Musings of a Restless Mind

SoS three was just as much fun as the first two. It was a small gathering of smart, well-read folks who loved to swap their experiences and their dearly-earned wisdom.

Maxwell Drake was a very gracious guest of honor and gave us portions of his writing courses that he teaches at Starving Writer Studio in multiple one-hour segments. In a typical example of the spirit of the Con, David Lang brought in a large screen monitor, so our GoH could run his slide shows.

Jeff Duntemann and I expounded on the background as well as the uses and abuses of AI, and we and the audience hashed out which uses of AI we considered harmless as well as Jeff warned about professional artists’ automatic revulsion at the hint that you’ve used AI for anything other than to mock it. I’m always tempted to respond to such artists with the famous joke attributed to Churchill that by simply using digital brushes and 3-D models, we’ve already established what they are, we’re just haggling about the price. But that would be rude. What, me rude? Surely you must be joking.

Speaking of art, the Con’s Fairy Art Goddess, Caitlin Walsh, gave a very helpful talk on how to communicate with an artist. Unless you’re both an artist and a writer (yes, there are some), we word-slingers live in a very different world and speak a very different language, as anyone who’s tried to prompt AI to draw a picture with a 300-word detailed description only to have the AI app ignore half their oh-so-carefully constructed sentences, can attest. Her first, and most helpful suggestion, is to understand that what the artist draws will not match exactly what you see in your mind’s eye. I’ve learned that along the way. Author intrusion follows for elaboration:

Be humble and kind, and give the artist her due. She’s as much a creator as you are. If there’s something you view as essential that’s missing in the art you commissioned, feel free to point it out. “The cat needs to be an orange tabby not black,” is a worthwhile thing to mention even if you have to admit it’s your fault for not making that clear in the first place. But, “The girl should have a prettier smile,” is just annoying. Any reader who’s beyond “See spot run” knows that cover art is meant to ‘suggest’ what you’ll read, not replace it.

Ahem, sorry for the personal intrusion. Caitlin said it much more succinctly than that. Next she noted that a good way to communicate with an artist you’re commissioning is to draw stick figures. That gives an artist something visual to elaborate on. You’re speaking to them in their language, albeit in a pidgin version, but close enough. Likewise she agreed with an audience suggestion that an AI-generated sample of kind of what the author wants is actually a good use for AI. Sometimes you might want to send multiple pictures with the note, “This is the style of house I’m talking about, and this one shows the style of dress.” As long as you keep rule number one in mind. The artist is also a creator, and you’re paying them for their creativity. She also noted that it was most important to early on get the composition right. For us non-artists, that means where things are placed in the image, how much of the image a figure might take up, where and how much room to leave for the title and author’s name. Changing the composition requires a full redraw vs. tweaking to get some detail right. Also, when she wasn’t drawing pencil sketch portraits of one and all, she spent many hours one-on-one teaching us benighted ones how to draw.

My quest to understand about readers uncovered several interesting nuggets although one has to keep in mind that a small Con is not a random sample. Turns out a majority of the attendees purchase e-books and audio books, but all of them, including those mentioned, also buy and read paperbacks. (I’ll get right on that, I promise.) Maxwell Drake noted that for every 20 people who buy your book, you get one fan, and that agrees with my experience. Kevin (Chief Wombat) Trainor also noted that these days almost everyone who’s a reader is also a ‘published’ author since it’s so easy to indie publish. I agreed, adding that at the opening ceremony of Liberty Con this year, a speaker asked who among the audience of hundreds was an author or an artist, and it was hard to find anyone in the room without their hand up. Everyone also agreed that their main way to find new authors was by personal suggestion from someone they knew, since reviews, rankings, etc. are so easily faked and manipulated. They trust those they know who understand their personal tastes better than any Amazon or Google algorithm. Those two pieces of information agree with my own stated path to fame and fortune (well, maybe fame at best), write well, and write a lot.

That ties in with my discussion about what replaces the autograph in the age of digital books. I noted that some authors have book plates (a single colored page with the cover, usually on 6×9 glossy paper) printed up to autograph and give out for someone who has bought an ebook. One suggestion was a NFT (if anyone remembers what those are). Another suggestion was a QR-code to an unpublished story that is only activated upon purchase of the ebook.

Despite the sparse attendance, both Marion Harmon and Maxwell Drake noted that they had sold enough books to justify their attendance. Of course that includes the caveat that they are locals, so did not have to pay for either travel or the hotel. I didn’t query Julie Frost because she left after Saturday to go birding with her husband, but it was her third year attending, so it must be working out for her.

That brings up the goal of expanding attendance. We had a decent percentage of new attendees this year, but that’s far from enough to make the endeavor sustainable. Except for Caitlin’s art and the generous donations of David Lang with his hardware and Jolie LaChance with her time and snacks, Kevin has been mostly running it as a one-man show. I asserted that he needs a George Strong to go with his D.D. Harriman and ended up volunteering to be webmaster, or at least web re-designer (probably both). Await changes in a month or so, once I get appropriate permissions and a little time. I’m sure my habit of procrastinating from writing will soon supply the latter. We all agreed that is job number 1, so all of our willing promoters like Dan Minucci and almost everyone else can point potential attendees to a website to see the dates and details as well as be able to send the Con their money. All of us in attendance including the GoH and our past GoH’s have all agreed that they had a great time and would like to do it again.