I'm taking a blogging break for the rest of May. I shall see you in June for the IWSG post.

I'm taking the rest of May off from blogging. Life has gotten a bit stressful, and I have some roommate issues that keep cropping up (living with people is challenging but I did sign up for this...willingly I might add). So, I'm going to take a bit of a blog break and see you guys in June. Perhaps by then things will have returned to normal, and I can concentrate on plodding along in my life. Right now, it feels like a new hurricane of chaos lands about every week. That's part of the issue of living with someone who has severe ADHD I suppose.

I plan to return to blogging for the Insecure Writer's Support Group in June. See you then.

The FX Shogun series has ended and I really liked it a lot.

I finished watching FX's adaptation of James Clavell's Shogun, and I'm now ready to discuss it so here is your obligatory spoiler warning :).

First off, it was just really good throughout its narrative (one of the best shows I've ever watched). The first six episodes or so of its ten episode run hold closely to the material within the book. The last four deviate quite a bit from what Clavell wrote, but the spirit of his words is still there. The finale in particular hit some really solid notes for me, because it just was so beautiful. It was a perfect conclusion, really, to the story that the showrunners wanted to tell, and their attention and dedication to detail paid off in spades. Here's a few trivia tidbits that might interest you: 1) all of the kosodes used in the show were authentically recreated using period materials by 200 experts in kosode design, 2) the language spoken was faithful to the kind of language spoken from that era, and 3) the soundtrack took five years to make because they wanted to make sure that all compositions were faithful to the musical instruments that were available in Japan in 1600.

Maybe part of me wanted to see the Battle of Sekigahara (you don't see it). Looking back on this decision, I think it was the correct one to make. I think it would be difficult to justify a huge amount of money spent for our eyes to enjoy a battle that would have contributed nothing to the story except some gore. As Toranaga pointed out in the finale to Lord Yabushige before Yabu's seppuku moment, the outcome was inevitable. What the showrunners opted to do was offer a glimpse into Toranaga's mind, which (arguably) was the most intriguing aspect of the show. If I were to use a chess metaphor, Toranaga sacrificed his knight, his bishop, and his queen all so that he could achieve a checkmate from which his enemies could not escape. Additionally, Mariko was the definition of a brilliantly written female character, and a lot of kudos should go to James Clavell because she is equally this brilliant in the novel.

The most beautiful aspect of the finale for me was how Mariko's death touched dozens. She was the true heart of the story, transforming everyone through her life and her death. And she did the only thing that could be done in Toranaga's unique situation, moving the other regents to side with Toranaga against Ishido, or to make them withdraw the armies of the heir on the battlefield of Sekigahara (which delegitimized Ishido). Because of Mariko's sacrifice, Lady Ochiba (who ultimately made the decision regarding those armies) had no choice but to withhold them or lose family honor.

In the book, Toranaga is a man of great discipline and willingness to wait until his opponents make a crucial tactical error. In the show, Mariko ends up being the "Crimson Sky" event that hands Toranaga the Shogunate. In the book, "Crimson Sky" is an attack on Kyoto to control the Emperor and get him to declare him Shogun. It is not an attack on Osaka to defeat Ishido. But I think the important thing to understand from the way both of these events transpire is that the end result remains the same, and that the character of Blackthorne (Anjin) and that of Lord Toranaga are fundamentally cut from the same cloth. They are both unpredictable, because they are interested in all kinds of information and able to think and plan outside the context of their own cultures. This is then summed up when Anjin declares to Toranaga that rebellion is always dishonorable "unless you win."

Lord Yabu (easily one of the best characters in the show) asks Toranaga, "How does it feel to control the wind?" Toranaga replies, "I don't control the wind; I only study it." If you haven't given the television series a watch, I highly recommend that you do so.

In today's Insecure Writer's post I answer a question about distractions and whether or not they bother me.

Hello and welcome to May 2024. Things are getting weird in the United States (or at least in Salt Lake City), but that is too big of a topic to tackle in a blog post or even a hundred blog posts. Instead, let's talk about the Insecure Writer's Support Group, and how today is a celebration of its continued endurance in what remains of the blogging sphere of social media.

