jrmilward

Latest Posts by jrmilward

This third book will be the death of me, I swear...

Aka: "Meanwhile, in this episode of Jenni's Keyboard Drama..."

*finishes chapter after 3–4 attempts*

"Hey, I really ought to write *key conversation*, even though it happens off-screen for 💯-legit narrative reasons"

*writes conversation*

*realises that whole ****ing chapter needs re-writing again*

*cries*

I’ve come to the harrowing realisation that the only way to write my book is to write my book

I may never recover

I will close commissions soon! :) Giving the post a few more rounds and closing until next month or so

112/136.

That's how many of my fics were used to train generative AI tools without my consent. I will be frank, I do not think I am an incredible writer or the next master of fiction, but my writing means more to me than I can put into words, and if the people who did this or supported this had any respect for that feeling, then this wouldn't have happened.

Generative AI is not the answer to accessibility or whatever other lies are being fed to people about what it is about, especially not when it is stolen instead of willingly donated.

I cannot tell you how angry and hurt I am by what's happened to me and every other writer out there. Things like this make people give up on their art and throw away all their hard work just because other people are too lazy to try what they've been brave enough to attempt, and I have no explanation as to why because there is no explanation. If you want to write, then you have to write. If you want to draw, then you have to draw. The same goes for singing, acting, and every other creative field that I cannot list right now. Depending on generative AI while demanding to be appreciated as an artist is the most ridiculous thing I can possibly imagine.

Generative AI is not art. People who use it are not artists. If you want to make art, then put in the damn work like everyone else.

Hello! Ao3 has been part of an unauthorized data scrape for GenAI purposes. If your fic has an ID number between 1 and 63200000, it may be a part of the data set and you can file a DMCA copyright infringement notice on the American sites it was uploaded to. Each of you will need to request a takedown.

Here’s a link to the information.

It is a reddit link, but it has the other links you’ll need in one place.

(Tagging with as many medias as I can remember so it gets to more fandoms)

Dont know if this actually works still, haven’t tried it but ya know…if it does then you're welcome 😂

“I can’t write without chatGPT” actually I believe you can. every writer writes by their own hands and brain before AI becomes a thing in our daily lives. and many, many writers continue to write by their own hands and brains even in the AI era. I mean sure, I get that AI can make things more convenient for us; we don’t have to do the works ourselves, we just give AI our prompts and sit back. but is some convenience really worth it when the art we get is robotmade with no soul in it? is some convenience really worth sacrificing the joy of writing and creating for? yes, writing can be extremely hard, but as a writer who never uses AI to write for her and has no interest in using AI to write for her, the joy of getting to write and create is worth the effort and difficulty of writing.

I believe you actually can write without chatGPT. you are either just used to the convenience of having robots create soulless works for you or are too scared to start writing by yourself. but as hard and scary as writing can be, trading the joy of getting to write and create for soulless robotmade works will always be such a shame.

remember; writing is art, and it takes practice to master your craft.

started doodling my Hero of Kvatch and made her look a lil evil in the process

Never have, never will. If someone couldn't be bothered to write that shit, then I won't waste a second of my precious time on Earth reading it.

a writing competition i was going to participate in again this year has announced that they now allow AI generated content to be submitted

their reasoning being that "we couldn't ban it even if we wanted to, every writer already uses it anyway"

"Every writer"?

come on

"If you use em dash in your works, it makes them look AI generated. No real human uses em dash."

Imaging thinking actual human writers are Not Real because they use... professional writing in their works.

Imagine thinking millions of people who have been using em dash way before AI becomes a thing are all robots.

REBLOG IF YOU'RE A HUMAN AND YOU USE EM DASH

Fanfiction is great because you can see so clearly how people learn to write.

Some people, it's clear, learned almost entirely through absorbing the world around them. Grammar and punctuation will be all over the place, spellings are approximate, but the voice of the narration will come through so clearly. You can hear the dialect of the people around them as of they're telling the story. It's not a written story, it's a transcription of how they talk in their day to day life.

