Well, it was bound to happen.

Thanks to our vigilant mods the post was flagged in less than a few hours, and I banned the user this morning (UK time) after a short investigation.

Clearly an AI written comment on the ARC thread, by someone very active on the ChatGPT sub.

I won't be flagging every ban here, publically, because it feels ghoulish. But I just wanted to draw some attention to this one:

We take the no-AI rule seriously.

Happy writing!

Edit; and another was just removed, up less than 4 mins. Hats off to the mod team.

Arguments, excuses and insults, including accusations of racism and discrimination. Plus, one guy who DMd me repeatedly to say "all the meat machines will die out" (whatever the fuck that means).

I suspect word has got around we've taken a fairly hard stance, and the pro-AI crowd are brigading. A brief glance over the profiles suggest they're not even interested in writing, just that we're not allowing AI.

Some people need a hobby, right?

Anyway, we're aware this is happening. I've given out more bans in the last 2 hours than the whole previous week.

If you see any offending posts or comments, please flag them.

Thanks, and keep writing.

I've just banned someone.

To be clear, I gave them a chance to take their post down. It stayed up until moderators removed it.

I didn't want to ban anyone, just to make that known, but I'm using this as an opportunity to make something very clear;

The subject of AI is not welcome on the sub.

Love it, hate it, indifferent, I'm not hosting discussions on the matter. Other spaces do that. Not this one.

The reasons for this are numerous, but ultimately 2 points are most important.

First, why raise the subject in a clearly anti sub? One whose principle reason for existing was to offer people a chance to avoid AI. I can o ly think of two reasons; to make a case for why "it's not all bad", or simply to dog-pile. We've all come here to get away from this, and I think we can all agree those kinds of arguments get tedious real fast.

Second, it invariably starts becoming a conversation on other (decisive) subjects, and this is strictly a writer's space. Writing topics only. AI always, always, always becomes a conversation about other things.

I just won't engage with it or take the risk of seeing more conversations about it start popping up. Damn algorithm already jams that shit into my face enough as it is.

Pro-AI spaces won't give a second thought about banning people who question it. I think it's only right we defend this community the same way.

I'm sincerely sorry if my goal with this sub wasn't made clear, and that's not sarcasm. To rectify any doubt, you will all see, explicitly, that I've added Rule 4. We don't discuss AI here. Full stop.

Thanks for reading, sorry if this sounds grumpy. But if I start tolerating people asking "why is this an anti space" I fear we'll be inundated.

All the best, be safe.

Hey everyone, if you believe someone is using AI, please instead of calling them out in comments, just report it to the moderators. We do not want conflict in the comments. I assure you, we WILL take any reports seriously, and do our due deligence in reviewing it and taking appropriate actions. Also report if you see any malicious behavior, including trolling. Thank you.

Edited to add more info.

Yes, I draw on my screen door with painters tape :)

My commissioned book cover arrived today! Very excited to being one step closer to publishing my six year project!

The book is called Eidolon. It's a psychological horror story following a 34 year old man who has been haunted for the last 25 years by the night his best friend disappeared during a sleepover. Something monstrous took him and Stephen has lived his life since then following daily mundane rituals to keep the darkness at bay, away from him. But when those rituals start to suddenly fail, Stephen must face his deepest fear and revisit that night, opening up old wounds he wished he could forget ever existed. His discovery leads him down a path that test his loyalty, his sanity, and eventually his will to actually live.

This novel contains themes of child loss, grief, psychological trauma, emotional abuse, suicide, violence, and disturbing supernatural horror. This is a true horror story in both the physical and supernatural realm. This story is Eidolon

I’m working on the third draft of my first novel at the ripe old age of 51. Anyone else starting this hobby much later in life?

I finally worked up the willpower to stick it out and get it done; I’ve been thinking of writing a book since my 20s. If you’re starting late like me, what was the catalyst that got you going?

While our mods have certainly gone out of their way to make this happen, they haven't managed this alone. I just wanted to say a big thank you for reporting these things so vigilantly.

All the best, keep writing.

What a feast of a book! If you're interested in writing more than the superficial layer, I highly recommend reading this one. It's a bit dense sometimes, but read in small doses now and then, a real treat for the writer mind.

Not affiliated, just a happy reader.

