Tag: J.S. Pailly

Living with a Star

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 6 Comments

Hello, friends!

I love space, you love space—lots and lots of people love space.  It’s easy to get large numbers of people hyped up about outer space!  But as soon as you start talking about funding space exploration, the mood shifts.  Folks get uncomfortable, and it turns out that space can be a controversial topic after all.  So today, I want to talk about one of the reasons (just one of the reasons) why space exploration is worth the high price tag.  It has to do with the Sun.

Earth has a complicated relationship with the Sun.  Sure, the Sun gives Earth something to orbit.  It also provides Earth with light and heat and generally makes this planet livable.  However, the Sun also throws spectacular temper tantrums, flinging all sorts of high energy radiation and electrically charged particles out into space.  Sometimes, when the Sun throws a temper tantrum, it flings all those charged particles and all that super scary radiation directly at Earth.

Fortunately, Earth’s magnetic field protects us, deflecting the danger away or redirecting it toward Earth’s poles (this is what causes auroras).  And so, for the vast majority of human history, the Sun could throw all the temper tantrums she liked, and we haven’t had to worry about it much down here on the ground.  That changed on September 1st, 1859.

On that day, English astronomer Richard Carrington was studying sunspots on the Sun (using the proper safety filters on his telescope, I presume) when he observed an absolutely stupendous flash of light.  Most likely, Carrington witnessed what we now call a coronal mass ejection, or C.M.E.  Seventeen hours later, that C.M.E. hit Earth.  It’s said that the resulting auroras stretched from the poles to the tropics and were bright enough to turn night into day.  I’ve read some versions of this story that claim auroras were even visible at Earth’s equator.

The Carrington Event, as we now call it, in Richard Carrington’s honor, must have been a beautiful sight.  However, this was also the first time a C.M.E. of that magnitude hit Earth while Earth was wired up with telegraph lines.  As Earth’s magnetic field reacted to the impact of the C.M.E., induced electric currents wreaked havoc up and down the world’s telegraph network.  Telegraph operators received electric shocks.  Telegraph equipment started shooting sparks.  In some instances, those sparks started fires.

The world today is even more wired up with technology than it was in 1859, so how bad would it be if something like the Carrington Event happened again?  No one really knows, but the Sun doesn’t need to produce another Carrington Event to mess with our technology.  Much weaker solar events have damaged or disabled our satellites in orbit, triggered power outages here on the ground, and caused radio communications blackouts.  Solar storms pose radiation hazards for astronauts, obviously, but they can also put the passengers and crew of aircraft at risk, especially if those aircraft are flying anywhere near Earth’s north or south poles.  Solar storms are enough of a problem that insurance companies are paying attention, and they get nervous whenever the Sun stars acting up (see the “want to learn more?” section below if you want to learn more).

So in the early 2000’s, NASA created the Living With a Star program, or L.W.S.  Because, for better or worse, the Sun is right there, and we have to live with it.  As of this writing, there are three active L.W.S. missions in space, plus a few other solar science missions that operate outside the L.W.S. program.  They’re all monitoring the Sun, gathering new data about solar physics, doing their best to give us a least a little warning whenever the Sun decides to hurl a giant, radioactive fireball our way.  In time, perhaps these missions will teach us why the Sun’s temper tantrums happen in the first place, so that we can better predict when they’ll happen next.

I heard something on a podcast recently: there is a difference between knowing the cost of a thing and understanding the value of that thing.  Space exploration costs an enormous amount of money.  There’s no denying that.  But for a society like ours, on an increasingly technological world like ours, the value of something like the International Living With a Star program far exceeds the cost.  This is just one example of why space exploration is worthwhile, despite the high price tag, and in upcoming posts I’m planning to offer other examples, too.

Thank you for reading, friends.  I hope to talk to you again soon.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Click here to read “The Carrington Event: History’s greatest solar storm” from Space.com

Click here to visit NASA’s website for the Living With a Star Program.

I mentioned that solar storms can make insurance companies nervous.  Click here for an article on how much money the insurance industry could potentially lose due to an “extreme space weather event.”

And lastly, here’s a link to the podcast I mentioned near the end of my post.  The podcast is called Stories from Space, and the episode is titled “WTF is Happening at NASA?”

