Edited by AI. I think...

 Life has this nasty way of getting twisted into knots and then expecting you, the one living your life, to follow along all the twists and turns and swings and swirls of living. That, by the way, is the explanation as to why I haven't posted here in a month. 

As to what this post is... I was edited by AI. I think. I'll let you decide.

I submitted a piece to a journal (and yes I'm being deliberately vague here). This piece, in fact:

The Khlass Twins

Once upon a time in a nondescript house in an uninteresting town lived a branch of the family tree of Khlass. The family consisted of Mr. Khlass, Mrs. Khlass, and two identical twins. Usually it was impossible to tell them apart by looks alone, but there were times in school when it became quite easy.

One twin (and he’ll go first alphabetically) excelled in physical lessons. No matter the activity or exercise, he was a star: he’d climb the rope, dodge the ball, hit the home run, throw the touchdown, kick the goal. 

The other twin existed within a world of colour, shape, form, and texture. He could draw likeness (or parody) with ease, paint a believable (or an exquisitely unbelievable) sunrise, and create work that was equivalent to far more than 1,000 words.

Their names were Art and Jim.

Art in gym was strong and able. Jim in art was a multimedia maverick. But Art in art and Jim in gym… the one would melt crayons on the radiator and the other was always in danger of hurting himself in spectacular and embarrassing ways. 

They did try to help each other. Art would encourage Jim in gym and Jim would demonstrate techniques to Art in art but it was like they were speaking different languages. One would implore ‘feel the burn’ while the other would say ‘feel the flow’. 

After graduation, they both became teachers. In the same school. And yes, Art Khlass taught gym class and art class was taught by Jim Khlass. It wasn’t confusing. At all.

(For the record, Mr. and Mrs. Khlass still get a chuckle from it.)

*****

I'm happy with it and so I submitted it. (Note - there are a couple of places I could make a small edit and probably make the piece incrementally better. But this is what I submitted exactly.)

The journal I submitted to asked for a rewrite and sent notes. These notes:

The Khlass Twins

Once upon a time in a nondescript house in an uninteresting bland little town lived a branch of the family tree of the Khlass family, The family consisted consisting of Mr. Khlass, and Mrs. Khlass, and two their identical twin boys, Art and Jim. Usually At home, it was impossible to tell them apart by looks alone, but there were times in school when it became quite was easy.

One twin (and he’ll go first alphabetically)  Art excelled in physical lessons. No matter the activity or exercise, he was a star: he’d climb the rope, dodge the ball, hit the home run, throw the touchdown, kick the goal.

The other twin Jim existed within a world of colour, shape, form, and texture. He could draw a likeness (or parody) with ease, paint a believable (or an exquisitely unbelievable) sunrise, and create work write a story that was equivalent to far more than 1,000 words that drew you into its world.

Their names were Art and Jim.

Art in gym was strong and able. Jim in art was a multi mixed-media maverick. But Art in art and Jim in gym… the one would melt crayons on the radiator and the other was always in danger of hurting himself in spectacular and embarrassing ways.

They did try tried to help each other. Art would encourage Jim in gym and Jim would demonstrate techniques to Art in art but it was like they were speaking different languages. One would implore ‘feel the burn’ while the other would say ‘feel the flow’.

After graduation, they both became teachers. In the same school. And yes, Art Khlass taught gym class and art class was taught by Jim Khlass. It wasn’t confusing. At all.

Mr. and Mrs. Khlass were proud of them.

(For the record, Mr. and Mrs. Khlass still get a chuckle from it.)

*****

It took me a little while to digest what was sent back, but in the end, it felt like what had been a short and quick fable was turned into a newspaper article (jam the names into the first paragraph so as to satisfy the Who, What, When, Where questions and then expand on the How and Why in the body). But it's the last line that really really sets me off - what was a reference back to the names of the twins was turned into a reference of the accomplishments of the twins. Given that the whole point of the story was the wordplay with the names, the revised ending makes no sense at all. 

I asked the publisher about the notes and asked if they were generated using AI. He claims no. 

But in the end, it's less about how the notes were generated but what the notes represented and what they were trying to accomplish.  

I don't see how the notes improved the piece. In fact, I see how they water it down and destroy the "big reveal". They do the work no favours. In my opinion at least.

I won't be submitting to this particular journal again.

Which brings me to the interactive part of this post - what are your impressions? Opinions? Please do share.

My Writing Process (and why it probably isn't yours too)

 One question writers often ask (themselves, others, sometimes the Divine when things aren't going well, etc) is What's My Writing Process? What gets me writing - and not just writing, but quality writing. Writing I can feel good about. How do I do that?

Well, you've come to the wrong place to learn what you should do in order to accomplish that goal. What I will do, however, is talk about my process (that more or less does work for me most of the time) and then talk about why it may not work for you.

My process. Very simply, it's these three steps:

1. Observing
2. Scribing
3. Editing

I'll talk more about each of those steps if future posts, but in general I spend a lot of time Observing (which in other words is imagining, daydreaming, doing stuff that frees my head to contemplate, and overall doing a lot of not thinking about what it is that I think I should be observing). When I'm ready, I Scribe (i.e. write it down). And lastly, I Edit.

I do have a schedule I kinda sorta follow. Observing can (and will) happen more or less anywhere and can (and will) happen at any time. Yes, even then. And then too. 

