on your own terms, it eliminates failure, save, once more, on your own terms. And if one focuses on the love of, in this case, writing, failure is found only in the sense that one thinks one can, hopefully, do it a little better the next time. Little "failures". Really, these little failures are merely challenges to build on, the spice of life, rather than a real failure. Besides, success is always built on failures. So whether something one writes seems to work or doesn't, it's always a matter of choice, your choice alone.

And irrelevant. 

Irrelevant because the only thing that is relevant is the making of the art, the writing of the story, and the joy of doing so, not the results. Creating is what is relevant. The result will, hopefully, give you joy as well, but if not, you just dive back into the process that you enjoy to produce something better.

The delightful lightness of approaching writing, or any creative endeavor, as an amateur, is the freedom the amateur mindset gives you to create, or attempt to create, exactly what your heart desires. No norms to comply with, no markets to serve, no accolades, rewards, or the mirage of wealth to bend and shape your creation into something that isn't entirely yours. As an amateur those considerations don't, or at least, need not matter. You have the freedom to pick and choose what you think should matter, and what doesn't. You can even try to make a commercial success out of writing, if you care too, just as long as you remember that it is just a game, and the odds are heavily against you. You can do just what you want, and how you want to do it. No compromises are necessary.

This is the thread that runs through the joy of approaching art as an amateur; it gives you freedom, and along with that freedom, comes the control you have over the entire process. You are your own master, answering to no one. How many things in life can you say that?

Freedom and control! The ability to keep your work entirely yours. To create a work of art rather than produce a product. The professional writer, a producer of a product, must become a clog in the machine, a small part of a bigger enterprise, over which the writer has little control over.

Still, if the rewards of the professional approach to writing compensated for the loss of freedom and control, I wouldn't kick. But they don't. It is estimated that 1 in 1000 manuscripts get published in traditional publishing, and only 1 in 10 of those lucky few are still getting published ten years later, i.e. you have a 1 in 10,000 chance of having a ten year plus long career as an author. Then consider the fact that most of those authors are aren't actually making a professional income from their work, despite being "professionals". Indeed, for most writers, no matter what they call themselves, their writing is only a part time job, a paying a hobby. And the same is true for most self-publishing authors, even those with professional aspirations, since the vast majority are probably making pocket change, if not losing money, when trying to meet the "professional" standards promoted by the people who may actually make their living off of selling their services to authors.

But enough negativity. I'm here to celebrate the lightness of playing with words, with characters of one's own imagination, and with a story of one's own to tell. And the challenge of doing it just right, by your own lights. And to write the next one even better.

And maybe someday, should you may find that you're not afraid of making a fool of yourself. That you think what you've created is good, at least good enough. It's something you can share with whoever you want to, however you want to, all the while remembering that, as Chesterton, points out, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing badly. Failing is not an option when sharing, even if you charge money for your story, since making money is not your goal. It is the doing of it, the writing, the creation, that is what is what is worth doing. Making it is yours, and yours alone.

Have fun writing!

 

The Saturday Morning Post (No. 110)

 

This week, in keeping with my recent theme of wandering outside of my well trodden "cow paths" of reading, we have a work of psychological literary fiction. 

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below.

Winter Journeys by Audrey Driscoll  B

Winter Journeys tells a deep and dark story of Llona Miller, a woman who never quite finds her place in the world. Not in our world, anyway. Llona's life's story is told in two interwoven streams of narration. One is set in 2007 and is told mostly in third person narration. The other is set in 1987-88 and has Llona herself narrating her life as an education major senior in a Canadian college.

The 2007 story line recounts the life of the now 40-something year-old Llona after she is laid off from an office job she'd held for three years. It had been the best job she's ever had and she does not take being laid off very well. Not well at all. She quickly, and seemingly helplessly, falls into a deep depression, and perhaps paranoia. She becomes a bitter, unpleasant person, angry at the world she's never quite fit comfortably into and the life she's had to live, as she makes halfhearted, and unsuccessful, attempts to find a new job. 

Llona's own 1987-88 story turns back the clock, recounting her experiences as a college senior in a collage educational program - a program that she does not really want to be in, but is taking to please her down-to-earth parents who believe that an expensive college education should lead of a job. Huh? 

Given a chance to take a course outside of her education field of study, she chooses a course on German Romantism. Though out of her element, it leads to her discovery of the works of Schubert and his Winterreise song cycle in particular. She finds herself powerfully drawn to the romantic world of a spurned lover who sets out on a winter's journey, especially when sung by Julian Northridge. He becomes something of her ghost-lover, taking over her imagination and her life.