The art used in today’s post is my own original work.  If you like my art, please consider visiting the I-Love-Space store on RedBubble.  Shopping on RedBubble is a great way to support artists (like me) so that we can keep doing what we do.  Thank you!

IWSG: I Believe in Fairies

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 24 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Jennifer Lane, L Diane Wolfe, Jenni Enzor, and Natalie Aguirre.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well then good news!  This is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

As you can probably tell from the name of my blog, I love space.  I also love science and science fiction.  I’ve been loving space, science, and science fiction for such a long time now that I’ve developed a highly scientific, highly evidence-based view of the world.  I don’t pay attention to astrology.  I don’t take tarot cards or Ouija boards seriously.  I don’t knock on wood or worry about black cats crossing my path.  I don’t believe in any superstitions except one: I do believe in fairies.

That’s because I happen to know a fairy.  I call her my muse, and she can be super annoying sometimes, always pestering me with new ideas and nagging me about writing whenever I take even the shortest possible break from writing.

It’s hard to deny the existence of fairies when there’s this one fairy who just will not leave you alone, not even for one goddamn minute!

Anyway, the real point I’m trying to make is that there is a highly scientific, highly evidence-based approach you could take to writing.  You could learn all about the craft of writing.  You could study plot and characterization.  You could memorize all the heroic archetypes and all twelve steps of the monomythic journey.  You could find out what words like synecdoche and antimetabole mean and then apply those concepts to your writing.

And… okay, sure, you should spend some time learning about those things.  But don’t get too technical about writing.  Don’t take too scientific of an approach.  Leave room for sudden inspiration.  Be prepared for things to suddenly make sense, and you can’t explain why.  That’s probably your muse sprinkling fairy dust on your head, causing the magical side of writing to happen.

P.S.: Of course, the great science communicator Carl Sagan once said exactly what I’m trying to say, except much more succinctly: “A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”

Who Is J.S. Pailly?

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 14 Comments

Hello, friends!  Every once in a while, I think it’s good for bloggers to reintroduce themselves.  My name is James Serain Pailly, and I love space.

I love other things too, of course.  I love good food.  I love a glass of fine wine.  I love taking naps in the middle of the afternoon.  I collect books.  I have a few really nice leather-bound classics that I’m really, really proud of.  I also collect Lego, and I have several Lego sets on display in my house that I’m really proud of, too.  I love making art.  I love… well, sometimes I have mixed feelings about writing, but when the  muse is with me, I do love to write.  Oh, and I have a few close friends whom I love very much (you know who you are!).

But on this blog, I mainly talk about my love for space.  And on that note, dear reader, there is something I want to make sure you understand about me: I am not a scientist.  I’m not an aerospace engineer.  I don’t have any professional experience with space exploration whatsoever.  I’m just really enthusiastic about this stuff.  I read a lot about space, and I’m always trying to learn more.  Thanks to all that learning and all that reading, plus all that enthusiasm, the way I talk about space sometimes makes people think I must work at NASA, or something.  So I just want to clarify, for anybody who might get the wrong impression, that I don’t work at NASA.  I don’t work in the aerospace industry.  I’m just a big, big fan of space.

I also want to clarify (because this is another assumption people sometimes make about me) that my obsession with space and space exploration does not extend to U.F.O.s.  I used to be more openminded about U.F.O.s (or U.A.P.s, which seems to be the more politically correct term for them these days), but time and again the evidence never seems to hold up to scrutiny.  So no, I don’t take U.F.O.s seriously.  Or alien abductions, or conspiracy theories about reptilians running the government, or anything else along those lines.

I’m also not into astrology, though I do enjoy the astrology aesthetic.

One last thing I feel I should tell you: I’m in the LGBT community.  To be more specific, I’m a genderqueer bisexual.  That’s not super relevant to anything we talk about on this blog, but I also don’t want anyone to think I have something to hide or that I’m ashamed of who I am.  In other words: I’m here, I’m queer, now let’s get back to talking about space.

I haven’t been blogging much these last few months.  That’s due primarily to work-related stress.  You may be wondering: “So James, if you don’t work at NASA, where do you work?”  Well, dear reader, I work in news.  News is a depressing line of work, even at the best of times, and these are not exactly the best of times.  All the stress and all the anxiety of my day job has kept me from blogging, which is a real shame because blogging about space (i.e. blogging about a thing I love!) is one of the best ways I know to manage my stress and reduce my anxiety.

