Month: September 2023

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Okteveos Release Delayed

the 8 fates of okteveos

The 8 Fates of Okteveos is getting major rewrites at the suggestion of beta readers.

Parts of the anticipated book are going back to the second edit process which could delay the release by several weeks. J. Tordsen explains.

I am going to delay the release of The 8 Fates of Okteveos based on the feedback I received from beta readers. I use a self-edit process and to ignore the feedback from the beta readers is ultimately self-defeating. As this is my first foray into novel writing, it is worth taking the extra time to make the manuscript the best it can be.

What did the beta readers say? In a nutshell, the first half of the book was too much of a lift for the readers. So much so that one reader even began skimming and missed some important details that helped make sense of the story in later chapters.

In fairness, I have only been working on this book off and on since about January 2023. Ten months of work on a novel that might take years to write is better than I expected – especially considering how slow I type.

J. Tordsen

The original release was planned for October but with the delay, a new release date has yet to be determined. Gigabooks Press will announce the new date once it becomes available.

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Excerpt: Dealing With Writer’s Block

This is an excerpt from The Gigabytes Guide to Writing Second Edition on sale in paperback and e-book on this site.

The first thing to know about writer’s block is that the condition we call “writer’s block” is not unique to writers. When software developers experience the same thing we don’t call it “programmer’s block”.

The second thing you need to know is that is isn’t real. Seriously. It is not an ailment, a condition, or an affliction. You won’t find it in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual as a mental disorder however, you can find a book written 30 years ago called Understanding Writer’s Block: A Therapist’s Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment. The first sentence of the blurb?

“This innovative book explains writer’s block as a symptom of a larger disorder.”
Source: Google Books

Allow me to save you the time reading this 195 page “only to find out you aren’t crazy” book. Yes, writers and creative people can get stumped sometimes and we call it writer’s block because some Austrian psychologist living in New York named Edmund Bergler coined the term in 1947. Yeah, Bergler. Not Hemingway, Bronte, or Verne.
Source: ncbi.nim.nih.gov article PMC7965145

The long and the short of it is that writer’s block is a symptom of a larger issue. While chronic writer’s block may be caused by a mental disorder, your writer’s block may just mean you are tired, sick, or need a new source of inspiration. In other words, rest or do something else for a while. (Incidentally, have you watched the British version of Ghosts? I bet you haven’t.)

Pro Tip: There is literally no rule saying you have to write as the reader will read it. If you are feeling stuck at a certain point, stop writing, create a new document, and start writing a section that you are more inspired with. You can fill in the gaps later. It may even be easier to do so because all you have to do is connect the dots.

The good news here is, not only do you not have to write in sequence, what if I told you that you don’t have to write parts of your book at all?

I often skip parts of the writing and just make notes in brackets like these: <insert yet another joke about Ghosts on Paramount+>. I also use markers like xxx to bookmark the spot where I leave off writing and editing. Those marks are not often used in writing, so you are able to use your word processor’s search feature during editing to search for these sections and fill them in.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame) anecdotally started with the end of his mystery books and wrote the plot backwards. Plotting backwards is a legitimate technique used by mystery writers. So, you are allowed to skip around when writing your saucy romance novel (we all know what parts you really want to write anyway).

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Use of “Artificial Intelligence” in Writing

This is an excerpt from The Gigabytes Guide to Writing available on this site in paperback and e-book.

Let’s start off by calling it what it is: a large language model chat bot. Not only is it not artificially intelligent, it is well known for making factual mistakes and outputting terrible writing. “AI” is effectively a marketing term.

The temptation to use chat bots to write some or all of a work is great for any writer – particularly if they are struggling. Without getting into how these systems actually work, my advice as a writer and as a technologist is: Don’t.

The reasons are, quite frankly, both numerous and serious. First off, copyright law is not settled when it comes to chat bots and writing. If you let a chat bot write any part of your work for you, it is entirely possible you could find yourself on the end of a lawsuit over the rights and royalties to your work by the company that developed the chat bot. As ridiculous as it sounds, these companies may legitimately have a case against you.

Second, there are many publishing houses that will ban you if you try to submit a work that was written by AI – even in part. This could limit your audience and publishing options.

Third, flooding the market with poorly-written, self-published dreck – even if human edited – hurts the entire writer / reader community. If readers spend their hard-earned money on a terrible book that isn’t up to standards, then there is the potential to lose that reader forever. One bad book can be dismissed as a fluke, but if book after book is terrible, a reader might wonder why they are wasting their time and money.

Finally, if you can’t write for yourself, put this book down now and find another hobby. For example, I hear this show, Ghosts, is pretty compelling.

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