Through her narration the reader is introduced to something of the history of Schubert's and his song cycle of the winter's journey of a spurned lover.

This obsession leads to a life-defining traumatic experience. 

Since I generally don't go into plot details in my reviews, I will only say in Winter's Journey Audrey Driscoll spins a very powerful and atmospheric story, a deep psychological study of an unhappy, socially awkward person, someone who is drawn into the romantic ideal, that is to say, of following one's feelings regardless of where they may lead.

Drawn far too deeply into that dark romantic ideal.

Those songs, her unhappiness, and her ghost-singer lead her to, many years later to, well, a winter's walk of her own. And perhaps another ghost, one who plays a harmonica.

I must admit that this type of story isn't my cup of tea see my criteria above. This disconnect is reflected in my grade. This is not a light novel and I found it impossible to connect with or like the protagonist. I recently watched several booktubers talk about a book called Mistic River by Dennis Lehane. That book, as well as in a number of Stephen King novels, explores the effects of trauma on young people and how it effects their life. Some get over it, others are never able to get beyond it. This story explores trauma's effect on the life of Llana, who is one of those people who never gets over her traumatic experience. As such, it is a story for the many readers who like deep character studies, and dark places. If you are one of them, you will find this a finely written, intense, and I would think very satisfying read.

The Darval-Mers Dossier Ebooks & Audiobooks Now Available!

Redinal “Red” Hu had been given a simple message to deliver. ‘If you care for her, stop seeing her.’

A message that could be considered either wise advice, or a dark warning. Considering that it was delivered to the young scion of one of the wealthy Great Houses of the Commonwealth of Lorria, it was probably both. Especially when, with only a little investigation, Hu discovers that the “her” in the message is the future Head of the House of a bitter rival.

Alas, young love.

Young love between the contending Great Houses had always been a daring and dangerous thing. But never more so than during the ruthless secret struggles between the Great Houses that ruled Lorria which soon led to the Humanist Manifesto and the Second Founding.

The Darval-Mers Dossier is a mystery story set in the world of Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, some fifteen hundred years prior to those stories, which is to say, in the era when the advanced technology of the First Founding was fast failing, and a new course of society had yet to be decided on.

It is written as if it was the prequel novel to a series of fictional novels of intrigue known as the Red Wine Agency books which played a role in the novel Chateau Clare. The Darval-Mers Dossier is the story of how Redinal Hu, an ex-attorney, now majordomo of one of the Great Houses of Lorria – with a sideline gig of taking on odd assignments for his old law firm – becomes Red Wine, a gentleman for hire, serving the Great Houses in their secret struggle to shape the future of the Commonwealth.

C. Litka spins tales of adventure, mystery, and travel set in richly imagined worlds. In The Darval-Mers Dossier he has a written mystery story with his usual cast of colorful, fully realized characters. If you seek to escape your everyday life, you’ll find no better company, nor more wonderful worlds to explore, than in the stories of C. Litka.

PAPERBACK VERSION

Amazon  for $9.99

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RETAIL PRICE EDITION FROM AMAZON

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Amazon  or Audible $3.99 Audiobook 

Missed Me by Just Sixty Feet and Six Years

 

Ever since watching The Wizard of Oz as a kid, I've wanted to see a real tornado. Tornados are such a (relatively) rare, deadly, yet whimsical phenomena, something larger than life, seemingly out of fantasy. They're vast, whirling Jinns, dancing destructively across the face of the earth, meteorological explanations be damned. They kill people, they level homes. Something you really don't want to meet. Nevertheless...

In July 2020 I did get to see a very small and brief tornado from the top of our hill, here in Eau Claire. Below is a photograph of the funnel cloud.

It lasted less than a minute, barely touching ground, and it could be viewed from  a nice safe distance. The place where you want to view one.

Fast forwarding to the present, or rather to 15 May of 2025. A line of storms swept across Wisconsin with a number of tornadoes embedded in it, fortunately they were fairly small ones that did not level towns like the ones elsewhere the following day. The sirens sounded here in Eau Claire twice. My son Jack was visiting us on his way to Nester Falls Canada for spring fishing with my brothers, brother-in-law and some other friends, guys who've been going up for opening week for the last 50 years. But I digress. Jack is also intrigued with tornados and follows all the storm trackers on YouTube as well as using the radar they use to identify tornados on his phone. So we stood in the parking lot and watched the sky and radar for the potential tornados that where heading our way. They missed Eau Claire, though the south side of town got battered with golf ball sized hail. And then, during the following weeks everyone in town was battered by calls from roofers who descend like locus where hail damaged roofs will need to be replaced. I digress yet again.