But I’m hoping to turn that around.  Today, I’m recommitting myself to writing this blog and posting on a more regular basis, because despite everything, I still love space.  If you also love space, then I hope you’ll join me on this adventure.

Thanks for reading, friends.  I’ll talk to you again soon.

IWSG: How Writing Changes You

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 12 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

I am not the same person I was 20 years ago.  In some respects, I’m sickened to think of the person I was 20 years ago.  My outlook on life and on the world has completely changed.  I left my church, I switched political parties, I came out of the closet, I lost a lot of friends, I went no contact with my family… it’s been a rough 20 years.  It was also about 20 years ago that I began my writing journey.

Which ties in nicely with this month’s question.  Each month, IWSG asks us an optional question, and this month’s question is:

Is there a story or book you’ve written you want to/wish you could go back and change?

Oh yes.  Very much yes.  When I think about my writing from 20 years ago, I’m sickened by some of the things I wrote.  Fortunately for me, very little of that old writing was published, and even less of it is still out there on the Internet today.

But while I’m glad that those old stories aren’t out there to be seen, I do not regret writing them.  You see, one of the magical things about writing is that it reveals to you who you really are and what you really believe.  I was raised to believe certain things.  I thought I knew who I was and what my place in the world was supposed to be.  But whenever I tried to express those beliefs in a story, the story felt… disingenuous.  Halfhearted.  Unconvincing, even to me.

Writing can reveal deep, personal truths to you.  Sometimes it will reveal truths that you’re not prepared to deal with just yet.  And you don’t have to be super introspective or meditative about your writing process for this to happen.  It could be as simple as thinking “Huh, my protagonist seems like a hypocrite,” or “Huh, my antagonist raises some really good points.”  (Or maybe—I don’t know, purely hypothetical example—that Sci-Fi utopia you’re working on keeps sounding like a dystopia, no matter what you do).  That could be the first sign that your own writing is trying to teach you something about yourself.

I suspect a lot of older, more seasoned writers already know what I’m talking about in this post.  As for any new, younger writers who might be reading this, keep an open mind.  Pay attention to what your own writing is trying to tell you.  If you do, the act of writing may change you.

What’s It Like Seeing Earth from Space?

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 6 Comments

Hello, friends!

I don’t know about you, but whenever I stop and look up at the nighttime sky, I feel… something.  It’s hard to explain.  And if I take out my telescope to look more closely at the planets and nebulae and galaxies up there, I feel that same indescribable something even more.  Whatever it is I feel, it’s a powerful, almost spiritual thing.  But as powerful as that experience is, I’m told it’s nothing compared to the feeling you get when you’re up in space, looking not farther out into the cosmos but rather looking back at the Earth.

In 1987, American author and space exploration advocate Frank White coined the term “overview effect” to describe the experience so many astronauts report having when they first see the Earth from space.  These astronauts don’t just look at Earth and think, “Huh, neat view.”  They describe this as a life changing experience, a dramatic shift in belief and perspective, a sudden realization that our world is precious and fragile and that we all must set aside our differences and work toward the common good.

If only more people could have an experience like that, maybe the world would be in a better state than it is currently in.  That would be great, wouldn’t it?  Well, there are individuals and organizations working to make this an experience more people can have.  One option is, of course, to make commercial spaceflight more affordable.  Another is to try to simulate the overview effect in virtual reality.  But if more people could see our planet for what it truly is—not as a globe crisscrossed by national borders but rather as a singular world that we all must share—that might bring about some real change.  It might, right?

Now obviously there’s been some criticism of this idea, and I do think some of the criticism is valid.  Even among those who’ve been to space, who’ve experienced the overview effect for themselves, and who’ve come back eager to do good things for our planet and our species… even among those people, some of them still say some troubling things.  For example, during the Cold War, Soviet cosmonauts would sometimes remark that seeing the Earth laid out before them reinforced their belief that communism must be spread all across the world.  American astronauts occasionally say similar things about spreading freedom and democracy.  Even if we all want to do good things for our planet, we’ll still disagree about what good things our planet needs us to do.

