ChatGPT must connect with people to succeed as an artist

24 February 2023

To make good art argues Billy Oppenheimer, writing for Every, the art creator must have a connection of some sort to people.

As an example, he cites the writers of the old Seinfeld TV sitcom, Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David, who, in the early days of the show, would go out and discreetly mix where people gathered, to figure out what they liked.

Their process played a part in the creation of the show’s many memorable screenplays. This is an advantage ChatGPT lacks. For the AI chatbot to succeed as an “artist”, it needs a more direct attachment to its audience.

Artists who get so famous that they can’t go out in public talk about how not being able to do so makes it hard to create art that connects. To come up with material for Seinfeld, for instance, Seinfeld and co-creator Larry David liked to hang out in public settings where they could observe and eavesdrop on strangers. As the show became a cultural phenomenon, Seinfeld and David couldn’t go out in public like they used to. Strangers didn’t act like strangers around them. This slow detachment from humanity made it harder to make a show that connected with humanity. When you don’t experience reality like most people do, it’s hard to make things that connect with most people.

Of course there’s no telling what people will go for, so a ChatGPT created work of art may still end up being riotously popular.

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art, creativity, technology, writing

Apartment 303, a new Australian thriller by Kelli Hawkins

23 February 2023

Twenty-something Sydneysider Rory is ready for a prolonged period of isolation. Her job, writing reports for a private investigator, means she doesn’t need to leave her apartment building for work. She has a pet dog to keep her company, and the roof area of the building is a fine place to exercise and walk the dog. Rory is also possessed of a vivid imagination. She has even given backstories, of her own making, to some homeless people, whom she never spoken to, camping over the road.

Lockdown is going to be kind to Rory. But there’s only one thing. The COVID-19 lockdowns are no more. Rory’s confinement is self-imposed. Her fear of the outside world is so intense, she even goes all out to avoid her neighbours. Rory is a woman with a troubled past, and the gilded cage she has created is her only tonic. But the future is about to add to her woes, in Apartment 303, published by HarperCollins Australia, in March 2023, by Newcastle based Australian author, Kelli Hawkins.

When one of the homeless people across the street is murdered, Rory is forced to adjust her relationship with the outside world. She has frequent contact with police investigating the death, and also makes the acquaintance of neighbours for the first time. But not all of the knocks at the door are welcome. And when a chapter of her past, one that Rory would rather forget, comes calling, she begins to feel unsafe in her previously protective home.

Apartment 303 is Hawkins’ third novel, and like her protagonist Rory, Hawkins’ likewise writes reports for a private investigator, between working on manuscripts. And as with many writers of fiction, Hawkins’ own experiences shape her stories. Her debut novel, Other People’s Houses, published in 2021, tells the story of a woman, Kate, who spends her Saturdays inspecting houses listed for sale.

In the same way Rory finds solace by locking herself away from the world, seeing the homes of other families bring comfort to Kate, whose son who died ten years earlier. Hawkins is no stranger to viewing properties either. Between living in Australia, and stints in the United Kingdom, and America, she has been a frequent house hunter, including more recently, in tragic circumstances, following the death of her husband.

Early reviews on Goodreads have described Apartment 303 as “a slower burn thriller”, “a stirring, suburban tale of mystery, suspense and daring”, and “a page-turner”.

Having penned three novels in as many years, Hawkins’ output could be described as prolific, and another novel is probably already in progress. Hawkins has also worked as a graphic designer, political journalist, mystery shopper, and a role as a “staple remover”, in the past. I see plenty of inspiration for more stories in amongst those occupations.

Ukrainian writers withdraw from Adelaide Writers Week 2023

22 February 2023

Three Ukrainian authors, Kateryna Babkina, Olesya Khromeychuk, and Maria Tumarkin, who were scheduled to speak at Adelaide Writers Week in March 2023, are no longer participating in the event:

The event’s director, Louise Adler, confirmed Kateryna Babkina and Olesya Khromeychuk, who were scheduled to speak at a session on the impact of Russia’s invasion on Ukrainian civilians, had decided not to appear. She said the move was prompted by comments of another guest, Palestinian-American author Susan Abulhawa, who has described Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as a “Nazi-promoting Zionist” and accused him of dragging “the whole world into the inferno of WWIII”.

On Tuesday, Australian law firm MinterEllison withdrew their support for the festival, in the wake of the same comments made by Susan Abulhawa, a Palestinian-American author.

