A Semi-Not-Horribly-Regular Newsletter #19
In this issue: Say Hello to My Little Friend • Aebris is Rising • New Posts • Review and Interview with KC Grifant • Street Team • An Indie Author Program Review Selections
“We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.”
~Carlos Castaneda
Say Hello to My Little Friend
After getting (too) involved with the power of AI for instructional use (and writing a few courses on how educators can use it for good), I decided to try something…odd.
What if AI could review my book (at any point in the writing process) and provide me a simple AI beta review with suggestions for improvement?
Guess what? Yes, it can.
My initial foray into getting ChatGPT to do what I wanted turned into a programming fiasco that lasted several weeks. Now I have a spreadsheet (which I call BetaBot) that reaches out and asks how a passage looks in 10 different areas, to include action, emotional impact, content, dialogue, etc.
The result of a 54,000-word book was over 32,000 words long.
It’s been fun to play around with it, but now I need to get back to writing.
Check out what I did. If you have questions, ask away.
Aebris is Rising, and It’s all Levi’s fault.
While fishing on the watery planet Minor Pales, Levi Hurley finds an alien who claims to be from the impossible island of Aebris. Rather than throw his odd catch back, he smuggles the creature onto the Amesware Abyss, a prison mining rig.
The Amesware Abyss is not the friendliest place for anyone, let alone a strange alien. If it’s discovered, Levi fears the worst. Before he can execute a plan to return the alien on his own, however, Levi learns the rig is on the move.
Teaming up with unlikely allies, Levi must return the alien to Aebris, but the dangers they face are far greater than he ever imagined. With time running out, can Levi escape with his life and warn others of the impending threat? Or is there a different threat out there, lurking just below the surface?
Preorder this thrilling sci-fi adventure, where one bad catch could mean the end of everything.
New Posts
- Using AI for World Building: Conlanging
- Generative AI can help you, as a writer, in your attempts at conlanging–or developing new languages.
- Using Emotional Intelligence to Enhance Your Writing
- Success as a writer depends not only on your ability to, well, write, but also on your ability to use emotional intelligence.
- Mark Twain Made Me Write This
- Mark Twain shunned putting weather in books, even though he shows up in a table of authors that mention the weather in the first sentence.
- Mindfulness and Writing: There is a Connection
- There are many benefits to applying mindfulness for writing and some strategies you can practice right now.
- Getting AI to Be Your Beta Reviewer
- What if AI could review my book (at any point in the writing process) and provide me a simple beta review with suggestions for improvement?
Review and Interview
As someone who has been a fan of westerns since I was a kid, I’m always on the lookout for a good read that combines the genre with something extra.
And that’s exactly what I found in KC Grifant’s Melinda West: Monster Gunslinger.
Check out the interview with KC Grifant and find out where her ideas come from!
Join the Street Team
Are you interested in being a beta reader for my upcoming novels or works in progress? Would you like to be notified when Advanced Reader Copies are available so that you can get your hands on them long before they’re released to the wild? Join the Street Team and get a free novel of your choice! It’s easy.
If you’re interested, check out this page: https://bxwretlind.com/blog/become-a-beta-reader-or-arc-reviewer/
An Indie Author Program Review Selections
Review selections will return next newsletter…with two!
In the meantime, check out the previous reviews.
Please let your friends know if they’re interested in blog posts about writing and all the other odd things you might find on this site. You can forward them this newsletter or they can sign up at this link: https://www.bxwretlind.com/blog/subscribe. They can pick one of two free novellas for joining through that link.
That does it for this issue of the newsletter. I’ll see you back here next time!
— Ben