Frank White has acknowledged this issue in some of his writings.  If you’re one of the people lucky enough to see the Earth from space, cultural and political biases, religious beliefs, personal history… all sorts of factors may influence how you describe the overview effect to others, or how you interpret the experience for yourself.  But it does seem that no matter who you are or where you come from, seeing the Earth from space is a powerful and humbling experience.  Maybe White and others in the overview effect movement are right.  Maybe it would do some good if more people could have this experience for themselves.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

A few years ago, William Shatner (a.k.a. Captain Kirk from Star Trek) went to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket.  What he saw moved him to tears.  Regardless of how you might feel about Blue Origin or its owner, Jeff Bezos, I think what Shatner had to say about the experience is worth hearing.  Click here.

Friend of the blog Matt Williams had the chance to interview Frank White a few years back, and I’m super jealous about it.  Click here to listen to that interview on Matt’s podcast, Stories from Space.

Jordan Bimm is one of the most noteworthy critics of the overview effect and the overview effect movement.  Click here to read his paper “Rethinking the Overview Effect,” which lays out his main points.

I’d also recommend reading Frank White’s response, entitled “Rethinking ‘Rethinking the Overview Effect.’”  Click here for that.

The art used in today’s post is my own original work. If you like my art, please consider visiting the I-Love-Space store on RedBubble. Shopping on RedBubble is a great way to support artists (like me) so that we can keep doing what we do. Thank you!

IWSG: I Don’t Actually Like Writing

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 25 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Ronel, Deniz, Pat Garcia, Olga Godim, and Cathrina Constantine.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

For most of my life, I’ve been telling people that I love writing.  But (confession time) that’s not entirely true.  I don’t love writing.  Most days, I don’t even like writing.  Writing is a tedious, time-consuming process that requires me to think really hard about words when I’d rather be watching Netflix.  I mean, have you seen Arcane?  That show is so good!!!  Wait, no… I need to stay on topic.  What was I talking about?  Oh yeah: writing sucks.  I hate it.  So why do I keep doing it?

Whenever I go around claiming (erroneously, as you now know) that I love to write, people will inevitably start suggesting things that I ought to write about.  I’ve been told that I ought to write smut, because that’s how you make the easy money (I’ve met writers who write erotica, and I know it’s not such an easy way to make money).  I’ve been told I ought to write a book about Abraham Lincoln, because it’s about time the truth came out about Lincoln (the person who suggested this… I do not know what he was talking about, and I don’t want to know).  I’ve been told I ought to write about what it was like to live through a global pandemic, because that’s an interesting experience that I’ve had (and other people haven’t, I guess???).

As a writer, it takes a lot to get me to sit down and do my writing.  All those suggestions from random people in my life—I’m sure somebody could write a good book about those things, but I cannot muster up enough enthusiasm to write about them myself.  I’d much rather curl up in bed and rewatch Three Body Problem on my laptop.  That scene in the Panama Canal gives me chills every time.  So upsetting.  Anyway… sorry, we were talking about writing.

For some strange reason, those same people who keep telling me what I ought to write about also keep telling me what not to write about.  They don’t think I should spend so much time writing about space.  They say I’ll never get rich, like E.L. James, by writing about space.  And maybe that’s true.  But here’s the thing: I love space.  I hecking LOVE outer space.  I mean, outer space is so cool!  Unless you wander too close to a star, in which case outer space gets face-meltingly hot.  Gravity’s weird up there.  There might be aliens.  All the planets (besides Earth, of course) are straight-up death traps, but we’re going to try to live on some of them anyway.  Remember to bring your own oxygen, and remember to hold on to your oxygen tank like your life depends on it (because it does).

Space is just so exciting to me!  It’s exciting enough that I’m willing to spend hours upon hours of my own free time writing about it.  That’s time I could’ve spent watching… I don’t know, Stranger Things, or something?  Doesn’t matter.  The point is I love space so much that I’m willing and eager to write about it, despite the fact that I don’t actually like writing all that much.

So going forward, I may still tell people, from time to time, that I love writing.  But between you and me, dear reader, you’ll know what I really mean.  You’re in on my secret now.  To me, writing is merely a means to an end.  It’s a tool I use to express a more important thought.  Namely, that I love space.

So friends, what do you love?  What do you love so much that you’re willing to write about it?

IWSG: I Love Lovecraftian Horror

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 20 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Nancy Gideon, Jennifer Lane, Jacqui Murray, and Natalie Aguirre.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  If so, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more.

