Milestones!

Back in 2018, I wrote a post about getting your butt in your chair and your fingers on the keyboard if you want to be a writer. In the replies, we got into the subject of how many books Nora Roberts had written in forty years (La Nora is closing in on fifty years and still writing).

The subject of how many books I'd written came up in yoga class last Friday. One of my classmates had looked me up and commented on how I had a ton of books for sale. She asked me how many I had published in total.

I said, "Over eighty, I think." Because yes, I'm at the point where I'm starting to have trouble keeping track of all of them.

So I counted them over the weekend. Eighty-nine.

Yes, you read that right. 89.

I probably won't catch up with La Nora or any other prolific writer, past, present, or future. But this is what happens when you write for twenty-one years straight.

We'll see what the count is in another four years.

It's a Monday After All

This afternoon, I went to Starbucks after the Grandpuppy's annual doctor's appointment. (He's doing great other than putting on two and half pounds by being a spoiled rotten grandpuppy.) I get my lunch and tea from the counter and set up at a free table, all enthused because I broke 75K on A Cup of Conflict last night.

And I forgot my flash drive.

Of course, I heard Doctor Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) as I searched for a recent copy of a different WIP on my travel laptop.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

No one can create fun tunes like Dandra Boynton, and it's amazing who she gets to sing her ditties.

AI Scraping?

I've seen a meteoric rise in hit on my blogs over the past few months. Whereas, I used to get maybe a hundred hits a week, I got over 10K a DAY last week. So, what's going on?

While I'd like to believe the growth is organic, I fear it's simply bots scraping the internet for content to feed their AI.

*sigh*

Yep, despite the lawsuits about theft, the AI progenitors are still stealing to feed their creations. It's a little sad, not to mention my sarcastic pro-feminist agenda is not the content they really want. It's also amusing since the whole point of AI is to wipe out minority voices.

The dudebros creating AI don't want to admit this, but that is their and their bosses' endgame.

However, what's more amusing is while the dudebros get more people to use their AI algorithms, the more garbage is spilled into the wild. Now, the algorithms are harvesting that garbage and feeding in to themselves. Which results in nonsensical garbage.

On one hand, I foresee AI imploding on itself sooner rather than later.

On the other, we get Skynet.

Anyone want to flip a quarter on the outcome? 

Monday Movie Mania - Karate Kid: Legends

There's always going to be a soft spot in my heart for the original movie. 1984 seemed to produce so many fun original movies! I didn't see the remake with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan, one of the rare instances I've missed a J.C. movie in the theaters. But it doesn't really matter if you haven't either. This flick picks up from the three Ralph Macchio movies and the Cobra Kai TV series while blending in Jackie's Mr. Han character from 2010 remake.


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SPOILERS


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PROS
1) First of all, kudos to stunt coordinator Peng Zhang! He kept the fighting style from the orginal movie while incorporating some of Jackie Chan's signature moves.

2) Ben Wang was excellent in both his acting and his martial arts abilities. I see a promising future for this young man.

3) It was just supercool to see Jackie Chan and Ralph Macchio together!


CONS
1) There's not a whole lot different as far as story telling here. Same old storyline--widowed mom, kid trying to adjust to a new environment, martial arts teaching confidence, etc.

This is a movie to go see if you're feeling a bit nostalgic for the 80's. Overall, I give Karate Kid: Legends 7 stars out of 10.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

When children sing the truth. . .

Things Are Getting Worse in the World, Especially the Food

There's the Gaza crisis, the Russia-Ukraine War, U.S. troops stationed in Los Angeles for no reason other than Tribblehead's ego, Tribblehead arbitrarily bombing Iran (okay, GK and I will probably "discuss" that one the next time I see him in person), and a lot of other shit going on in the world.

But when close to twenty percent of Denny's go under, you know the shit has hit the fan.

For those of my readers outside of the U.S., Denny's is a chain modeled after the classic 1950's diners. Greasy food, black coffee, and shakes. Not exactly healthy, but comfort food after a late night partying or when you're pregnant and can't keep anything else down.

(Don't ask me why on that last one. It's the one place my stomach could tolerate when I had morning sickness and after I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes.)

I wasn't surprised when my sales dropped shortly after Tribblehead's inauguration. The same thing had happened during his first term, and that's accounting for me doing elder care for the in-laws.

But this time around, things are much, much worse. ICE is kidnapping brown folks, whether they're legally in the U.S. or not. White folks don't want to admit brown folks are the backbone of the restaurant business.

The quality of a lot of restaurants' food has gone downhill, especially fast-food joints. The last Big Mac I ate had more special sauce than burger. My last two sandwiches from Arby's were not cooked all the way through.The last cheesy fries I ordered from Wendy's were. . .let's just say there was a quarter inch layer of oil in the bottom of the container making the fries very, VERY soggy.

Look, I've had diabetes and been immunocompromised for the last twenty-six years. But I still treat myself once in a while. But even DH was grossed out the last three times we hit a fast food place. And he has a cast-iron stomach. Needless to say, I've been cooking cheeseburgers, pizza, and tacos from my own recipes at home, and not just because it's cheaper and healthier.