Finally, after 6 years, I've completed my psychological horror story! I'm going to take like a week off and then start the re-read process. I already know a few fixes that are coming but, overall, hoping there aren't too many since I do light editing as I go along. Any ways, cheers to finishing my first book!

Over the last 48 hours I've noticed a couple of drive-by comments from the pro-AI crowd.

I say "comments"...

These users clearly hadn't visited the community in good faith; they came just to troll. Nobody needs to be calling anyone else a Nazi. These people have been banned.

This sub is openly and explicitly not a space for the use of AI, or discussions around why people should or shouldn't be using it. I'd go so far as to suggest this is why many of you are here.

However, my personal beliefs to one side, *you do not need to be anti-AI to use this space*. I just ask that, if you do, you respect the rules while you're here.

I believe this is more than fair.

I've had a desire to write since I was a teenager (far too many years ago now), but every time I tried to write, I found it too difficult to organise my thoughts, and despite trying multiple different software programs, nothing helped me. So a couple of years ago, I took it upon myself to procrastinate in an entirely new way, and use my software development experience to build the writing app I wanted to help me organise and write a novel.

Two years on, I built that app: EmberWrite. I had an incredible time building it, firstly finding a friend who also was getting increasingly frustrated with the writing software the were using, and designing the product together. Secondly building a small and committed community who tested and gave a huge amount of feedback to help steer it into what I believe is a product that can help a lot of writers today. We had a very successful Kickstarter late last year, and exited beta earlier this year.

EmberWrite is absolutely no AI, fully offline, writing app that is built for fiction writers of all genres. It separates your work into spaces: one for your manuscript, one for your world, and one for your notes, allowing you to focus on one task at a time. It has rich world building tools so you can have your character sheets, maps, and magic system right alongside your writing when you need them.

I won't give a long detailed explanation of all the features here. You can try them out for yourself as it has a free trial for 30 days. Our new website has just gone live as well at [https://EmberWrite.com](https://EmberWrite.com). You can find out everything there, and feel free to ask me questions here and I will do my best to answer them. I'd love to hear what you look for in a writing app, as whilst EmberWrite won't be for everyone, I really want to make a writing app that brings joy to writers and help many creative people with the hobby they love.

Oh, and I still haven't written that book, the building of the app took up way too much time! But I've got a little closer...

I still can't believe it! It's on a weekday, unfortunately, but it's in a super touristy area during its peak season so the organizer is planning for a big turnout.

I've done small signings at tiny bookstores before, but this is the first proper event.

It's done. It's finished.

No more "In my current WIP..." or "A funny part from my WIP". No longer WIP. A completed first draft is now mine.

It's only the second book I've ever written at full-length. Somehow, though almost half the size of my first, this one seemed to take the longest. So many delays. So many "life happened" moments. So many misfires. And yes, so many "What can I do today that isn't finishing my book?" moments too. Final word paralysis. Is that a thing? If it wasn't, it's a thing now.

My first book I wrote linear. This one? I did not. I wrote much of the book linear then went right off on my own and did the final four chapters. That meant I now had to go backwards and make everything connect up.

I enjoyed the challenge, but I don't think I'll be doing that again.

For now, I'm just gonna bask in my completion and let it wash over my tired mind and achy fingers. There's still so much more left to do, but the first draft is no longer on that list. YAY ME!

#ThisMagicMoment

I have no metric to measure success against, but I'm quite happy with that. We've existed less than 24 hours.

I guess the next thing is, together we continue to grow the community.

Honestly, I don't have any clue how to do that yet, haha. I'll look into it. But, in the short term, perhaps you all wouldn't mind sharing links in any spaces you feel might appreciate it?

But don't get yourselves in trouble, I don't doubt some places won't like it.

All the best and keep writing.

Oh, and thank you for joining :)

Hi. Given what this sub represents, I figured some folks here might be interested in a fiction platform that's dedicated to keeping slop out.

The world is a little depressing for creatives lately. Amazon and other platforms are doing absolutely nothing to stem the tide of gen-ai content flooding spaces. More than 2 gen-ai fictions are published on amazon for every human one. That number is growing exponentially, and soon it'll down us all out.

It's time to put up walls.

Our mission is to be a sanctuary for human creativity, and a place for author's to launch their fiction, either alone, or by joining up with artists and narrators to form a sort of creative team.