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Australia, events, literature, writing

Affirm Press to publish One Divine Night by Mick Cummins

22 February 2023

Less than three weeks after winning the unpublished manuscript award in the 2023 Victorian Premiers Literary Awards, former Melbourne based social worker and screenwriter Mick Cummins has been offered a publishing deal by Affirm Press for his novel One Divine Night:

We’re elated to announce that Affirm Press has acquired world rights to One Divine Night by Mick Cummins, who recently won the prestigious Victorian Premier’s Unpublished Manuscript Award, in a deal brokered by Jane Novak Literary Agency. One Divine Nightis a gritty and compelling novel exploring homelessness, independence and the ties that bind. The story follows protagonist Aaron Peters as he becomes estranged from his family, addicted to heroin, and ends up living on the streets of Melbourne but yearning for a different life.

It is anticipated One Divine Night will be in bookshops by late 2023.

If we start editing the work of Roald Dahl when do we stop?

20 February 2023

Puffin, an imprint of book publisher Penguin, has altered a selection of words in some of the children’s books written by late British author Roald Dahl:

In 1964 novel “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” which has been adapted twice as films in 1971 and 2005, starring Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp respectively, for example, the phrase “enormously fat” has been edited to just “enormous.” The same phrase in 1970 book “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” adapted as an animated film by Wes Anderson with a voice cast of George Clooney and Meryl Streep in 2009, has also been edited to “enormous.”

The removal of the word “fat” is one of a number of such changes.

A sentence accompanying the copyright notice in the most recent prints of Dahl’s books, alerted readers to the amendments, according to Ed Cumming, Genevieve Holl-Allen, and Benedict Smith, writing for British newspaper The Telegraph:

The wonderful words of Roald Dahl can transport you to different worlds and introduce you to the most marvellous characters. This book was written many years ago, and so we regularly review the language to ensure that it can continue to be enjoyed by all today.

This is a thorny issue. Times have changed, and language, and use of words, once considered commonplace, have the previously unrealised, or unacknowledged potential, to offend some people. But — and say what you will about Dahl — changing words written by someone who is no longer alive, when they clearly have no say in the matter, is also problematic. The question posed by the practice is obvious. Once we start amending someone else’s previously published work — especially that of a deceased person — where do we stop?

It’s best we don’t start, and instead educate people, says Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America:

Better than playing around with these texts is to offer introductory context that prepares people for what they are about to read, and helps them understand the setting in which it was written.

It’s well worth taking the time to read through the entire of Nossel’s Twitter thread on the subject.

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literature, Roald Dahl, writing

How to write 31 books at the same time by James Patterson

20 February 2023

American author James Patterson recently told GQ Magazine he is working on no fewer than thirty-one manuscripts simultaneously. That’s impressive. Patterson’s output comes down to two things, one being his daily routine:

“I do what I do seven days a week. I’ll usually get up at 5:30 and work for an hour. Then, frequently, I will go out and hit a golf ball. They let me onto most of the courses I belong to very early, which is nice. If I come at 6:00, they say, “Go ahead.” I’ll go around for an hour, an hour and a half. Then I’m back here by 8:00, and then I’ll work till 6:00. I’ll take a couple breaks if I need them, which I usually do. And obviously, what that [day] results in is more books than my publisher wants. That’s why I started doing non-fiction, because they said, “Okay, yeah, we can handle one or two non-fiction.”

The other is team work. Even though Patterson is directly involved with each work in progress, he has a bevy of writers assisting him. It seems like the more books you write, the more you sell. And the more books you sell, the more money you make. And the more money you make, the more assistants can you employ to help write even more books.

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books, James Patterson, writing

Why are Australian publishers averse to science fiction books?

20 February 2023

Australian author Alice Boer-Endacott, writing for the Australian Young Adult Literature Alliance (#LoveOzYA) blog:

However, despite the growing mainstream appreciation of fantasy (and science fiction) texts, especially within YA, Will [Kostakis] notes, “it’s as if we’re conditioned to see something as less worthy just because it is unabashedly fun. The implications of this? We talk less about fantasy books’ craft, we omit some of our finest YA writers from awards conversations, they’re not studied in schools … That last bit is very important in the Australian landscape, where sales are (unfortunately) quite small.” This final point was echoed by an industry insider with whom I had a passing conversation on this subject (they declined to be named). They told me, “the success of YA texts are dependent on whether or not schools pick up class sets, and they are much less inclined to do that with fantasy.”

Some Australian publishers explicitly state they will not accept science fiction and fantasy manuscripts. Some Australian authors meanwhile have reported local agents and publishers will only accept literary fiction manuscripts, and nothing else. Scoring any publishing deal is difficult, but the odds are especially stacked against sci-fi and fantasy writers in Australia.