Which brings me to my second point. With retail prices for everyday needs staying near the levels they were during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, people don't have the extra money for eating out. And if my experiences with really shitty take-out are any indication, people just aren't going to splurge at those restaurants anymore.

It's not just Denny's closing thousands of stores. I scrolled through other restaurant news. McDonald's sales are down as is everyone else's in the fast food market. Red Lobster nearly collapsed. In fact, the one in our town was originally slated for closer, but somehow, they found a CEO who pulled them out of the tailspin. By the way, the new CEO is . . .what for it. . . . . . . .brown!

In the meantime, DH and I aren't wasting money at these franchises anymore. We've been patronizing locally-owned restaurants at the rare times we go out, mainly out of a sense of self-preservation. I don't feel like dying from fast-food food poisoning. I've got a ton of books to write.

Why I Need to Write Right Now

By now, I'm fairly certain most people have heard about the U.S. bombing of Iran.

My feelings right now are fairly complex. My son is stationed on a U.S. base in the Middle East. He was supposed to be rotated stateside later this summer. We don't know if that will happen as scheduled.

To make matters worse, Tribblehead (no, I will not be respectful to a convicted felon who has no remorse) cut quite a bit of funding to the Army for fun stuff like sports equipment. Our soldiers believe in themselves, their jobs, and their country, not necessarily in that order. They were already under a lot of stress. They need a healthy way to deal with that stress, and Tribblehead and the DOGE bros took that away from them.

I fear for these kids' health, both mentally and physically. All of them, not just Genius Kid. I've seen the toll on them first-hand, and that's not even including death and maiming if a full-scale war breaks out.

Which it's likely to do with Tribblehead at the helm.

So, that's why I've been burying my head in writing over the weekend. Going to Starbucks because DH and I are feeding each other's anxiety, and the Grandpuppy and Princess Pup are picking up on our emotions which sends them in a tailspin.

Yes, I'm channeling my fears into Anthea, who's trying to keep a civil war from breaking out in Jing without interfering with their autonomy. It's a delicate tightrope. One she's determined to cross successfully or die trying.

That's what I need right now. A leader who actually gives a shit about the people around her.

I wish the kids in the military had a leader who gave a shit about them.

Music I've Been Listening to Lately

Never Stop Fighting!

Now, Magazines Are Adopting Egregious Contract Terms

In February of 2025, several popular genre magazines were purchased by a company called 1Paragraph, Inc., which in tun is owned by an investment group called Assemble Media. They bought five magazines from the former owner Penny Press: Analog, Asimov's Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Ellery Queen, and Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

The stories I've been hearing from writers that have dealt with 1 Paragraph over the last four months is nothing short of appalling. The rights' grabs includes merchandising, performance rights, and moral rights.

If you don't know what any of these are and you're a writer, please PLEASE get a copy of The Copyright Handbook by Stephen Fishman, J.D. You don't need a legal degree to understand it. It's written is plain English and easily understandable.

For me, the biggest problem in the contract is the moral rights. Moral rights last for the term of copyright, but what does "moral rights" mean? It means the writer has the right to have their work attributed to them, the right to object to derogatory treatment of the work, the right not to be identified as the author of someone else's work, and the right to privacy.

Moral rights can be confusing, so let's break them down with examples:

1) The right to have the work attributed - It means if a third-party publishes A Question of Balance, my name (or pseudonym) needs to be listed as the author. The third-party publisher cannot say Stephen King wrote A Question of Balance.

2) The right to object to derogatory treatment of the work - A third-party publisher cannot alter, remove, add, or adapt the work. For example, suppose the third-party publisher objects to any mention of the LGBT+ community. They cannot go through A Question of Balance and remove any references to berda or change Sister Dragonfly of Love to anything but a trans woman character.

Or perhaps, the publisher doesn't like the fact that Anthea and Luc's sex scenes fade to black, and they decide to add sex scenes that put Debbie Does Dallas to shame. Nope, nope, nopity-nope. They cannot do that.

3)  The right not to be identified as the author of someone else's work - This is basically the opposite of the first term. Say that third-party publisher tries to publish A Question of Balance under Stephen King's name because they think it will sell more copies. (It won't because Stephen King fans aren't that fucking stupid, but that's a story for another day.) Stephen King has every right to, and probably will. sue the crap out of the publisher.

4) The right to privacy -  No, that doesn't mean you can hide who you are as a writer. (Well, you can, but that's a whole 'nuther blog post.) What this means is if I write a Justice story just for my friend Angie, it doesn't mean I HAVE to publish for the rest of the world to read.

(Not that I'd ever do something like that to my readers. However, I have written private erotic for my husband that will never see the light of day because it was just for the two of us.)

The EU covers moral rights more thoroughly in their legislation, but moral rights exist in the U.S. as well. They cannot be transferred or assigned, but they can be waived. The problem is you have no idea of how someone will use your work.

 Say it with me, kids! MAKE SURE YOU READ YOUR CONTRACT!! If you don't understand it, hire someone who does to explain it to you!

Did I plan to submit to one of these magazines? Yes. Will I now? Not until they get a new owner because I don't trust these idiots.

 Which brings me to another point, all five magazines are still up for sale. In other words, the new owners don't have a vested interest in making these magazines work. So what's the point in submitting anyway?