However, later that afternoon, a small F2 tornado with 120mph wind briefly touched down in Juneau Wisconsin, which is the town where we lived for over 30 years before we moved to Eau Claire six years ago. Below is the track of that tornado in relation to the little town. I have a couple of shots taken by the storm tracker's drone flying around where the "X" is on the map. All the little triangles are reports of various levels of damage. Most of the damage to the west (left) were trees down and windows broken. It was on the Main Street's north end where roofs were taken off and houses damaged. 

The photo below is the drone shot looking south. I have indicated where our old house is. It is hidden in the trees, but the street you can see turning towards the drone is Meadow Lane. On the left side of the photo you can get a glimpse of where the heaviest damage begins. If you want to see more pictures, the live stream on YouTube is still available HERE and  you will have to scroll to around the 5:15 hour section to find the footage.

Below is  map with a closer focus on the location of our house, the house in black, relative to the track of the tornado as determined by those who investigate such things. Meadow Lane is a bit off kilter to the houses, offset to the west (left).

The hardest hit area is just above this map along Main Street. I think the fact that those houses where on the ridge, and maybe 20 feet higher than our house meant that they were more exposed. I also think that because our house was tucked under the ridge, the wind hitting the ridge may've lifted the funnel just a little, as there don't seem to be trees down in our yard, and we had plenty of them.

And just to put the tornado track in scale, there is a photo of our house as it is today from Google Street View taken from the street in front of our house where the tornado is said to have traveled along. 

Below is a wider view (a screen shot, so the detail isn't very good) of the destruction along Main Street within half an hour of the tornado. There was a storm chaser following it and he sent up the drone. The big tan building is the nursing home. It lost a lot of windows. Beyond it was an ex-motel, now apartments which lost most of their roof, and the power line poles were down all along the road beyond.

I haven't run across any photos of the tornado itself. I gather that it was "rain-wrapped", i.e. the funnel was in the midst of the rain & hail, so it couldn't be seen. So I didn't actually miss much had we still been living there. The good think is that only one person was injured, and of course a number of people were left homeless and lost a lot of their property. Still it could've been far worse.

We have tornados in Wisconsin every year, though the ones that level large swaths of towns are a once in 30-40 year storms or so, unlike on the great plains and the deep south. But considering earthquakes, forest fires, flash floods, and hurricanes, I don't think we can kick too much about our tickets to Oz.

The Saturday Morning Post (No.109)

 

Having signed up for Kindle Unlimited, I have embarked on a quest to find something after Emma M Lion to make my $.99 worth it. Not that I need to do so, as Emma is worth far more than that. But well, I should see if there are any other treasures buried in Kindle Unlimited millions of books.

I picked out several, stepping out of my comfort zone a bit. One was You Are Here, by David Nicholls, billed as a funny love story. I read several pages and found the vibe not to my taste. Plus, it is set in the present day, which is a setting I have no interest in. What was I thinking? I'm not even going to count that as a DNF. I also picked up the book below, mostly on its title.

My reviewer criteria. I like light, entertaining novels. I like smaller scale stories rather than epics. I like character focused novels featuring pleasant characters, with a minimum number of unpleasant ones. I greatly value clever and witty writing. I like first person, or close third person narratives. I dislike a lot of "head jumping" between POVs and flashbacks. I want a story, not a puzzle. While I am not opposed to violence, I dislike gore for the sake of gore. I find long and elaborate fight, action, and battle sequences tedious. Plot holes and things that happen for the convenience of the author annoy me. And I fear I'm a born critic in that I don't mind pointing out what I don't like in a story. However, I lay no claim to be the final arbitrator of style and taste, you need to decide for yourself what you like or dislike in a book.

Your opinions are always welcome. Comment below. 

What comes of Attending the Commoners Ball by Elisabeth Aimee Brown  DNF 55%

From the title I thought it might be a cleverly written book, which is what I love in books. From the title, it appeared to be a light fantasy romance novel. Still, I thought it might be worth my time, of which I have plenty. However, as I started reading it, it became increasingly clear that not only was I not the target audience, which I knew going into it, but that it was far from clever. It became ever more simple and boring as the story went along. No stakes. The characters were pretty basic. The plot, rather silly. YA. 

