More Thoughts than Actual Updates for this Warm August Day

We've entered the Harvest Season now that Lammas has passed. I keep forgetting how much more north I am compared to anywhere else I've lived, and that even in Ireland I'm close to the northern most part of the country than not. Autumn chill starts early here and while we do have some warm summer-like days, there's a chill note to the wind that comes through my office windows. There's that particular Autumn smell starting to come through, too. That cut crops, old leaves, wilting grass smell.

Autumn is my favorite time of year.

The edits I was working on last month are now done, and so now I'm pushing myself through writing Night Church. It's the same universe as The White Queen but it's not a spicy romance. Night Church is a paranormal fantasy drama and a much, much harder book for me to write. There's Johnathan, my gay vampire pastor, and his lover Toby, a gay trans man who is also an addict, and they live in San Francisco in the early 1980s at the start of the AIDS crisis. This is a real challenge on an emotional level, since this is a time I remember, even though I was a kid.

What's really be hard is re-reading and remembering the cruelty that particularly happened to gay men of that time, and realizing that a lot of that same rhetoric is being used against people like me, today. The casual cruelty of people is something that really hurts my heart. I've never truly understood it, even though I know I've gotten caught up in it myself, and understand, as an adult, why it happens. What's even harder these days is that pointing out to people that they are perpetuating this kind of behaviour is met with anger instead of thoughtfulness. There is no shame or accountability. Grace and compassion is considered sin, and black and white thinking rules the day. Nuance and grey areas are non-existent in public discourse.

I go over a lot of the reasons for this in another essay, so I won't go through them again here, but suffice it to say, being a priest and pastor right now is rather difficult. I hope that maybe we can rewrite the social contract and bring back more compassion and grace, because otherwise the theological fascism won't truly stop.

Another area of casual cruelty I've seen is around AI. I understand why people are angry about AI and I agree: GenAI in it's current form isn't ready for prime time and it's current use has been an ethical nightmare. What I have been seeing a lot of, though, are people lumping all AI, even useful AI, into the "AI is evil" bucket. Spellcheckers, grammar checkers, dictation, and translation have been backed by AI for a number of years now, which is why they work much better than when they first came out. I've been seeing a lot of people, especially in the writing community, who would consider these AI bad as well. Some have even said that a writer using spellcheck and grammar check is a "crutch" and should ditch both to be a "true writer."

In the FanFic community, I've also seen people using anti-AI sentiment as a weapon against writing they dislike, going so far as accusing writers of using AI because it has em-dashes or the writing is more formal or stilted. Then, they send the internet mobs after them, sometimes even running folks off platforms. No one will ask the author if it's true, nor will anyone believe them if they say they don't use AI, and so writers stop writing, at least, publicly.

I recently left BlueSky because of this, since pointing this out to people, even people who should know better, is anathema. As I said, nuanced conversations can't be had anymore and rage is king. For now, I accept that this is an argument I can't win, even though it's not necessarily about winning, but about making people think before they rage. And that maybe, when raging, one is contributing more to the problem than actually solving it, and harming others in the process.

But, I think, people aren't ready for that conversation, and to be honest, my mental health and ability to keep writing are much more important to me. So, I accept that staying out of those spaces is the more compassionate option for myself.

That being said, there is an actual update: I'm streaming on Twitch again, doing my usual chill Pomodoro writing sprints on Tuesdays and Thursdays starting at 2 PM Ireland time (which is 9 AM Eastern/6 AM Pacific US time). I know it's super early for my US folks, but I've been streaming about 3.5-4 hours, so if you can swing by, do say hello! It's been really good to get back in the saddle with streaming, and it's really useful for writing Night Church, given how emotionally difficult this novel is and will be.

I'm still waiting for edits, covers, and read-throughs on other novels, and I'm still looking for a cover artist for The White Queen. I've also been doing stuff around the house, creating visual art, taking care of my Wife, and honoring my Spirits, as one does. It's odd that I've been home less than 6 months, but it feels like I've been here for a lot longer than that.

Home, quiet, and love are good things, and I am grateful for all of it.