Each month, the Insecure Writer’s Support Group asks us an optional question.  IWSG members can answer the question if they want, or they can skip it if there’s something else they want/need to talk about instead.  This month’s optional question is:

Ghost stories fit right in during this month.  What’s your favorite classic ghostly tale?  Tell us about it and why it sends chills up your spine.

I almost skipped this month’s question.  Ghost stories don’t do much for me.  I have a very sciency worldview, unfortunately, so stories about the occult or the paranormal don’t give me much of a thrill or a fright.  But there is an author who bridged the gap between science and the supernatural well enough to freak me the f*** out.  That authors’ name is H.P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft did most of his writing in the 1920’s and 30’s.  He died young, unfortunately, in 1937.  As I understand his biography, Lovecraft was a huge fan of Edgar Allan Poe and was inspired by Poe’s work; however, Lovecraft believed that the traditional ghost story needed to be updated for modern times and modern, scientific sensibilities.  So rather than leaning on ghosts and devils, Lovecraft filled his stories with theoretical physics, extraterrestrial intelligences, and occasional references to a certain newly discovered planet (Pluto).

My favorite Lovecraft story is called “The Colour Out of Space.”  In that story, a meteor crashes on Earth, introducing an extraterrestrial something to the local environment.  The local environment begins to change as a result.  Plants and animals become weirdly mutated, and the humans living on a nearby farm gradually lose their sanity.  No one can explain what’s happening.  No one can explain what that thing from outer space is or even describe what it looks like.  The best anyone can say is that it’s a color unlike any color seen before by human eyes (hence the title of the story).

I can’t think of many stories where alien life forms are presented as truly unknowable beings.  There are the alien monoliths from 2001: A Space Odyssey.  There are the replicas from Solaris, or the sphere from Michael Crichton’s Sphere.  But that thing from “The Colour Out of Space”… whatever that thing was, it was the most incomprehensible of all incomprehensible aliens in science fiction.  And that truly scares me.

I love space and I love science fiction.  One of my dearest hopes for the future is that we will one day make contact with aliens—aliens like E.T. or Mr. Spock.  You know: the kind of aliens we can be friends with.  But that may not be what happens.  If/when we discover alien life, the aliens may be something totally and completely beyond human comprehension (and we humans may seem equally incomprehensible to whatever alien intelligence happens to discover us).  That’s a scenario that terrifies me, and it should terrify anyone who lives on this rather small and extremely vulnerable planet.

IWSG: Unlearning Grammar Rules

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 17 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Beth Camp, Jean Davis, Yvonne Ventresca, and PJ Colando.  If you’re a writer and if you feel insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this awesomely supportive group!

Each month, IWSG asks members an optional question.  This month’s question is:

Since it’s back to school time, let’s talk about English class.  What’s a writing rule you learned in school that messed you up as a writer?

One of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me is: “You make me want to go learn stuff.”  I love learning.  I love learning about history, about mythology, about the arts, about science—most of all, I love learning about space!  But one of the most important lessons I’ve learned as a life-long learner is that you need to unlearn many of the things they taught you in school.  Today, I’d like to share a few rules of English grammar that I had to unlearn in order to become a better writer.

Thou shalt not split an infinitive.

I’m a Star Trek fan.  I’ve been hearing various captains of the starship Enterprise split infinitives my whole life, every time they say “to boldly go where no one has gone before.”  Aside from the fact that “to boldly go” sounds way cooler that “to go boldly,” there are instances where splitting or not splitting an infinitive might change the meaning of a sentence.  For example, “She decided to quickly fight back” does not mean the same thing as “She decided quickly to fight back.”

Thou shalt not end a sentence with a preposition.

There’s a famous quote about this rule.  “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”  I always thought that quote came from Winston Churchill, making him a staunch opponent of both real Nazis and grammar Nazis.  But while fact checking this blog post, I learned that there’s some dispute over whether or not Churchill really said this.

Anyway, the quote still illustrates what’s wrong with the “don’t end sentences with prepositions” rule.  Strict adherence to the rule can produce some cumbersome and convoluted writing.  Part of the problem is that sometimes what looks like a preposition is actually part of a phrasal verb: a string of words that function, grammatically, as a single verb.  “To put up with” is a phrasal verb, and “This is the sort of English I won’t put up with” would be a perfectly normal and natural English sentence.

