Story Images

I've tricked out the Secret Writing Lair with a large leaded crystal, and now little rainbows are splashing themselves over the grape leaves and the foliate head.  This is a good thing, as it keeps my my mind off of the rising temperature.  At some point over the next week or two, the grapes will have produced bunches that are sweet enough to eat; we're hoping to get to them before resident night critters do.

Thursday night's full moon was more a meditation than an actual ritual.  I lit some incense, sat in the backyard circle, and listened to the evening sounds of frogs and crickets and the fountain.  Shortly after the moon rose, some neighbors about a block up the street began howling (later, Mark called it a full moon party).  It was kind of cute, but struck me at the time as slightly performative.  

I've continued to play around with MidJourney.  It's great for rendering abstract or general images, but I'm finding it difficult to direct the AI to produce images with a specific narrative that could be used as e-pub cover art.  Either the images become more uncanny as the AI adds extra heads, limbs, or body orifices or else it latches onto rendering an irrelevant object.  An attempt at a Victorian man at a large fireplace holding a chess knight resulted in a horse-headed gentleman with a hearth in his torso.  I think the trick is to not get too carried away by the AI's variations, which tend to become more bizarre and surreal as one goes along.

So, if I wanted an image that  Leonora Carrington might paint, the AI works great; aliens, I'm covered; specific fantasy story characters... well, if they were on fire or undead or extras from The Nightmare Before Christmas, I'd be good.  I did have some success pointing the AI to images to use as a starting point—Capricorn renderings looked more like goats and less like early experiments by Frankenstein.   Creating an image that will convince a reader to read the story, well... that's going to take some extra work.

Practically speaking, there might be a legal issue using AI generated images as cover art, because an AI (or the person using it) can't hold copyright for the image.  I suppose I'll have to look into the difference between using generated images and using public-domain images.

Writing wise... I reviewed some short stories and polished some bits that are more obviously in need of it after a period of not looking.  Another manuscript I looked at either needs to have the character's stakes heightened and the word-count shortened, or else I need to sit back and do some very loose outlining because the manuscript right now feels like an introductory chapter to a longer story.  I can see that my penchant for visual description needs to be reigned in, too,  

And I need to gear up submissions, too.