Scribing happens more or less only when I'm in my spot on the couch and when my mind is active (oftentimes before I can Scribe, I need to play chess and go through emails and stuff like that in order to have the brain box warmed up for paying attention to what I could call my Draft That Is As Thoroughly Observed As It Needs To Be Right Now). If you have an abbreviation for that, do let me know. I write in a journal with a fountain pen. 

Editing occurs as I take what I wrote in that journal and type it into a word processor. There are times I'll really work over a work (A Building of Sorts took me two weeks of fine tuning to get it right. But the episodes for My Witchy Life only ever received light editing).

So that's my process. Why might it not be yours? Because there are a bazillion different ways to do anything (especially creatively) and only a handful of ways that will work for you. Note that there are no right or wrong answers here - we're in the land of Guidelines. But there are definitely effective and not effective methods for every person and most methods land in the not effective pot. As a math instructor used to say, there are an infinite number of ways to get a problem wrong but only a couple that will lead you to the right answer. To adapt that just a bit - there are an infinite number of ways to have a non-effective method and only a couple of ways to have an effective one.

But the cool thing is - this is something you can figure out for yourself. And you'll get immediate feedback. Did you do something that led you to writing? And the writing was good? Then you've found something that works. Well done. If your current method doesn't work, try changing something up. 

There are writers who dress up smartly before writing. Some just get into the flow and write for hours at a time. Others only work for an hour or two in a special room or office. Some need to eat a meal right before getting to work. Others drink during the writing. 

So rather than trying to emulate another writer's process, ask yourself what you think would work for you. Then try it. And adjust as needed. (Observe what you think might work. Put it into practice - kind of a Scribing step. Then Edit as needed.)

Why I'm Writing About Writing (And Why Here)

 I've been talking (and writing) about writing for a long while, across a variety of platforms and mediums. 

The reason why is simple - I like to help people. And with writing, which is a skill/art that I think is slowly but surely dying, I'm doing what I can to inspire people. And by inspire, what I mean is 'to show people what they can do if they disregard considerations like hunting for subscribers and seeking monetization'. 

Getting a bit deeper into it, inspiration comes in two forms:

• Entertain - show what is possible (and enjoyable), and
• Educate - show how it's possible

This blog is designed (or at least intended) to inspire. I hope it's entertaining and educational!

Ok - so why am I doing it here? Good question.

After using platforms, such as YouTube, Substack, and Medium, I've realized that chasing subscribers is just something I'm not prepared to do anymore. It's exhausting, often disheartening, and not worth it to me. 

What I want to do is to share here when I want to share in the manner I want to share. I don't want to have this being sent to people's email inboxes. I don't want to have things set on a certain schedule. I'm not interested in all that. 

I'm far happier being some sort of something to be found and enjoyed. This is an Introverted Blog!

When I Don't Want to Write

 Here's a question - what do I do when I don't want to write.

My usual answer is - I don't write. I wait until I'm inspired, then I write.

Unfortunately, sometimes that feeling of not wanting to write lasts a really long time. And so to break out of it, you kinda gotta get out the journal and pen (I very much try to write on paper with fountain pen first, then type into a digital format as part of the Edit process) and just put something down, even if it's just a stupid little something that takes 5 minutes max. Like this one I did from the other day:

Brain Dead

I'm brain dead

And yes that's what I said

And yes that's what you read

And maybe your name is Fred

Don't let that fill you with dread

Or completely unearned street cred

My brain is full of lead

It's spread

like too little butter on too much bread

So yeah - I'm brain dead

Starting a New Writing Project

 Hey there everyone and anyone and everyone else,

You've found a new blog, written by me, Parzival Sattva. So let's get into the questions:

Who am I?

A writer who likes to share my writing, my thoughts, and on occasion new recipes for harvesting world peace.

What am I going to write here?

I don't want to be pinned down with expectations and all that. So let's just go with 'stuff'. And maybe, just maybe, 'other stuff'. But stuff dealing with writing and my process is probably going to be the majority of it. 

What else have I written?

Ooooh! How clever of me to ask a question that can serve to link to all the other things I've done! Yay me!

In no particular order, here's a list:

I've written a bunch of 100-word stories. They can be found here

*****

 I wrote an episodic story using the Solo Journaling RPG Apothecaria as a basis. The text is found: 

on Blogger and on Royal Road.

or

Listen to it as an 'audiobook'

and for each episode, to hear how I put the it together (and have me talk about a writing topic after the narration), you can listen to all of them with this playlist.

*****

I'm working on a new episodic writing project using a game system my Lovely Lady Love and I made called Pips World. I'll refrain from adding the link here because it isn't active yet, but when it is I'll announce it in a post here.

*****

I submit work regularly to Moss Piglet magazine (starting with the Moby Dick, October 2024 issue) (available at https://www.krazines.com/)

I've also been published in: 

80 Degrees magazine (the 13th issue) https://readeighty.com/

Fairfield Scribes (the 4th, 6th, and 8th issues) http://fairfieldscribes.com/

Timeless Spirit (unfortunately this website no longer exists)

*****

I've got all my links in this wonderful free service called Linktree

Anyway, welcome to this new writing project space. I hope you enjoy my thoughts, musings, ideas, rants, and whatever else happens to float between my ears and shoot forth from my fingertips. Until my next post, bye for now...