A Far Out Fantastic Site

Credit: Pixabay.com Updated at 6:53 PM on 3/21/2025 I won't be wishing anyone a Happy St. Patrick's Day here since it was originally a Catholic festival and so I try not to mix my religious beliefs with my blog posts, and I don't celebrate the commercialized, secular version of it. (I barely celebrate the religious version, unorthodox Catholic that I am.) Moving on ... The Author's Guild has come up with a service that helps consumers distinguish human authored books from AI authored ones. Paula Cappa discusses this in detail at her blog , which my comment on is below. I also have a mini movie review of "Mickey 17", which I saw over the weekend. So, read on!  Certification of Human-Authored Books The problem with books that are written by artificial intelligence (AI) is that they can hide the human-authored ones on the market and, in doing so, demean the human characteristic called creativity. A market bombarded with AI-written books would basically say that h...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I'm having to double up between the weekly Monday post and the IWSG post again. I had to take off the weekend and recuperate from a busy last few weeks of trying to make changes in my life for both health and financial reasons. So, for this post, I'm answering the IWSG optional question of the month, and I have updates on the stories I'm currently working on for my upcoming short fiction collection, "Bad Apps". I’ll also show you why it can be helpful to format your story before doing a proofreading of it.  IWSG Question for March The IWSG monthly question for March is: If for one day you could be anyone or *thing* in the world, what would it be? Describe, tell why, and any themes, goals, or values they/it ...

Credit: Wikimedia Commons One reason I'm calling today's post an "Unofficial" Book-To-Movie (BTM) is because this review of a movie adaptation of a book is not resuming the BTM series of posts [link]. That monthly series is still on hiatus until I release " Bad Apps " which I still don’t have a specific date for but am getting towards the end of the revision process for the whole book. Another reason for titling this post the way I did is because it can’t really be called a review. That’s because I did not view the movie in question since it cannot be viewed. (You’ll find out why in a bit.) I recently found out that in my BTM of the 1922 silent film, "Nosferatu", I had gotten two things wrong: 1) I said that the movie was the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, "Dracula"; and 2) that Universal's 1930s "Dracula" starring Bela Lugosi was only the first legally made adaptation of the novel. (I’ll be revising that...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. I missed posting on Monday, which is the day for my weekly blog post. I apologize for that; it was a busy and tiring weekend so I just wasn't up to blog writing. So, I'm doubling up on today's post with the IWSG topics and make-up for Monday’s missed post. For the IWSG, I have the optional question of the month, and a little bit of an accomplishment with my fiction writing I'd like to share. For the Monday make-up portion of the post, I have progress on my upcoming book of short fiction to share and some news about an upcoming change to my blog. So, keep reading! IWSG  Question of the Month So, starting with IWSG stuff, here's the question of the month: Is there a story or book you've written you want to/...

Credit: Pixabay I know, I’m posting this first weekly post of the year very late and I apologise. I did post earlier in the month, but that was for the monthly Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop . If you haven't had a chance to look at it, please do so. I talk a little about working on my writing over the holidays and how you can be a beta reader for “Bad Apps” , my upcoming book of short fiction! [link]  After that posting, I had a sinus infection that was keeping me awake too many nights and so was not up to writing as frequently as I normally do. My doctor subscribed me some meds, and so I’m doing much better.  For today’s post, I have my new year’s writing resolutions and a list of 13 science fiction and fantasy movie adaptations of books releasing in theatres in 2025! 2 New Year’s Writer’s Resolutions of 2025 In this new year of 2025, one resolution I’m trying to make is coming up with a clear schedule of all my writing projects, and that includes “Bad Apps”. I’ve b...

It's the first Wednesday of the month and so it’s time for another Insecure Writer’s Support Group (IWSG) blog hop! In an IWSG post, we writers bring our writing challenges and problems out into the open to share with each other and try to offer solutions. 2024 was an upside down year for me with my mom having passed away back in October (God, rest her soul) and so I had to ease off of most of my writing projects due to that. So, things got backed up a little at the end of last year and the beginning of this year. Plus, I had to ease off the regular writing routine for the holiday season. So, below is the current status of my overall writing activity. I normally answer the Question of the month which this month's is Describe someone you admired when you were a child. Did your opinion of that person change when you grew up?  However, I'm going to skip this one because, even though I admired a lot of people when I was a child--from my own dad and grandfathers to uncles and e...