John Kusters Jr.

Welcome to my Writing Adventure

Month: June 2023 (Page 1 of 2)

Write-A-Thon Week 1 Day 6

2023-06-30 /
Checkered flag background illustration vector

And that concludes Week 1! I’ve managed to write 4800 words, completing the story (though it’s probably terrible), and I still have a day left. This is great because I don’t anticipate having much time on Saturday for writing.

The story is a “mundane police detective stumbled into a vampire power struggle and somehow manages to emerge on top” kind of story. It’s a clichéd plot, but I’m content with how I addressed some of the inherent challenges.

There’s no time to rest on my accomplishments, though. Sunday is just around the corner, and my goal is to have a fully outlined plan for my next story by the end of the day.

Maybe it’s the exhilaration of the write-a-thon, but I’m actually enjoying the challenge of pushing myself to do this.

A reminder, if you want to cheer me on and celebrate these little accomplishments, there’s still time to contribute to my fundraiser!

Bard vs. ChatGPT

2023-06-30 /
person reaching out to a robot
Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

In previous discussions, I mentioned my exploration of Large Language Model software, often referred to as “AI” but which I personally dub as “Massive Plagiarism Machines.” Specifically, I’ve been working with ChatGPT, inputting paragraphs from my story that lacked the desired impact and fell flat. To my surprise, the prose generated by ChatGPT proved quite interesting. While I made considerable edits, I found some of its suggestions to be beneficial. ChatGPT seems to have a penchant for excessively flowery writing, abundant with adverbs and redundant descriptions, but amidst the mediocre content, there are truly remarkable gems.

Today, I decided to give Google’s Bard, one of ChatGPT’s main rivals, a try. To my dismay, I was left very disappointed. I presented Bard with the same type of questions and requests I had been posing to ChatGPT, seeking assistance in refining paragraphs with improved grammar and description. Strangely enough, when asked to enhance a passage spanning around 900 words, Bard decided to condense it to a mere 200 words, devoid of any meaningful details or dialogue. It acknowledged that removing the “graphic” elements would be detrimental to the story, yet insisted on excising them regardless.

It appears that each platform has its own distinct applications. While I haven’t yet experimented with other platforms, I believe it would be worthwhile to do so. I find it surprising that Google’s offering completely disregarded my requests, even after numerous corrections were made.

I must emphasize that I do not intend for these tools to write my story on my behalf. However, engaging with them to exchange ideas has proven to be an intriguing exercise. Considering my inclination to create lackluster scenes, I view this experience as an opportunity to enhance my writing skills and strive for improvement.

Write-A-Thon Week 1, Day 4

2023-06-28 /

My introductory scene for this week’s story is written, but as usual for me, I’ve written nearly 1000 words for a target of 500. There’s probably a little fat to be trimmed, but I’m not going to spend any time on it today. That’s something for the edit phase at some point in the future. Next up is the finale of the piece, where I try to wrap things up and emphasize the crux of the story. The parts in between are for the rest of the week.

Write-A-Thon Week 1, Day 3

2023-06-27 /
person starting on running block
Photo by BOOM 💥 on Pexels.com

I was out of town for the weekend, driving home on Monday afternoon. While I had great intentions to find time to write during my vacation, the dream did not match reality, and I got very little done beyond brainstorming. Not that brainstorming was bad, I did add quite a bit of ideas to my idea pool. But I had wanted to have an outline of my story this week completed by Sunday evening, and fleshed out by the end of Monday, and none of that happened.

Today, though, I dug through my idea pool, mixed my metaphors, and started picking ideas that might make for good stories for the Write-A-Thon. I had accumulated a half-dozen or so when I came across one that jumped out at me and said “this is the one.” It’s a delight when an idea does that.

An hour later I had the rough outline put together, and spent another hour or so adding meat to the bones. I’m not yet where I wanted to be by Monday evening (much less Tuesday evening), but I’m happy with progress so far. I also spent some time doing research to better ground my urban fantasy story in real life.

I’m busy this weekend as well, so three more days to get the story done. I think I’m in a good place to hit that goal.

Write-A-Thon Begins!

2023-06-25 /

So, apparently, the Clarion West Write-A-Thon begins today. Hm, maybe I should start thinking about what I’m going to write over the next six weeks…

Flipping the Script

2023-06-21 /

So one of the things I’m working on in my head as I open this new chapter in my life, especially when it comes to my writing, is flipping the script from “I have to do this” to “I want to do this.” I’ve spent most of my life laboring under one massive obligation or another. Whether it was school or a job, I’m doing things because I have to. Only on rare occasions have I found myself laboring because I wanted to do something. Working at conventions is such a time. So is gamemastering sometimes (though often I do feel the weight of obligation to my players). There is no obligation now, at least not to other people. I still generally feel like I “have to.”

But a couple times in the last few days I’ve been able to hear myself say it’s what I want to do, that I could walk away from it with no penalty, and what’s keeping me at that desk is self fulfillment. It’s a very unaccustomed feeling.

Writing Progress

2023-06-20 /
man ripping finish line strap
Photo by RUN 4 FFWPU on Pexels.com

Well, I’ve completed the short story I started last week. I would up with 5500+ words, a little over my target of 4000, but that’s okay. I’ve a bit verbose at the moment. I should be able to tighten it up eventually and bring it under 5K. But for now it’s in my “marinating” file for a few months. I’ll get back to it when I have more distance from it.

I’m behind where I want to be, but I’m not hugely concerned. I do have the write-a-thon kicking off next Monday, so I will be spending some time in the next few days laying as much groundwork as I can–story ideas, titles, interesting characters, maybe a few plot notes. I won’t have my usual amount of time to work this week as I’m attending PolyCon in San Luis Obispo this weekend.

Writing Progress

2023-06-16 /

Just a brief update today to celebrate the progress made on this week’s short story.

While my writing productivity wasn’t exceptional today, I did manage to add a solid 1500 words to the project, bringing the total to 3480. Although my initial goal was 4000 words, I anticipate reaching nearly twice that amount. However, when the time comes for editing, I’ll need to sacrifice some beloved darlings to adhere to my maximum target of 5000 words. Such is the life of a writer.

Fortunately, I will have some uninterrupted time over the weekend, allowing me to hopefully complete the first draft by Sunday evening.

One of the reasons for the slow pace of the writing lies in its subject matter. Unexpectedly, it has evolved into a neoNoir-ish procedural, which was not my original intention, but sometimes following the muse proves most fruitful. I find myself grappling with the challenge of getting the details right, particularly since the story my protagonist believes to be unfolding is revealed to be its complete opposite in the end. Striving to make both narratives plausible based on the provided clues, with a bias towards the ones misleading the hero, has proven to be quite demanding. I’m embracing a partially “seat of the pants” approach in my writing for this story, relying on the muse to guide the specifics while having an overarching plot already outlined.

Once this piece is completed, I plan to set it aside for a few months while I work on other short stories, particularly during the upcoming write-a-thon. I always relish returning to my stories once the details have faded from memory. Approaching them with a relatively fresh perspective allows me to identify areas in need of revision.

Overall, progress may be steady yet slow, but I’m thoroughly enjoying the process and honing my skills by making subtle adjustments to my process along the way to bolster my creative endeavors.

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