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Musings and News
News
Update on each coming release and what I am working on next.
Trying to keep focused
Writing is not always a linear experience, or indeed even a rewarding one at times. It is hard, and that is the simple truth. Lately I have found it increasingly more difficult, with all the AI stupidity bombarding me, and honestly YouTube and its broken verification system has been a nightmare stacked on top of it.
Oh, there are other social media platforms, but I have found Instagram to be less than useless, Facebook no better, and I have to wonder if the average attention span of a TikTok user is that of a goldfish. So, I find myself in a bit of a slump, and a mental funk right now trying to fight my way through the fog. That is not out of the ordinary when you finish writing a very large project, but with all the insanity going on and AI companies increasingly stealing peoples work, I wonder why I am doing this at all.
Self-publishing is to be blunt, a nightmare. However, “Queen of Ravens” is with the format editor and out of my hands now. But now comes the really hard bit, actually getting the novel seen. Believe me, writing the novel is in truth the easy bit, and that is far from easy. Yet, I do not and never will use AI to write anything.
Oh, I am sure it would speed things up, but to what end? I did not write it, if I did that. So, I will stick to the old way of doing things… having an imagination and writing it myself. And so, we carry on in hope that a few may read and enjoy what we write… well, that is the hope. But as Atia in the “Queen of Ravens” will tell you:
“Hope is a dangerous and capricious thing. When you are thirsty it will lead you to salty water, and in a storm snuff out your only light.”
Atia is more than a little cynical, but since I created her as a character, she is a reflection of some of my own thoughts, I guess. Who knows where all of that comes from really. But we carry on, one foot forward at a time in the hope that each step is not subtracted by two more backwards.
So… what am I getting at here? It all sounds a little bleak. If you are an artist keep chipping away and remember why you are doing it in the first place when the clouds gather, and it feels pointless. If you are like me, you create because you have to, and no matter how hard you try the artist in you refuses to give up. In the end I write the stories I want to read, and the journey is about seeing who I am at the end… fail or not, we are never quite the same.
Queen of Ravens: Book One
The Great Game
With this project entering its final stages I can finally breathe a little and come up for air.
Life has been a bit crazy of late with a flu that knocked me flat for almost two months, a very sick cat, and the world circling the drain... but the project is more or less complete... well in its written form.
The "Queen of Ravens" has been a life consuming project that spanned, and if I am completely honest with myself, almost a decade.
The book, well books as I have the series written out to book four at this stage took around six years to write, yet it was all the background work that took the time. The other issue was how the series swaps over to the Never-Verse universe as "Queen of Ravens" is a parallel series. The issue that other writers reading this will note right away is how do you do that and not force the reader to wade through both book series?
Well, I did it, and the reader can indeed read either series and not become lost. Yes, it was hard to do, but actually kind of fun, if not frustrating for me in development. I had to throw some things out, then rebuild the arc only to find I could use some narrative ideas I discarded if I reworked them. Honestly, I think that can be the most frustrating thing in creative writing. All the back tracking and rewrite work. Yet it is all worth it in the end.
Emma Julian is working away at the cover for the novel and in fact the design that will be used for the rest in the series (with changes of course), and I am super excited at how it is evolving. Emma is a fantastic artist and writer so please go on over to her webpage.
Home | E. L. Julian Author Site
PS: Thank you to all my beta readers for the work and support. Your notes were taken to heart and changes made. It is often hard for a writer to take criticism, but we all have to take note as the reader can often see things we missed.
The Never-Verse: Book Two
The Ashes of Eden
This project is well on its way, but I needed to take a break from the final section as I did not like my flow. It was reaching all the story points, but I felt it was missing something and falling flat. That is not all that uncommon with creative writing and just underscored a level of burnout with the project. So, I decided to push it aside for a while and let the creative mind muse on it, and the passion for the project revive a little.
To be blunt "The Never-Verse" consumed my life for around three years, so it is no wonder I felt burnt out from the project. Book Two was started before I even finished the first half of book one. I often do this (Queen of Ravens for example), so I truly develop the crisis points and character interplay.
In truth the book is finished in a very rough draft state and will receive the normal alpha read and the rewrite, edit, beta read, then edit etc. before I am happy with it. I did wish to publish this project this year, but it still needs work and I plan to have that all tidied up by December so it can be in your hands early in the new year (2027). Yes, I know some of you are waiting and tapping me on the shoulder to have it finished... I promise it will be finished.
On a positive note, the artwork is completed following the design theme of book one and I have started on book three beginning the melding of "Queen of Ravens" into the "Never-Verse" arc.
In some ways I feel that is what slowed me in the finishing of book two as I needed to really define how that changeover worked and which characters survived to carry on over into the main series.
A Darkness Between Two Rivers:
Book One
A girl named shadow.
Oh, this has been so much fun to write, and all too often draws me away from the work I really should be completing each day. However, do not expect to see the very first entry in this trilogy until toward the end of 2027 as I still have a mountain of work to complete.
I am writing all three books in parallel and much of book one and two has been completed with a very good chunk of book three along with them. Don't ask me how I write so much each day as not even I know that, but when the story flows it flows so I take advantage of that.