Thou shalt not use “they” as a singular pronoun.

Okay, I’m going to gloss over the usage of “they/them” to refer to non-binary people, at least for now.  That’s related to the point I want to make, but it is not the main point I want to make.

In school, I was taught that “they,” “their,” and “them” must never be used to refer back to a singular noun.  For example, if somebody wrote “A person cannot help their birth,” this would be marked as wrong because “a person” is singular and “their” is supposedly plural.

But some pronouns do serve double duty.  For example, the word “you” does double duty as both a singular and plural pronoun, and there are examples in other languages of pronouns serving multiple grammatical functions as well.  Regarding singular they in English, it’s been around for centuries.  Examples can be found in Chaucer, Shakespeare, and the King James Bible.  The example I used above comes from Vanity Fair by William Thackeray, published in 1848.

At some point in by life-long learning journey, I came across a more honest and accurate rule for the usage of singular they: they, their, and them can refer back to a singular noun when a plural noun in implied or when the gender of the singular noun is ambiguous (the ambiguous gender part then leads to the modern usage of they/them for non-binary people).

So why did my teachers in school tell me I can’t split an infinitive when Captain Kirk and Captain Picard did it so freely?  Why did they tell me I can’t end a sentence with a preposition when all I did was use a phrasal verb?  Why did they tell me not to use singular they when singular they has been part of the English language for hundreds and hundreds of years?  Because of Latin.

At some point in history, the intellectual class in England decided that English was too messy and improper of a language.  They looked at Latin, with all its noun declensions and elaborate verb conjugations, and said, “Now that’s what a right and proper language ought to be,” and they started to impose the rules of Latin grammar onto English.  And that’s why we have these dumb rules in our language today.

Now I love Latin.  It’s a fun and beautiful language, and I wish more people were familiar with it.  But English is a fun and beautiful language in its own right.  English is also a weird and quirky language, whereas Latin tends to be more rigid and strict.  So if you want to be a better writer of English (not Latin), it helps to unlearn some of those Latinesque rules we learned in school, and start to understand and appreciate the weirdness and quirkiness of natural English grammar.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

I’m going to recommend this article from JSTOR Daily, titled “Dear Pedants: Your Fav Gammar Rule is Probably Fake.”

Regarding singular they, a particularly controversial grammar issue these days, here’s an article from Medium entitled “Befuddled by Singular They?”

And lastly, if you’re looking for a deep dive into the history of English grammar, I highly recommend the book Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue: The Untold History of English by John McWhorter.

IWSG: No One Can Say It For Me, Not Even an AI

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 18 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Feather Stone, Kim Lajevardi, Diedre Knight, C. Lee MaKanzie, and Sarah – The Faux Fountain Pen!  If you’re a writer and if you feel insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this awesomely supportive group.

Each month, IWSG asks us an optional question, and this month’s question taps into one of my current insecurities as both a writer and an artist.

Do you use AI in your writing and if so how?  Do you use it for your posts?  Incorporate it into your stories?  Use it for research?  Audio?

Short answer: no.  No, I don’t, and I doubt that I ever will.

Longer answer: a year or two ago, when the AI craze started taking hold, I did experiment with AI a little, just to see what the hype was about.  I had an AI generate some Sci-Fi art for me, and I had a different AI rewrite some of my old blog posts.  My initial reaction, when I saw the work AI could produce, was “Wow, this is really impressive.”  I also thought, initially, “Oh no… this is better than what I can do.”

But as I played with AI more and more, I became less and less impressed with it.  Sometimes, it does shockingly good work, but more often it spits out garbage.

More importantly, the AI never (not even once) gave me what I actually wanted.  The AI generated Sci-Fi art looked cool, but it wasn’t what I was picturing in my head.  Not even close.  As for the AI rewritten blog posts, I’ll admit that the AI wrote cleaner, tighter prose than I do.  It had this verbally efficient style that many style guides and writing gurus try to teach you.  But after a while, all that super clean, super tight writing started to sound very samey.  It felt dull and soulless to me.

Also, when I write blog posts about space and science, I’m really trying to express two things: first, my sense of awe and wonder about the cosmos, and second, my hope for humanity’s future out there among the stars.  When I let the AI rewrite my blog posts, it repackaged all the space and science facts reasonably well, but any themes of wonder or hope for the future got lost in translation.