What is the purpose of the IWSG?: That's a good question. It is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance, and you should consider it a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds.

When does the IWSG post?: The group posts on the first Wednesday of every month (unless you forget which is what I almost did). This day is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Ideas for those posts might include the following: 1) talking about your doubts and the fears you have conquered, 2) discussing your struggles and triumphs, and 3) offering a word of encouragement for others who are struggling.

To be considered a good blog participant, you should plan to visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connection via networking. Be sure to link to their page and display their badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog. Without those breadcrumbs, it is difficult for others to locate your blog and comment back.

The IWSG has a motto. It is "Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!"

The X (formerly Twitter) handle is @TheIWSG and the hashtag everyone uses is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 1st posting of the IWSG are Victoria Marie Lees, Kim Lajevardi, Nancy Gideon, and Cathrina Constantine!

Now, every month, the brain trust of the IWSG announces a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. If this is what you want to do, then go right ahead. But remember that the question is optional. Here is the May question, and yes, I'm going to answer it.

How do you deal with distractions when you are writing? Do they derail you?

I am not good at dealing with distractions. So yes, they do derail me. I think the key to this is to just draw boundaries and to shut the door. I have a specific example, but I'm not going to write it here in the off chance that they read it and become offended. I will say that some of the worst distractions I've ever come across are caused by people who talk incessantly about one thing for ten hours straight and just blather on and on and on, and this is usually a result of severe and unmedicated ADHD or something similar. Anyway, may that specific circumstance never find you when you are trying to write :)

Thank you for visiting, and I hope your May goes swimmingly.

You won't understand 3 Body Problem until its fourth episode but you should stick with it. The payoff is spectacular.

I've been making my way through Netflix's 3 Body Problem, which is an adaptation of a science fiction novel I had never even heard about written by an author named Liu Cixin. After watching the episodes that are available on Netflix, I gotta say that I'm hooked. However, it took a long time getting there (longer than most series that hook me). It wasn't that the series didn't have much going on. It absolutely did. Rather, the problem for me was that for the first three episodes, I had absolutely no idea what was going on. So consider that conundrum: how many people stick with something after three hours, and they still can't explain to another person what the show is about? That's literally what I faced with 3 Body Problem. But it did get there, and the payoff was huge as my mind was blown about the whole story, and how it connected to everything that I'd seen in those first three episodes. Now, I think of it as a brilliant piece of hard science fiction, one in which I eagerly anticipate the next installment.

On that front, I have heard that the streamer has yet to confirm more seasons to adapt. It is a series from the Game of Thrones showrunners, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, so I think it has a good chance to get more seasons. But Netflix has a way of canceling things early. I hope that this doesn't happen with 3 Body Problem as I'm now invested and want some resolution on the things that unfolded plot-wise that I shall not go into in this post. Rather, I'd try and convince you that you should watch at least four episodes. If you're like me, you will be completely lost in the first three. It is the fourth episode where the light turns on and you go, "Oh wow! This is what they've been building to?" I think it is worth the wait, you just need to extend the storytellers some trust that they won't leave you hanging like Lost did for many folks.

In many ways, 3 Body Problem is borrowing from what Asimov and Herbert started with a story that is set to unfold over centuries rather than in a single lifetime of one protagonist. I also look forward to seeing how the storytelling evolves to keep us rooting for a single protagonist (or even if this is that kind of show). However, they have already laid the groundwork to propel one or more of these protagonists forward through the centuries to monitor the scale of the project that is at the core of 3 Body Problem in ways that strike a similar tone to what I'm watching in Apple TV+'s adaptation of Asimov's Foundation. With a television series and unlike a book, many people desire some kind of character continuity. With the way that Liu Cixin has approached the telling of this tale, it is apparent that they are embracing only hard science fiction processes that can exist within the framework and upon those ethereal layers within which science plays on the margins. So you get quantum entanglement for example, with computers that can talk to each other no matter how far apart they are. Impossible for us with our current level of knowledge as a civilization, but not impossible for aliens who are far more advanced than us.

