Destroying pleasure – using Generative AI to write

AI can be wonderful; it can be morally corrupt. It can ease our lives; it can destroy our creativity.

Now, I use AI for research. I regard Gemini, ChatGPT, Vibe as LLMs (large language models) which cut hours, possibly days, off my research. It’s a quick fix. It points me towards genuine sources which I […]

Keeping cool in the heat

Closed windows

Summer is here – warm, lazy days, extra wine, days out with the family and friends, a holiday away. But when the temperature is persistently over 30C, I tend to wilt. Yesterday reached 39C in the shade. My Muse has gone for a protracted lie down somewhere in a cool cave several metres underground.

Enter […]

Defeating copyright scams

The other week, I received a very legal seeming email for a German based company called Copytrack alleging that I had breached copy right of a photographer they represented and demanding the following:

Image license (valid for 1 year from date of purchase) 389€ Compensation costs (past usage) 350€ Payment due June 5 2025

(Can’t […]

To AI or not to AI? That is the question

Alison as a Roman (AI created)

AI – artificial intelligence – seems to be with us. Will it be a horror show stripping us all of jobs, or will it be a useful tool, shortcutting a lot of donkey work and letting us get on with more important creative stuff?

Let me be […]

Backing up your writing!

Frustrated businesswoman looking at her computer screen In dismay

Having slogged away for months and months researching and sweating creatively over my keyboard, I have finished a first draft of 107,000 words of a new novel and it’s gone for its first editorial pass. Hooray! But imagine the horror of losing all that work due to a digital disaster!

To prevent […]