I’m still deeply concerned about AI intruding into the domains of art and literature, mainly because so many big players in the tech industry keep insisting that AI can and should be used for these things.  But for my own creative process, AI offers me very little.  Basically nothing.  I do my art and I do my writing because there’s something inside me that I desperately want to express, that I desperately need to express.  This thing inside me that I’m trying to express through my art and my writing—no one else can express it for me, not even an AI.

P.S.: Sorry for not being active on the blog this past month.  I haven’t been feeling well, but I’m recovering, and I should have more space and science stuff for you in the month to come.

IWSG: The Ultimate Writing Machine

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 72 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and cohosted this month by Rebecca Douglass, Pat Garcia, Louise-Fundy Blue, Natalie Aguirre, and J.S. Pailly (hey wait a minute, that’s me!!!).  If you’re a writer and if you feel insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this amazingly supportive group, or click here to check out the IWSG Facebook page.

Each month, IWSG asks us an optional question.  It is totally optional!  IWSG members do not have to answer the question if they don’t want to, or if there’s something else they need to talk about instead.  This month’s optional question is:

What are your favorite writing processing (e.g. Word, Scrivner, yWriter, Dabble), writing apps, software, and tools?  Why do you recommend them?  And which one is your all time favorite that you cannot live without and use daily or at least whenever you write?

As you know, I love space, and I love science.  Based on those two statements, you might expect that I’d also love technology, or that I’d at least feel somewhat comfortable using technology.  But no.  There’s something about sitting in front of a computer screen that makes the creative side of my brain switch off.  Ergo, I don’t use writing software or writing apps much.  I do almost all of my writing the old fashioned way, with pen and paper.

Now I’m not trying to be a hipster about this.  I don’t want to wax poetic about the magical sound of a pen scratching on crisp, white paper.  Writing by hand is not—absolutely not—a better, more sophisticated, more intellectually proper way to write.  It is simply that I cannot “good words do” (as Patrick Rothfuss once described writing) when I’m staring at a computer screen, so writing by hand is my only option.

I do use a computer (obviously!), but only at the very end of my writing process.  Once I have a fully finished draft written out by hand, I take it to my computer, go into a fugue state, and mindlessly transcribe whatever I wrote into a word processor.  Which word processor?  It doesn’t matter.  I don’t have strong feelings about these things.  But I do have strong feelings about pens.  So let me tell you about the Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball Pen.

Pilot Precise Rolling Ball pens are marketed as “the ultimate writing machine.”  They’re ballpoint pens with super fine, almost needle-like tips.  According to the marketing copy, these pens use a “unique ink formula” and an “advanced ink feed system for smooth, skip free writing.”  That sounds like marketing B.S., but this is one of the rare cases where the marketing B.S. is actually true.

When I’m in the zone, deep in the flow state of writing, totally lost in my own imaginary world, I don’t want to worry about having any sort of trouble with my pen.  And with Pilot Precise pens, I never do.  Just as words flow from my mind, ink flows smoothly and consistently from my pen onto the page.  It’s such a satisfying writing experience.  And given how incredible these pens are, they’re surprisingly affordable.  Depending on where you shop for office supplies, you can usually get a pack of twelve pens for under $20.

The pens come in two sizes: the V7 and the V5.  I prefer the V5.  The V7 makes a slightly thicker, slightly heavier line.  Nothing wrong with that, but the V5’s slightly thinner, slightly finer line feels more elegant and graceful.  The pens also come in a wide variety of colors, which helps me color code different projects, or keep track of different drafts of the same project.  The first draft of this blog post was written in green.  The second draft was pink, and the third draft was purple.  This made it easy for me to see, at a glance, which pages needed to be transcribed into the computer and which ones didn’t.

So I can’t offer any recommendations for writing apps or writing software.  I barely use a computer at all in my writing process.  But for those of you who write using pen and paper, I can recommend the Pilot Precise V5 Rolling Ball Pen.  And try out the multicolor variety packs, if you see them in stores!  These are the only pens I use for writing.  They really are the ultimate writing machines (and nobody’s paying me to say that).

P.S.: This is my first time cohosting IWSG.  I’m super excited to be doing this today, and (fingers crossed) I hope I do a good job.