This is one of the worst parts of recovery. After a huge project finishes, there’s a few days of the brain being like porridge, then there’s the mounting desire to get back to work while body and mind both rebel against the notion in the strongest possible terms. It takes three times as long as one thinks to get through this bit, and each time I hate, hate, HATE it.
The only cure is to get enough rest, but I want to be writing. And not just poking out 200-word days on fallow projects, weeding and arranging. I want to be back doing what I do, fa cry-eye, and the longer I’m barred from it the more antsy, nervous, dissatisfied, and short-tempered I become. Of course the case could be made that I’m wound too tightly as a matter of course and recovery phases are just a different flavor of the usual.
One might even win that argument, because I certainly wouldn’t disagree.
…I might have had other things to say this morning, but I ran across a news article about ChatGPT scraping Omegaverse fanfic without permission and good gods, what a time to be alive. The only thing that’s going to stop these gluttonous plagiarizers–because that’s all ChatGPT and its ilk are, giant plagiarizers using microprocessors to reach an economy of scale in theft–is consequences. While the legal challenges are getting underway they’re going to merrily keep stealing the work of people overwhelmingly below the poverty line, because they can. It’s the same as the giant grift that is bitcoin–finding a way to steal with techniques or technology that hasn’t been fully regulated yet and hoping like hell you’re one of the first grifters to get there, so you can grab cash, smash windows, and leave before regulators arrive.
If they were stealing from rich people it would already be tightly regulated. But all these folk who are trumpeting about how AI and “machine learning” are “game-changing” and “not plagiarism” are grifters looking to take what they can from already struggling writers and artists. It’s fucking hard enough to make a living with ebook thieves and trad publishing’s mounting exploitation, but now there’s this to deal with as well.
Why do I even do this, again? I mean, I’ll write all my life, but some days leaving publishing for good and finding some other way to pay the mortgage sounds incredibly appetizing. Although it is kind of funny to watch certain sectors of the world find out all about knotting.
On a brighter note, I spent part of yesterday answering some fanmail hanging fire in the ol’ inbox. I normally don’t get to answer very many missives due to volume, but whenever I’ve some time I try to get at least a short reply to as many as possible. Hearing that a book saved someone–even in the most ordinary of ways–is enough to keep me going for a while longer. And there are plenty of subscribers writing to me in excitement about the next serial (I’ll announce it officially in June), so that’s exceedingly pleasant.
I should find some way to slap a “100% bespoke human-made content, no AI” sticker on all my books. I know some writers are using those tools for various publishing tasks, but…I just can’t. Not until they’re regulated to a fare-thee-well, and probably not even then. I already have enough people stealing my work, I don’t need more. And I’m too…well, “control freak” might be a good way to put it, about my writing. So, no AI will have permission to touch my work–not now, and most probably not in the future. If there is any of my work in those plagiarism holes, you’ll know it’s been stolen.
In short, I just can’t even today. I’m only halfway through coffee but I’m gonna get started on the pre-walkies process early. Boxnoggin is enjoying the cooler weather and is eager to get out the door; at least that pleasure can’t be taken from us. If I can only please one creature on earth today it’ll most likely be the dog, since heaven knows even I am in a Mood and won’t even be able to please myself.
See you around.