Funny Ethnics, the debut novel of Sydney writer Shirley Le

19 February 2023

Yagoona is a suburb in the southwest of Sydney, located about twenty kilometres from the city’s CBD. An Aboriginal word meaning “now” or “today”, Yagoona was accorded a unique claim to fame in 1971, when it became host to the first McDonald’s hamburger restaurant in Australia.

At this stage I could not tell you whether said hamburger restaurant features in any way in Funny Ethnics (published by Affirm Press in February 2023), the debut novel of Sydney based Australian author Shirley Le, which is also set in Yagoona.

It is possible though, as the story follows the fortunes, and misfortunes, of Sylvia Nguyen, a second generation Vietnamese-Australian, from childhood through to adulthood. Surely it is not unreasonable to assume Sylvia would have hung out at her local Macca’s with friends after school, as was a rite of passage for many Australian teenagers.

But even if Sylvia spent all her school days in the Yagoona McDonald’s, it seems doubtful she would have had much interest in the restaurant’s significance in Australian fast food history. That’s because Sylvia had lofty goals. She aspired to move out of her childhood home, leave Yagoona and Western Sydney behind, and move into a share house, in a world far removed in Sydney’s inner west.

But hardships run in tandem with the dreams. The city is not always welcoming of immigrants. Racism is rife. Sylvia struggles to balance her Vietnamese heritage with her Australian identity.

Whether Sylvia’s experiences mirror Le’s, also a second generation Vietnamese-Australian, is another matter though. The question of how much of her life goes into her writing is something Le says she is often asked. Speaking to Stephen Pham of Liminal magazine in 2018 however, Le said she considered herself a writer of literary fiction rather than autobiography. And in Funny Ethnics, Le seems more interested in taking the ordinary, the apparent hum-drum of day-to-day life, and transforming it into something extraordinary.

While Funny Ethnics is Le’s first novel, her name will be familiar to anyone with an interest in Australian literature. A member of Western Sydney literacy movement Sweatshop, Le’s short stories and essays have been published locally in Meanjin, Kill Your Darlings, Overland, SBS Voices, and The Lifted Brow, among others. Le was also the inaugural recipient of the Affirm Press Mentorship for Sweatshop Writers, together with Arab-Australian human rights activist Sara Saleh.

Arrivals offset departures as Twitter exodus seems to pause

18 February 2023

Elon Musk’s arrival at Twitter last October sparked a stampede for the doors, as members worried about where Musk might take the platform. But surprisingly, departures have been matched by arrivals, says Sarah Perez, writing for Techcrunch:

Worldwide mobile app installs are up by 3.7 million in January compared with September 2022. Notably, Twitter installs didn’t decline in November. Instead, it gained new downloads even as some of its users seemingly left for other apps. In other words, any Twitter exodus may have been offset by new Twitter arrivals. Active user data would tell a better story here, but Twitter is no longer a publicly traded company and it’s not clear that Musk is analyzing user data as Twitter had before, which would allow for a direct comparison. But his claims of a burst of November signups could be directionally true, as the month saw higher app installs than October.

There’s also the point that long term Twitter members, despite their disillusionment with the present direction of the platform, have a lot invested in the microblogging service.

Many have spent years, decades possibly, establishing a profile on Twitter, and wouldn’t be in any hurry to leave. Despite the uptake in alternatives, such as Mastodon, there’s still, I think, the hope among some Twitter members that things will eventually return to normal, or some semblance of normal.

Daughter to TikTok: buy Stone Maidens, my dad’s novel

18 February 2023

After spending fourteen years writing a novel — between working and bringing up a family — American lawyer turned writer Lloyd Devereux Richards, published his novel Stone Maidens through Amazon, in 2012.

And then next to nothing happened. Until Richard’s daughter, Marguerite, posted a short clip about the novel on TikTok. Then things started happening. The clip went viral. Sales surged. Stone Maidens sold out after a short stint as the number one on Amazon’s bestseller list, such was interest.

Last week Marguerite posted a 16-second TikTok video that briefly recounted her father’s journey as an author. She explained that her father worked tirelessly on his book while raising three children, and “he’s so happy even though sales aren’t great”. The clip ended with a simple call to arms: “I’d love for him to get some sales.”

It’s not the first time something like this happened after a book concept took off on TikTok. Numerous authors whose manuscripts have been rejected by publishers, have seen their work printed after being embraced by Tiktok users. The Atlas Six, by Olivie Blake, which I mentioned a few days ago, is another example.

Finding a publishing deal through TikTok seems like a lottery to me, but it’s probably worth posting your book idea there, on a “be in it to win it” basis.

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