The only thing that isn't fresh with the ideas presented in 3 Body Problem, is an obvious one. The question of "Is the human race worth saving?" is at its core. And this kind of question annoys me. Of course it is, although humans are far from perfect. If humans did become extinct then there would exist no possibility of growth and improvement. And as far as the San-Ti go (these are the aliens who are the villain of the story) if they're willing to wipe out an entire species in order to steal their planet, then they are not more worthy than humans for sure. And this then leads me to think: why don't they just take Mars or some other planet? If they are capable of making a journey across the stars and have that kind of technology, terraforming shouldn't be all that difficult for them. But...whatever. The story has got me intrigued and hooked in all of the right places so I won't question the motivations of the villain of the story other than: they are bad and they are coming (similar to "Winter is coming"). And the visuals that I've seen this first season are impressive as hell. It's difficult to remember a season one that looked this lavish and this good on its debut.

Jerry Seinfeld says that the movie business is over. Do you agree?

Jerry Seinfeld has a new movie out that I probably won't go and see as I was never a big "Seinfeld" fan. But he did say something in the news this week that caught my eye. Here's the quote:

"They [people who make movies] don't have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea."

When asked to elaborate, Seinfeld then said, "Film doesn't occupy the pinnacle in the social, cultural hierarchy that it did for most of our lives. When a movie came out, if it was good, we all went to see it. We all discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we're walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see."

So, I think I understand what Seinfeld was getting at here, but the comparison or use of the "fire hose of water" metaphor has got me a little confused. What do you think he means? Here's my take: a fire hose throws out a ton of water, and what he's saying is that there's too much volume coming out and too many options for people to watch. As a result, everything is just getting sopping wet and there's no rhyme or reason for what gets produced and what doesn't get produced and because of that, no one cares. Does that sound about right?

But even if I don't understand completely what Seinfeld is getting at, I do want to say this: watching shows (for me) has never been so fulfilling. Here's a slice of what I rate as "incredible" that has come out in just the last ten years:

1) Breaking Bad

2) The Mandalorian

3) Game of Thrones

4) The Expanse

5) The new Dune movie and its sequel

6) Foundation on Apple +

7) Avengers: Age of Ultron and Avengers: Endgame

I feel like I'm living in the golden age of science fiction, fantasy, and comic books. However, is Seinfeld right? is the movie business over? Is he being literal about "movies" as opposed to "television", which I'm lumping together as synonyms of each other? A show is a show, right? And show business is show business? 

A.I. is everywhere now.

Watching a.i. take over everything that I see has been really weird and unsettling. Whenever I spot it "in the wild" as it were, I know that the people who used it are just "phoning it in." Here's some examples.

1) Recently, Wizards of the Coast who owns the Dungeons & Dragons intellectual property had to fire an artist because they had hired the artist to produce illustrations for one of their books called Bigby Presents: Glory of the Giants. The reason? They had used a.i. to produce more than ten images for the book, and they hadn't disclosed that at all. The images look great by the way. However, there was an uproar once it was "discovered" by a clever spot person who knew what to look for when it comes to a.i. images. What's the fallout going to be over this? Well, in the short-term the company fired that artist and ordered the digital version of the book to be redone with art from another artist. However, this is simply a company choosing to do the right thing. I mean...the a.i. art was good, and it passed in front of a lot of eyes before it was caught. I also understand why the artist chose to do it: money. Imagine getting like ten to fourteen images done in a single night and then just collecting a big paycheck from a company that just wants to do the right thing. But the message is also clear on this one: why do companies even need artists anymore? If they chose to do the wrong thing, then they'd just end up with more money in their pocket.