Still, I suppose I should review it. 

The female protagonist, Hester, is a spunky hick from the sticks, who decides to attend, without an invitation, the "Commoners Ball" at the palace with an eye to getting a good meal. At the door she is told that without an invitation she can't get in. Commoners means non-royalty, not any old riff-raff subject.

Enter the two princes. Lucas, the elder and serious one who is expected to marry a princess, and Hugh, the carefree and mischievous one. Hugh, as a joke, saves Hester from being kicked out of the ball. They then run into Lucas at the ball. Lucas falls for Hester, and she for him... but of course, she's just a farm girl in the big city, and he's the crown prince whose duty is to marry the princess his father wants him to. 

Later, Hugh has fun taking Hester, against her will, around town and to the palace. However, he sees that his serious older brother is attracted to Hester, and seems to be trying to get them together, for some purpose of his own. Which I'll never find out, since I couldn't get to the end of the book.

While it isn't listed as an young adult book, it certainly is. If not a middle grade book. While I know a lot of adults read young adult books, I'm not one of them. So, as you can see, while I gave it a chance, the longer I read it (it's a fast read) the more juvenile and tedious the story becomes. And I simply decided that neither the characters. story, nor the writing had anything to offer to me, so I called it a day.

Now, if you discount the fact that I'm not its target audience, the author has succeeds in what she likely set out to do - in her debut book even! - which is to write a lighthearted retelling of Cinderella that has managed to find its audience. Which is very impressive. It was released this past September, (2024) and in March 2025 it has a 4.5 star rating with 1,800 ratings and is currently the 2,928th best selling book on Amazon, This ranking means that the book is selling over 1,200 copies a month. This is an impressive debut for a self-published author. Hats off to Mrs Brown.

Oh well, I had been only reading this to keep me from finishing the Unselected Journals of Emma M Lion, too fast. Nothing but a few hours lost. I can afford them.

The Darval-Mers Dossier in Paperback

 

The Darval-Mers Dossier is now available in paperback for $9.99 on Amazon. You can find it here. The ebook version is now available for preorder on Amazon here for $2.99. It will be released on 5 June 2025. With an audiobook version to follow shortly afterwards for $3.99.

The free ebook versions of the book will be available from Google, Apple, Smashwords, B & N, et al on or before 29 May 2025, with the free audiobook version on the Google Play Store following shortly, and from Apple whenever Apple gets around to releasing it. Stay tuned for the exact date!

The Yin and Yang of Writing

Isn't it rich? 

Isn't it queer?

Losing my timing this late

In my career?

-- Send in the Clowns

It's not my timing that I've lost. Indeed, it has nothing to do with losing anything. Rather it's discovering something, this late in my career, that gives me the same melancholy feeling as the words of that song does. At 75, I am late in my career, and I regret not realizing there is a yin and a yang in writing until now.

I am not pretending that I discovered something new. While I've not taken courses in writing, I have no doubt what I've discovered on my own is taught, in some form or another, in writing classes. I could've Googled it to find out. 

But I didn't.

Because I wanted to talk about how and what I discovered as a personal tale, rather than as a lesson.

What I realized is that there is a yin and a yang in writing - as there is in all things. This realization came to me while reading Beth Brower's The Uncollected Journals of Emma M. Lion. Or more precisely, in rereading them. 

Yin and yang, usually symbolized by the circle above, can be thought of as a combination of opposite, but interconnected forces, that interact to form a dynamic system with the whole greater than the two parts. These forces are fluid, each with the seed (the little circle) of its opposite within it. The white "yang" is considered active, expansive, bright, open, and male, while the black "yin" is reactive, passive, dark, mysterious, and female. Everything has elements of both within them, in varying degrees, at various times. 

Including writing.

Though in the case of writing stories, the  colors of yin and yang are usually reversed. Black, or the color of the ink, is the active force of yang in writing. It is the color of the letters, the words, and the sentences that drive the story forward, the active, expansive force of the story. The yin, in writing, is white, or the paper. This yin has two characteristics, the visual - the light space surrounding the dark lines and blocks of words. And the metaphorical, in the sense of making up all the parts of the story that are left out as unnecessary, implied, unsaid, and/or left a mystery. 