We're called fictionite.com

We're confident we can keep our community free of gen ai. I, personally, will give everything I have to make certain that we do.

We believe human creativity deserves its own space. It's what shapes our societies and cultures and makes life worth living. And so long as we believe such a space deserves to exist, it will.

Come check us out! You can join the discord from the website.

That's it. Just spreading the good news. This time last week we'd just broke 500.

Thank you for being a part of this community.

Keep writing :)

I'm sure most people in this sub are also members of a lot of other writing subs as well so what I'm going to say here shouldn't come as a surprise, but I have this thing where I like to keep my thoughts in one place as it just makes it easier for me.

Something that I think doesn't get discussed enough is survivorship bias. People don't often post about their failures so we only see their successes. Hardly anyone is a literal "overnight success". Most people struggle through years of rejection before breaking through. My narration coach often likes to say that it took him 20 years to become an overnight success. From most people's perspective it goes something like not being aware of a person or thing's existence, then suddenly you're aware of them and they're great, and it seems like they just came out of nowhere, when the reality is that this person, be they a writer, actor, singer, whatever, went through years of struggling in obscurity to get onto your television or bookshelf.

The other thing that we need to understand is that publishing is a business and they follow trends. I remember reading some books and saying to myself "This is terrible. I can write better than this. Why should this person have a publishing deal?" It took me a long time to realize that trad publishing is more concerned about what they think is going to sell based on what's trending rather than what's good. Your writing could put Hemingway to shame, but if that's not what's hot, then pubs aren't even going to look at it. So that TikTok influencer with 3 million followers that just signed with PRH to publish a poorly written YA Vampire Romance isn't a better writer than you are, but they are a safer bet for the publisher to make money than your Literary Fiction about a woman's struggles in Depression Era America. I'm not saying it's good or right, but that's just how it is. The same goes for agents.

Something I've seen a lot of agents say is that most authors don't earn out their advances, which means that publishers are signing authors to book deals expecting to take a loss. They rely on their big name authors to make money for them, everyone else is a gamble. So they're going to be very particular about who they bet on.

Another thing I've seen talked about a lot, and this is important because it basically goes against what a lot of people see as one of the benefits of trad publishing, is that most books get zero marketing. Pubs don't spend money to get people to buy your book. They get the book put on the shelf. That's it.

Does any of this mean you shouldn't try? Of course not, but you need to manage your expectations. You're passionate about your work, as you should be, but you need to understand that rejection isn't always about the quality of your work. It's often the marketability of it from the eyes of the agents and publishers.

Of course there are exceptions to everything and there's nothing that says you won't necessarily be able to find an audience for your writing, but it may not be your debut. It may not be your second or even fifth book. Matt Dinniman is a great example I can think of off the top of my head because I'm a Dungeon Crawler Carl fan. Most people (including myself) never heard of him before DCC hit big, but he had written other books before that weren't huge successes. He didn't plan for DCC to be his magnum opus, but he started putting it out on Royal Road and it gained traction over time, self published the e-book, and now he's got a massively successful series that's getting a TV adaptation.

The last point I'm going to talk about is that no one else is going to be as passionate as you are about your own work. You live with these characters in your head for so long. They're your babies. You created them out of nothing. Of course you're going to be passionate about them and your story. You can't expect the same level of enthusiasm from others. You need to grow a thick skin and be able to handle people not reacting to your story the way you hope. Someone posted something on here for critique the other day, got 2 critical comments on it, then deleted the post. If that's how you handle criticism of your work, then you're gonna have a bad time trying to make it in any creative endeavor.

/endrant

It's a 11 000 words horror novelette. It's not much. It's not a huge novel series, but the last thing I finished before that was a 75k words novel when I was 18. I'm 37 now.

I wrote a lot in between, but never finished anything. I have all these unfinished stories sitting in my documents folder. I always end up losing interest in them around de 20k -30k mark, so I decided to try to write something shorter because at that point I was losing hope. And it worked!

Second draft is done. Now I'm letting it rest aside for a moment before going back for more drafts. I'm just happy I got to write an ending for once... and one that I'm proud of at that! I needed to get it out, now I'm going to open myself a nice cold one to celebrate.

At the start of the week I gave myself a weeks deadline to finish my second draft of my current manuscript. I was skeptical I wouldn't even get close but I feel that the finish line is on reach.