Trying not to give much away here but the series starts around six or seven thousand BC in Mesopotamia and finishes around the twenty-first century following the characters over that time span. The politics, rivalries, and betrayals between them all. Blood rituals and human sacrifice are big themes in this series... so very much a step away from the science fiction fantasy I often write.
Anyway, I will be firm in this only being a three-book series... although... I do have a good chunk of an origin book for it laid out which could, maybe, possibly, quite likely, be published once these three are finished.
The study for this series I have to be honest has been as much fun as actually writing it as I get to dig deep into early myth. Innana and Enki are fascinating characters in Mesopotamian myth to study as are the myths around Ereshkigal goddess of the underworld. But... early myths of the undead are truly horrifying.... and I will leave it there as I do not wish to give away the story and ruin it for the reader.
Hard Science Fiction Shorts
A little set of side projects are some short stories I have been chipping away at. Both are hard science fiction grounded in modern science, or projected science theory. Not all that sure when I will finish these as I only work on them here and there.
Both explore very human moral problems where it comes to technology and human rights.
My writing friend Sharron often says I really should do some shorts, so I am trying Sharron... honest.
Speaking of Sharron, check out her books and edit services as she is a wonderfully talented writer and editor:
Sharron McKenzie | New Zealand Society of Authors (PEN NZ Inc) Te Puni Kaituhi O Aotearoa
Small Magics for the Traveling Wizard eBook : McKenzie, S. A., Press,
Musings
Is it just me or has the world around us lost its mind? I have to wonder at this, and I can only shake my head at the issues around us. Staggering through the week I have seen a few news items that make me want to throw my keyboard at the wall of simply cry as a writer.
Being an artist is not easy, and the last thing we need is AI companies trying to exploit our hard work. In fact, this is affecting all in the arts and not just writers.
The attached news item made my blood boil as copyright is required to stop the very exploitation of an artist these AI companies are engaged in... oh would you look they want to water down our ownership rights so they can use our work for nothing.... and charge you and me for using our work with their generative AI. I mean in what reality do these people live? The answer is, one where they own everything and you own nothing... not even the product of your own creativity.
I don't really want to get political on my webpage, but this AI blight has to be addressed and controls put in place. The sad truth is these AI companies had to steal the work and not pay a dollar for an artist's hard work to build their AI to begin with. The simple reality is it would cost them a fortune to actually pay the copyright holders to use the work.
Yet it gets worse as covered in this item:
"One of my sources on generative AI joined an AI group on a 7 day free trial to see what was being taught. The access exceeds $50 a month.
From what they saw and provided evidence of, one of the courses focused on cover design. The process? Remove the typography from existing book covers using generative AI, upload those stripped covers into a Midjourney moodboard, then use those images as visual references in prompts to create covers.
I don’t know how anyone can argue this isn’t theft.
The covers being stripped were created by photographers, models, illustrators, stock artists, and cover designers... paid for their hard work and hopeful continuous work. They weren’t made to be pillaged and become reference material for AI systems that will generate competing commercial work.
This and so many other courses like it are not teaching composition, typography, or design theory, rather it's teaching people to leverage someone else’s finished work to shortcut the creative process. This isn't limited to cover art, but classes made to replace photographs taken by specific photographers and books written by specific authors. It's also being used to generate popular models and people online in positions and situations they didn't sign releases for.
All this is exactly why so many creators like myself object to generative AI. We are not afraid of technology, we are angry that this kind of practice treats other people’s creative work as raw material for commercial replication, and that people are rapidly defaulting to use this software for ill rather than good." (credit to: Golden Czermak)
Yes, that is as the writer says "Theft"
It is rapidly arriving at a point artists need to unite and demand controls on these AI robber barons for that is what they are. Yet there are some that will argue that copyright stops innovation and is rent gathering. Such arguments make me cringe as copyright never slowed my creativity in the slightest. Noting such a comment recently I could not help myself and retorted against this flawed logic.
"Copyright law protects the owner of the copyright against exploitation of their IP in both creative and financial areas. As a writer, it protects my income from "My IP" from being exploited by those who don't have a right to the mechanical rights for publication, derivatives, etc. It maintains my right to not allow my work to be exploited and used for things I do not agree to and maintains the income belonging to me from my hard work in creating the IP to begin with. So, tell me why I should give up my rights to my work and the income generated from it... for you? You did not create it, you did not finance it, you did not spend years working on it, and nor did the AI datacenters... so in what way do they or you have a right to my work? Well... you don't. And copyright exists to protect my rights... not yours, because you just think you should be able to use it when you want to. Copyright of others work never stopped my creativity. So, arguing that it stops innovation is an empty strawman argument."
Simple reality, the argument that it stops innovation is an empty one or artists would not exist at all.
Here ends my rant this week. I do not as I say really wish to be political here on what should be a fun creative space, but if we do not speak out and we do not protect the arts... well... there will be no artists beyond empty AI prompts leaching off the creative human soul as there will no longer be an incentive to be creative. Stop feeding the machine and end your use of Ai systems.
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