It is the importance of yin, the white space, in writing that only now has struck me. I came to realize this because the Emma M Lion books are written as journals. As such they are composed of a series of dated entries, sometimes just a line or two, and sometime brief paragraphs separated by time and subject, and at other times verbatim transcriptions of scenes and dialogs. The variety of these different types of entries, and the variety of the white spaces that enclose them, eventually struck me as intralegal to the story and the way it's told. But these books have a a lot of metaphorical white spaces as well, which are even more powerful. Beth Brower, in writing as if we are reading a journal, often leaves things unsaid, half said, implied, or simply mysterious. It is the brevity of words, descriptions, or events that opened my eyes to how one can use the yin of writing - the lack of writing - to enhance the story. What you don't write is every bit as important as what you do set down in words.

To take one example; she has one character who limps from a mysterious injury. Other than being tall, his character is described in terms of a looming storm. She  didn't need to do more than that for us to build our own image of a man, brooding, with contained, but pent up energy. In addition, he, like all the other characters, major and minor, have pasts, parts of which are slowly revealed in little episodes over the course of many books. This is the metaphorical "white space" of writing; the things not described in words, but implied. This yin of things not said serves to hold the interest of the reader every bit as much as what is said. And it implies that even the minor characters, which we know very little about, will, someday, step forward and play their part in the story as it goes on. This is the power of white space, of the mysterious yin.

I hope to give more mind on this type of white space going forward. What can I leave out, hint at, mention in passing, or suggest?  Is it important? Or is it busy work? Is an elaborate description essential? These, of course, are judgement calls, but considering that if not saying something works better than stating it, will probably make me a better writer. It can also regulate the rhythm and pace of the story - sometimes  saying less speeds things up, sometimes saying less pauses the story a beat or two as the reader considers the little mystery resulting from not saying everything, depending on what is said.

As someone who uses ten words were five would do, this realization has had a profound impact on me. Not that I was totally unaware of this on an instinctive level. Often those five extra words are there because the come from the character within the story who is narrating the story, and is used to build the character. But now, by putting a name of the art of saying less, it will make me more mindful of what needs to be said, and what needs not to be said, even by the character. 

But this yin, this white space, is more than mere word count. 

I also have come to appreciate restraint in making everything crystal clear. Everything doesn't have to be spelled out. I think you can trust readers to read between the lines. And sometimes it might be useful to keep them wondering, not quite sure what exactly is going on - that's life, after all. Readers find the mysteries fascinating. Why cheat them of the fun of wondering? There will always come a proper time to clear up mysteries, if they're important. Until then, I think you can use hints and little mysteries as story-strands, threads, that tie readers to the story and pull them along through it. 

In summery, seeing the story as both words said and unsaid will make me mindful of what I'm saying, how it needs to be said, and if it needs to be said.

I've also come to realize that there is the physical yin as well in books. The yin of what you see on the page. In how you use white space visually. The white space on the page is an important as the text. Ideally, a page contains an interesting play of dark text, words sentences and paragraph, and light white space giving a sense of solidness when required, as well as a lively fleetingness, a rhythm of fast passages and slow ones; yin and yang when it is appropriate in the story.

For example, long paragraphs of dialog can make for speeches instead of conversations. Massive paragraphs of description can make for slow reading. Or skimming. Visually they are large, square, solid blocks of text. And when you consider the text as the yang of writing - the driving force of the story, these large, square blocks of text are hardly an active and driving force in the story. They can bring the pace of the story to a crawl. The opposite of what the text should be doing.

Of course, there are many reasons, many moods, and variety of pacing necessary in stories. At the proper time, blocks of text can serve a proper purpose in a story. As does lines of text that run, dance, and play like a brook, in the "air" of white space, when such liveliness is needed. In considering the feeling one wants to create, I think that one needs to not only consider the words, but how they are arranged on the page. How they look, not just how they read.

English has all sorts of rules on how to construct sentences and paragraphs, which, if take literally, will make one's writing formal. Creative writing is a different beast altogether, which need not, or should not, be constrained by formality.  

The mindful use of white space on a page by they mindful use of lines of text and length of paragraphs, will, I think, make for better, more evocative writing. It is a matter of writing with a rhythm, rather than as a dull drone. 

So, my takeaway with my discovery of the yin and yang of writing is that visually and metaphorically I need to open my eyes to what I want to say, what I need to say, and what is just as important, what I don't need to say. And to say it with a pattern of light and darkness, lines and spaces, that dance.