Hopefully the final post before I start to proof «Aleks meets Inga»

This will, as the title says, hopefully, be my last post before getting around to proofing «Aleks meets Inga». See, I have to admit that, with this book, I cheated a little when writing it… at least to my mind. See, C05 (as I like to do), is a flashback chapter, specifically to 1987 when Aleks's mother stepped on American soil for the first time. Mix her poor English skills with the fact that the Cold War was going on at that time, and she was given a mixed-welcome.

As I wasn't alive in 1987, I'm having to do research, write a little on the chapter, do mounds of research and correcting, go back and ask "Would this have happened", re-research, probably scrap a part of the section I just wrote, rinse and repeat, so I don't get that much done in a day. I am, however, at a part of the chapter where I could just cut-and-call-it if I wanted to, but I don't wanna take a cop-out route- that would break one of the rules I try to live by:

"Don't half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing." Ron Swanson

See, I'll admit, I'm not the best at writing, but I do it because I enjoy having a world where the factual, fictional, and fantastical can all be blended in that unique way. Of course, I'm working to get better at it, too, but it's really just a passion of mine.

Anyway, back to the main point of this post, writing a Soviet scientist in 1987 NYC is… difficult to say the least. My goal, ultimately, is to be finished writing the text by Nov 04. When I get to that point, I'll take a one-to-two week break before proofing the draft so that when I sit back down to it, I'll be looking at it with fresh eyes instead of my «I can go back and correct that later» mindset that makes things feel rushed. With «An Exercise in Frustration!», I feel like I got lucky (to an extent), but with «Hidden in Plain Sight», my skipping the proofing step is somewhat more obvious.

Thankfully, I've learned my lesson about rushing things, probably would explain why the first appearance of Penelope is in an Aleks/Chloe story instead of her own line… though if you really wanna get anal about it, she's really just an older version of Aleks from several years ago, genderbent and with an odd fascination with East Asia (Mostly China, China, China, China, Japan, Korea, and Korea. Most people know them as China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macao, Japan, Southern Korea, and Northern Korea.) or if you want to go by the first time her character, proper, was written, a story posted on my Fur Affinity page where I lost a bet and had to write a My Little Pony story because I wouldn't cough up fifty dollars.

A good time was had by yours truly, so I don't regret it, but I won't post the link unless asked.

Anyway, how I cheated… I got about a hundred words into Chapter 5 before pushing it back to later and writing the rest of the book. I've got Chapter 5 to finish and Chapter 15 to write, so we'll see how that goes, and I hope it's well.

My Thoughts on AI

AI, at least what I've found so far, sucks. I don't intend to use it in my writing (at least apart from the occasional translation), but I do, however, copy/paste my writing into ChatGPT occasionally with the instructions for it to analyze the piece… often with comically bad results.

One time, it tried to continue an excerpt and, in doing so, dumbed Aleks down significantly and made him apologize (and not half-ass it, either). I lost some brain cells that day.

I will, however, concede that AI has some good uses… it makes a better translator than Google Translate, though you have to give it context, but it can't analyze text without being almost cynical about it, and it gets pretty creative about that. Still, I don't think that it can be faulted… AI can only have the worldviews its programmer lets it have. Until we get to the point where I can sit down to a program on my computer, tell it to write a story with my characters, and be able to convince myself that I wrote it, not the computer, I won't classify it as true AI.

To me, that stuff is still just a glorified Google Assistant: not useless, but extremely purpose-built.

Really, it has a long way to go in its development, but, given that the right people build it, I believe that it has a real place to go. Right now, sadly, it's just Google Assistant's cousin. Regardless of where it is or where it goes, I don't want my writing to lose that human touch and get "robotic", so don't worry about me publishing stuff that a computer wrote- not gonna happen.

Anyway, finishing up this short blog post, I'm bringing the draft to an end hopefully in the near future. My plan is to take a break from it for a week or two before coming back and proofing it. As usual, I will post a link when it's published!

YA«AMI»U

"What? You don't know what ‹YA«AMI»U› means?" I ask, glaring at you like I'm crazy as my eye twitches from the however many cans of soda and energy drink I've had.

It means «Yet Another "Aleks Meets Inga" update»… I had to have some fun and put a Linux joke in the post. Anyway, down to business.

So, Aleks Meets Inga is going a bit slower than I'd originally planned, and the main reason for that is because I had one good hit of inspiration followed by a week of sinus infection and laryngitis. When your head's stopped up, it's hell for your focus. Anyway, the good thing is that I think it's going away now, but I'm not entirely sure. Enough about me and more about the book.

A stunt that Aleks pulls in an early chapter involving his "friend" and a vampire is repeated in a later chapter, but his motives are completely changed (or diminished, if you will).

This is Aleksey, we're talking about here.

Aleksey and Chloe "evolve" with each other, but there's also some dynamics of the vampire world that shows through, some of which makes Aleks go into what I like to call «Ron Swanson Mode». They've been stuck there for days, so the shock value for Aleks and Chloe has, more-or-less, turned into "Alright? Fanged bloodsucker thinks she can outsmart me? Fine. I'll sleep with you, but only because that's how I can learn the most while doing the least and faking the rest.". Eve has a terrible nightmare… (or would the vampires call it a daymare) about what she thinks Aleks would be like, should Inga manage to bite and turn him. in short, the only remotely new thing to mention is that The Insufferable Duo is now in a Walmart in Inga's world!

Update for «Aleks Meets Inga»

Okay! «Aleks meets Inga» is in the works, each chapter in it is told from a different point of view. It's not going to be for younger audiences (in part because Aleks is incredibly blunt and straightforward, others because of the violence), so that's something to keep in mind. Over the years, I've written and read several variants of vampire. My favorite to write are gray-skinned human-like creatures that can (kind of) go out in the sun. The least favorite kind to write (because of the insustainability of the character type) is the kind Inga is… violent, driven by food and sex, and can't go without either or stay in UV light for more than ten minutes. Aleks, Chloe, and Eve are going to, after an encounter with Inga, find a way to kill her and get back to their own world. A couple from Inga's world jumps ship with the trio resembling Eve and her boyfriend in a key way, and Aleks gets some much needed exposition from his… team, both of which provides some explanation for why he does what he does and says what he says… the whole "This guy's a raging asshole" excuse has a limited number of uses before you need answers, and real ones.

Alright, so a few things… first off, Aleks's name isn't going to be «Александр "Aleksandr"» it's going to be «Алексей "Aleksey"». I originally wanted him to be called "Sasha" for a while, but… eh, just didn't work out. Anyway, I had to miss the Megaplex Fur Convention, but a friend of mine went (it was incredibly last minute, what kept me from going, they were on the way to my house to pick me up for it-style last minute). Anyway, when he came back, we were talking and he suggested the name "Aleksey" when it came up. I figured "Why not?" because, even though his name full name was dropped in the first book… he's Russian and there was some… anti-Russian sentiment in some people he was around as a kid. No major changes with him. Secondly, the first three named characters in the vampire world, I had made them for something else… whether or not I'll ever finish that is beyond me, but I may end up posting it to my Fur Affinity page, if nothing else. Lastly… well, I'm on Chapter 13 now… you'll see when it comes out.