2) I see books all of the time on Amazon or on Reddit or on Facebook and the art for the covers looks really great minus maybe a few tells: an extra finger that most people might miss or a dragon's tail that is duplicated. Click on the comments and you see people asking why the self-published author used a.i. art for the cover. Well...I'll tell you why. It's because it actually does look professionally done, and if the author had even a smidgeon of talent at photoshop and also had attention to detail, they could have corrected that extra finger and then it would have been indistinguishable from a piece that might have cost $2,000 to have done by a real artist five years ago. What's the fallout for this? How do we know that half the book (or more) wasn't also written by a.i. if the cover was done that way? And why should we be concerned? Because there's no effort in it. The person is just phoning it in. This is the way our society is going: low to no effort and people are phoning things in from their place on the couch and expecting to get paid. Maybe the late Janet Reid (from Query Shark) passed away at the right time as it's obvious that the literary world she so loved has gone into the toilet. Also, I mean no disrespect to Janet Reid by making that comment. She was a titan among literary agents out there and did a lot to help struggling writers who legitimately weren't "phoning it in." I've heard stories where she attended writer's conferences and sat outside the conference hall to hear pitches from every single writer who wanted to pitch something to her before she left.

3) Real Estate Agents who saw their commissions cave-in within the last year (and who have dangerously bloated lifestyles) have turned to consulting as a gig to try and replace some of that lost $40,000 a month they were used to for basically doing nothing. Consulting (if you don't know) is one of those jobs that really appeals to narcissists who want big bucks for low effort stuff, and there's always a sucker willing to hand over their money because they followed/benefited from one of the four rules of getting wealthy in the United States:

1. You inherit the money. If this isn't an option see number 2.
2. You are smart and clever enough to be a really successful criminal. If you are too stupid for this see number 3.
3. You have a good idea and then you take that idea and you outwork everyone else. You don't let any single person outwork you, and you sacrifice everything to keep working on it. If you don't have the spark and the drive for this see number 4.
4. You are pretty enough that people will give you money for your favors. And yes, "favors" is a euphemism.

So what do consultants do? Well, they used to try and offer some wisdom into whatever their specialty is. But I know a few of these former real estate agents who turned to consulting and their websites are all a.i. garbage with things posted on the blogs they threw up there that clearly were written by ChatGPT. How? I can spot the tells. So basically, they are phoning it in too and hoping that ChatGPT is good enough to land the big whales who want to benefit from ChatGPT wisdom. But what could possibly be the fallout for this? As soon as those "whales" with money find out that it's just ChatGPT, they may (in fact) decide to take the advice of ChatGPT instead of paying a consultant fee.

This is just three examples of how a.i. is really saturating everything. But I'll hand you a few more. It's difficult to find actual art anymore. Everything you google is just a.i. art now including things I see a lot on DeviantArt and Artstation. I read more and more articles everyday that seem to be written by a.i. appearing on Facebook. How do I know? There's no depth. There are just so many people using a.i. that I wonder if any of it has any value, because it is so easy to get your hands on a.i. stuff. Adobe Firefly has advertisements that tout the built in a.i. features that allow you to be a "better illustrator." Give me a break. Having a.i. draw the picture for you is just a gussied up paint by numbers. I think the biggest thing that is shattering in my head about this whole a.i. takeover is that the caste system of the United States no longer makes sense to me. It used to be that I'd do this little trick in my head and convince myself that rich people were people who had talent. That little trick is dying because of a.i. and now all I see are people who were just lucky. That's it. Luck. And that's a bad reason to use to explain to a struggling person why they are struggling. "Sorry man, you just drew the short stick, you know what I'm saying? Bye, Felicia. However, you are in my thoughts and prayers." This is basically the new reality of America, and I wonder if anyone is going to do anything about it, or are we all just going to start accepting this new reality as a group and just phone in everything from now on?

So many avenues where people used to be able to make money are going to dry up from all of this. And the irony of it all is that this is probably the worst time for something like that to happen, because everything is just costing more and more and more.

If Warhammer 40K was supposed to be satire it fails miserably at this.