Some people learned through reading a gazillion books as a kid. Grammer and spelling will be rock solid, formatting occasionally based on the single tab of physical books rather than the double tab of online scrolling, but dialogue is often stilted and overly formal. You might notice a lack of contractions and very rigid rules they made for consistency that actually have a lot more flexibility than they think. They tend to have a fantastic grasp of sentence flow, though.

And other people formally learned how to write. This could be anywhere from taking school classes seriously because they enjoyed writing stories as a kid to literal certifications and jobs in the field. Grammer is flawless. Punctuation is triple checked. Foreign words are in italics. Characters have distinct voices. But their self indulgence is tempered by perfectionism. They know precisely what they want from a fic. Authors notes often feature mutterings about their happiness with the chapter. Kaomojis often appear! They seek a style to their writing, and it makes for some wonderfully clever plots! These are the ones most likely to get fun with formatting!

And some people.... Some people examined it all. They dissect dialogue, people watch, cross reference behaviours and compare characters to people irl. You can tell almost immediately who had formative experiences with Terry pratchett and/or ghibli, because it's these people. While others see writing as fun, expression, craft, they see it as art. Plain and simple. Sure, the grammar is occasionally sacrificed on the altar of creative freedom, and the occasional sentence might miss a full stop, but these people seem to self reflect on themselves as part of the art making process. On occasion, these people have the most masterful grasp of dialogue and invocation and hand sewn characterisations. Formatting is pretty standard because all the focus is on the actual words. These fics can be edited to the moon and back!

All of these can vary wildly in forethought and quality, and betas can often catch individual problems before they hit post, but just. Isn't it so cool? What's that one Oscar Wilde quote about every mask just being another fragment of yourself?

Did you recognise yourself?

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another Angie study in PTS

This is not the first time I've done this render, but the third. Here's the original and here's the first redo. Fingers crossed this is the final time I do this XD

reblog if you’re a writer who’s very terrible at responding to comments from your readers, but has read them all and loves and appreciates each and every single one of them very dearly

Writing is wild because you’ll plan a perfectly structured scene and then your character is like

“actually I’m gonna kiss this person now” or “what if I had a traumatic backstory I’ve never mentioned before”

and suddenly you’re spiraling because THEY’RE MAKING CHOICES and you’re just the poor little author with no control

like sir. ma’am. i gave you life. and now you’re rewriting your own plot??

Reblog this and tell me the most unhinged thing a character of yours did without permission.

I need solidarity. i need chaos. i need to know i’m not the only one getting bullied by their own cast.

You’re not just a writer.

You’re a goddamn survivor of your own imagination.

You live with noise in your head that never shuts up until you bleed it onto the page, and even then, it whispers, “Make it better.”

So if you're in the UK you have probably heard about the proposed changes to disability benefits. If not, here is a BBC News article (link) about it, and the Big Issue (link) have been running basically non-stop articles about it since the announcement.

Crucially, the government is holding a consultation. Will as many of us as possible weighing in change the outcome? Possibly, though it's far from guaranteed. Will not filling it in help the situation in the slightest? No. So let's all have a go.

You can find the full Green Paper here: (link) and the options to respond are at the bottom of it, including the link to respond online, which is also here: (link)

It's also always worth contacting your MP to let them know what you think, if only to get a response on fancy Commons stationery. You can find your MP here: (link)

So, have at it, UK folks! (These proposals don't apply to Northern Ireland as benefits are transferred, but they are still taking NI comments and sharing them with the Department for Communities, so you may be able to influence whether this approach is taken up in NI in future, too)

And if nothing else, please reblog!

It’s not even funny how relatable this is.

Slow progress is still progress, dammit

It's been a hot second (i.e. an ungodly amount of time) since I posted anything to do with my third and final AoD-sequel novel. Suffice to say I'm genuinely uncomfortable talking about the progress – or lack thereof – of WIPs, especially when they've been WIPs for so long they've started sprouting little purple tendrils and have knotted together into a Lovecraftian horror under the sink.