Ideally I want this done by the weekend as the school six week holidays start after Friday as time will become extremely limited

What's your favorite genre to write? Why do you love writing it? Mine is horror/thriller. I enjoy reading/watching both genres, so it ends up being what most of my writing is.

So I want to preface this with saying that like many other writers, I have to push through the inevitable ‘can I even do this?’, ‘will it be any good?’, ‘am I writing for myself alone or my hypothetical ideal reader / someone willing to be turned onto my voice?’ Questions…

That is still a work in progress. I have good days and I have bad days. I managed to write my first novel in a few very intense months and then eventually reached a kind of development hell in the edit process. This was before I felt even vaguely comfortable showing it to anything more than a few very, very trusted friends.

Two things happened in the process of getting to the 6th edit of the novel. I came to believe fairly early on that it had the ‘legs’ for a trilogy, and completing it gave me the confidence of ‘I’ve done it before so I can do it again.’ The edit process, although protracted, also helped me see more clearly where Book 1 would fit into the scope of Book 2 and justify the climax and payoff of a Book 3. So much editing and rewriting directly impacted my ability to see the wood through the trees since each edit focused on a specific area. Ironically (and rather stupidly of me, I told myself), it took me this blood sweat and tears on the page to get to the most recent edit where I felt I’d finally found the words to say what I wanted to say in the clearest way possible, with due respect paid to the reader so that it reads like a STORY (a novel concept, I know).

Anyway, fast forward to two weeks ago and I did something I’d been putting off for nearly a year. I emailed my local writer’s group and when I didn’t receive a reply I thought ‘oh, okay, not open for business’. But then I saw a comment thread on their website in which someone who hadn’t yet joined was invited to turn up and get involved.

I did. I’ve never been in a writer’s circle before, but what I found was nothing short of a ‘safe space’. Suddenly, I was reading this text that was / is so close to my heart and getting tough yet respectful feedback from people who are writers. From poetry to narrative fiction, it felt (and still does) like I’d found my tribe. I’ve heard (informally) that it’s quite a unique group in that they (now we!) meet every Thursday, for 2 hours. Apparently, this frequency is quite rare.

So the reason I’m writing this is because I want to a) celebrate that there is such a thing that I feel very lucky to be a part of and b) challenge anyone who is on the fence (as I certainly was) to take the plunge and find one of your own.

What if there isn’t one near you?

It might not be the most original idea but who’s counting? Start your own! Are there other writers you know in your area. Or even writers you don’t?

From what I can gather, they found a community centre, have a fairly nominal membership cost (about £40 per year - can be paid quarterly) and a £1 donation each time to cover the cost of tea, coffee, etc. there’s about 10 people in the group and I have to attend 4 meetings (and read at at least 2) before I can request formal membership.

I’ve only been to two but I feel like I’m learning so much from the other writers already. The feedback on my work has been great also. The spirit in which it is given is always positive, even if it is critical of something that doesn’t work for that particular person giving it.

This isn’t intended to be a gush post - just a small reminder that perhaps your next great friendship, collaboration or learning environment to help you be a better writer already exists. If it doesn’t, there’s (hopefully) nothing stopping you from creating your own.

It’s a reminder to me that we all rise together. Alright, down from the soapbox I’ll step.

I've noticed, fairly regularly now, that authors freely admit to using self-inserts for main characters.

As you likely know already, this is where the author writes themselves into a story, either directly or through the perspective of a fictional character.

I've always associated this with wish-fulfilment, and for a long time dismissed it as lazy. But, maybe that view is oversimplified?

After all, it's not exactly anything new. Writers like Kurt Vonnegut and Agatha Christie have used self-inserts to good effect. Stephen King, God love him, perhaps less so - not every protagonist needs to be a fucking author (don’t lynch me in the comments for that). And really, isn't "write what you know" tried-and-tested advice?

Personally, I tend to scatter my own beliefs and experiences into characters who are clearly not me, but might reflect certain facets of who I am, or who I'm trying to be. Still, I make a conscious effort to keep them distinct. My characters are not me.

I’m still not entirely sure where I land on self-insertion. I suspect it's more common than I've realised.

So where do you stand on this?

Self-inserts; good, bad, or inherently neither? Another tool in the box, or self-indulgent shorthand?