There was a controversy lately that popped up in the Warhammer 40K community. It involved what my friend summarized as "buzz from right aligned, anti-woke fascist misogynistic man-babies over the game, because they included a female 'Astartes Custodes' in a game manual." He went on to say that these people see the "crippling authoritarian xenophobic race of man [in the game] as right up their alley because they envision themselves to be a space marine and not a sump-diver." But, you actually don't need to know what any or all of this means to read this blog post. Rather, what I wanted to talk about is something that popped up in passing in an article about all of the above, where a writer claimed that the game of Warhammer 40K got its start from satire aimed at the British, especially their noble classes. When I read those words, I was like...whaaatttt?

This idea that the Space Marines from Warhammer 40K were supposed to be a satirical read on the British actually kind of blew my mind. This then led me to understand just how bad a vehicle satire actually is. Allow me to explain. In order for satire to be effective it needs to be understood. But just like any form of humor, it can fall flat depending on who is consuming it. For example, I had some door-to-door salesmen knock on my door earlier this week and they opened with a joke. "We were just at your neighbors and they said you are having a party so we are here for that." I looked at these two young men strangely and said, "There's no party here." And then one of the salesmen said, "It's a joke. I'm trying to be funny. And then he went into his sales pitch." Needless to say, they didn't sell me anything, and I think the experience all around was what I would call "flat and a waste of time for both of us." But it wasn't completely useless. It was just the latest example of how a joke isn't funny to some people. You need to know your audience.

I think satire is this same kind of thing. Furthermore, without having written satire, I can say that my experience with it is that effective satire needs to be a one and done thing. That's kind of what Saturday Night Live does with their skits. It is rare for them to revisit a skit, and when they do, it is never as funny as the first time that they do it. So for the most part, a lot of their skits are "one and done." If not, then they certainly try to change up the situation so that it at least is different the next time you see it.

But the idea that you could set out within the framework of capitalism and create a game that you expect people to buy from you over and over with new rules sets and new miniatures, and painting guides and literally a whole community and expect everyone to buy into this as "satire" feels like a disastrous idea. And it has been, as the company, Games Workshop, is in a bit of a pickle with its fanbase that it has carefully curated and grown for decades to become a billion dollar company.

You see...the people who love the game like all of this authoritarian and fascist stuff. And the "Empire of Man," which is categorically evil (if not one of the lesser evils--but this is debatable) is their kind of jam. Furthermore, Warhammer 40K also got "cool." So you have all of this "Nazi-esque" stuff, and it's all brightly painted, intricate, has some incredible lore, and on top of that...yeah...it's cool. It's the same kind of cool that any of us who have watched World War 2 films feel when you see a sharply-dressed and handsome Nazi soldier in uniform and you think, "I hate that I find that visual attractive, because it is evil." From the standpoint of making money, it's absolutely a "no-brainer" for the company because people will buy stuff like this. It is appealing. It looks cool. It's fun. However, from the view of those who would like to remove money from the equation and just live in a healthy society...it is so anti that. So what has actually happened is that a company set out to satire and lampoon a thing and their message got lost but they made a ton of money and managed to make evil look like the ideal. That is so weird to just think about.

For years and years the community around this game has grown, and it has attracted more and more people who have a safe space to discuss all of their ideas about fascism because they assume that everyone that plays this game must be like them. And you know what? This is actually a good assumption. It is logical. Why wouldn't it be that unless it was blatant satire? But that satire message is so buried in history that it surprised even me when I learned about it just yesterday. This "joke" was not done well at all. In fact, it may be one of the worst jokes ever told.

It will be interesting to see if Games Workshop can even deal at all with its toxic fanbase. In capitalism, you are dependent (as a company) on your supporters. If you've made all of your supporters fascist and you want to preach the opposite of that, you will go out of business. They don't want to go out of business, so my guess is that they will just have to swallow all of the crap that takes place on their message boards and just sally on, making money, and hoping they don't do anything to piss their base off. And meanwhile the rest of us get to hear about the consequences of all of that, because there is no place for bravery to stand up for things like morality in capitalism. There is only profit.