This is in no small part because of my ongoing health issues. Privacy is very important to me, but it's also no secret that I'm disabled with multiple chronic conditions. I'd hoped, back at the launch of Path of the Black Alchemist in the summer of 2023, to have wrapped up this project and published the final book by Christmas. Or at least spring 2024. Or the next Christmas for certain.

Life, of course, has had other ideas...

The important thing is that the third book IS coming and I AM making progress – even though at times it feels so unbearably slow that it's in danger of being overtaken by hibernating snails. It's no coincidence that part of Lara Croft's arc in this story is about coming to terms with her limitations and accepting/offering help; a huge part of my own life's journey has involved deconstructing my internalised ableism and learning that it's okay – even necessary – to embrace support from others. We're so conditioned to be perfect little self-sufficient, independent individuals that reaching out during hard times can automatically make us feel like a failure.

In reality, nothing could be further from the truth... as Lara finds out the hard way.

Another factor of this challenge is trying to reach out more online. To connect and grow with other creative minds. Hence, this post. Fatigue/energy limitations are a HUGE part of my daily life, so setting spoons aside purely for this is a Big Deal (TM) for me. Tumblr feels like a safer, more welcoming place to write more of these long-form musings than other SM platforms, so we'll see. It's counterproductive for me to make grandious promises about posting every day, or even every week, but it'd be cool to reach out more and try to open up a little after so long retreating into myself these past few years.

I'm also considering (but haven't yet committed to) sharing my works over on AoE. On the one hand, it's more work in the short term. But on the other, I'm seeing a lot of engagement and encouragement in the AoE community even here on Tumblr. Those of you who use it regularly: what would you recommend?

Bon chance xxx

fanfic writers are so fucking awesome man. they write novel length fics that are sometimes even better than some published bestselling books written by professional writers. like fanfic writers are professional writers to me and they gift us their masterpieces for free. they give us something we can look forward to after a long day. something from which we can seek comfort when life is hard. something that can be our own little getaway. in a world of capitalism, despite everything, they give us all of these for free. like holy fuck. shout out to every fanfic writer. I wish all fanfic writers a very ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. I thank you from the bottom of my heart’

memes are fun and relatable and all that, but don't let them discourage you. all of that stuff that doesn't make it into the final product is part of how the final product gets made

i’m going to hold your hands when i say this and i am only going to be kind about it once: ai does not belong in fandom spaces, ever. not in writing, not in art, not in video, not at all. it does not matter how bad you want to see your favourite characters kiss, or how much you need a bit of help finishing a chapter, or whatever.

make friends with artists. commission somebody. learn to draw yourself. ask for a beta read. try a writing partnership. fandom spaces are communities, so engage with them! it is about the journey and the fact that we all love something enough to create and build together about that thing.

spending 30 seconds to kill a tree and get an AI to push out some soulless empty piece of “content” is antithetical to the entire point of being engaged with fandom, and if you’ve taken to doing this you should really reconsider if you belong in these spaces with the rest of us.

no you have to contribute to your fandom if you don't want it to die. most fandoms die because people say 'it's so sad watching the fandom die when the hype dies' without doing anything about it. I'm not saying you have to push out 100k word slow-burn fic, I'm not saying you have to make fan art or gif sets or edits or anything. I'm just saying we as a community should contribute to our fandom if we don't want it to die, and by contributing, I'm talking about giving kudos, commenting on your favorite fics, reblogging your favorite art and just talking about your favorite characters. that's enough to keep a fandom alive. that's the most effective way to keep a fandom alive in my humble opinion.

fandoms die because people stop talking about it, fandoms die because people stop engaging with fan content once the hype is gone. what I'm saying is, mainstream media's hype may be gone, but our fandom can stay alive and thriving if us as a community don't let it die.

Seriously, knock yourselves out with my full blessing xxx 🥰❤️💪

reblog if you’re okay with people writing fanfics of your fanfics and/or fanfics inspired by your fanfics

angel of darkness

Yo i have some open slots for headshots portraits (again) so hmu here on via my email if you want a spot :) [email protected]

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