I Decided to Try Something New
December 6, 2024 by Harvey
In Today’s Journal
* More Gift Subscriptions
* I Decided to Try Something New
* Name Changes?
* Call for Entries
* The Writing
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
More Gift Subscriptions
For whatever reason, Jake at Writem has authorized me to give away three more 1-month gift subscriptions to Writem.
I have no way of knowing your level of interest or whether you’re already a Writem subscriber, so if you’d like one, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com.
I Decided to Try Something New
Even as outspoken as I’ve been about generative artificial intelligence (generative AI), I decided I was ready to take the plunge. More or less.
Please don’t get me wrong. I will never encourage or condone the use of generative AI for writing content for fiction. Nothing is or will ever be better for writing fiction than the human creative subconscious.
The AI I decided to try is called ArtSpace.ai. And yes, they offer a 7-day free trial.
So why did I decide to try it? Because
I’m a prolific writer, and
I design my own covers, and
the final images at ArtSpace.ai are ultra-high-resolution 4096 x 4096 pixels, and especially because,
I’m free to use the covers I create with ArtSpace.ai commercially without having to purchase an additional extended license!
That last one is literally and figuratively the bottom line for me.
“Commercially” means I own the cover image I design. I can use it not only for the cover of the ebook and paper book, but also for marketing and merchandise: so logos, mugs, t-shirts, calendars, and whatever else.
I bought a full year of the Studio Starter (basic) plan for just over $60 (including tax). To me, the price is worth the test.
But ArtSpace.ai insisted on giving me a free trial, and I can cancel anytime before the free trial ends. So far, I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Update
I was a little uneasy with the free trial because I thought there might be a steep learning curve that would take me away from my writing.
There wasn’t.
Once I started my free trial, ArtSpace.ai constructed a perfect image of a character named Camille Cignón in about fifteen seconds, including the time it took me to write the prompt.
Camille Cignón is the (fictional) contact and eventual love interest of (fictional) Blackwell Ops operative Jack Temple.
Of course, she will also figure prominently in the novella The Imp.
The photo came out so perfectly that I redesigned the cover of BO-31 to include a faded image of Camille behind the photo of Jack Temple on the cover.
So here’s a rare endorsement: I strongly encourage you to check out ArtSpace.ai.
Important Note
Of course, I can’t use the second cover above for commercial purposes other than the ebook and paper covers because I do not own the extended commercial license for the male model.
But in all likelihood, when I finish Blackwell Ops 32: Jack Twist and future novels, I plan to design the covers using only ArtSpace.ai, and they will be mine to do with as I please.
Given enough time on this funny little blue space rock, I will seriously consider designing new covers for the entire Blackwell Ops Series, The Wes Crowley Saga, and The Journey Home Saga.
Or—more likely, because it’s smarter and will save me time—I’ll combine the novels of each series or saga into one or more omnibus editions and design new commercially viable covers for those.
Something to think about. And again I envy those of you who are at the beginning of you WITD journey.
Name Changes?
Just wondering, have any of you experienced a character changing another character’s name?
In Chapter 13, I finally gave in and changed the name of the current POV character to Harry Tidwell.
Each time the other protagonist (the contact) said “Jack,” she wanted to call him Harry. I wrote “Harry” on her behalf three or four times.
So I finally gave in. And as I typed Harry in the Replace With block of my Find & Replace dialogue box, the last name ‘Tidwell’ sprang into my head. She also told me her name is Mina, not Mimoza. So I changed those as well.
It was a little disconcerting, but I could tell the contact was happy about it. How weird is that?
Then again, who knows? Maybe the characters really do exist on another plane or in another dimension and I’m only accessing that dimension with my creative subconscious.
Call for Entries
from Writer’s Digest
The Writer’s Digest 25th Annual Short Short Story Competition is looking for and shining the light on amazing short fiction. We’re looking for writing that’s bold, brilliant and, most of all, brief.
Think you can write a winning story in 1,500 words or fewer? Send us your best stories and you could win $3,000 in cash, a trip to the Writer’s Digest Annual Conference 2025, and an interview for a feature article in our magazine.
Ready to be the next writer we spotlight? Enter by December 16!
Some of you WITD folks really should think about entering this.
The Writing
is going well enough. On rough days, I’m still edging over my 3000 wpd goal. So it’s looking better and better for hitting that 1,000,000 words of published fiction for the year.
Additionally, the TNDJ topics continue to come, helping with the cumulative total of “consumable words” (both fiction and nonfiction) on the year. I surpassed 1,100,000 awhile back and am aiming now at 1,200,000. Woohoo!
Thanks for being here everybody.
Talk with you again soon.
Of Interest
The Paradox of Writing Some straight talk
The Numbers
The Journal…………………………… 950
Writing of Blackwell Ops 32: Harry Tidwell
Day 1…… 3528 words. To date…… 3528
Day 2…… 3136 words. To date…… 6664
Day 3…… 4540 words. To date…… 11204
Day 4…… 6376 words. To date…… 17598
Day 5…… 3196 words. To date…… 20794
Day 6…… 3763 words. To date…… 24557
Fiction for December………………… 21011
Fiction for 2024………………………. 948932
Nonfiction for December…………….. 6180
Nonfiction for 2024…………………… 368750
2024 consumable words…………….. 1,141,721
Average Fiction WPD (December)…. 4202
2024 Novels to Date…………………….. 17
2024 Novellas to Date…………………… 1
2024 Short Stories to Date……………… 31
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………..… 101
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 268
Short story collections……………………. 29
Disclaimer: Whatever you believe, unreasoning fear and the myths that outlining, revising, and rewriting will make your work better are lies. They will always slow your progress as a writer or stop you cold. I will never teach the myths on this blog.
Writing fiction should never be something that stresses you out. It should be fun. On this blog I teach Writing Into the Dark and adherence to Heinlein’s Rules. Because of WITD and because I endeavor to follow those Rules I am a prolific professional fiction writer. You can be too.
I've had a high fantasy character flip around the first and last name twice now. Both were made up names and did sound better flipped around.
One high fantasy character has a nickname which I planned to use more, but the character keeps referring to himself with his given name. The significance is that the character has undergone a magical change and using the given name sort of signals he hasn't changed as much as I thought.
Have fun with your new hobby, It can be a fun "doodle" to play with AI. And while I don't think it will impact you in any way, just remember, that while the images are commercially licensed, they are not copyright protected. Again, I don't think it would effect you and your books/covers. But if you do Merch, it could.