DCP, we had a friend when DH was stationed in Germany whose wife had studied German in school. He had not. He was very animated and outgoing and, when attempting to communicate in German he spoke English with a heavy German accent and a few words of German and lots of facial and body language. His wife complained that nobody understood her scholarly German, but her husband was nearly always understood.

I enjoyed your tale.

Another publication hit me with "it's not you, it's us," today. (I've tried a bunch with this one; guess we're not going to happen. Does that really help anyone, for a computerized message to be like "You're SO great, but..." it hurts more that I've never made it in a Special Disability Issue, though. Especially since people point that out all "This has your name ALL OVER IT," and it *so* doesn't. ever.

That really sucks, Erika. So many people I know in various authorial fields are just beset by AI-extruded crap on all sides, and the editors are swamped with so many submissions but there is so little real material buried in the avalanche of dross.

May there be better days ahead for all of us.

I might hit the next well-meaning almost-stranger that might say "You just need to Put Yourself Out There(if, indeed, plugging something into a Submission Portal even counts as that, which, meh.) What's gonna change, though? I mean, I do honestly think this is my best work, and that I get better every year or so, but, like, not night-and-day or anything. And I'm still getting older without that Master's or some grant to hang at Yaddo and Phoenix is still that spot where everyone says "I changed planes there once."(Maybe I really *am* here to make ABs feel better, in which case I have a *few* jobs I don't rule at.)

I'm disappointed about this one, but never making it into the literary review of my college after they gave me so little seriously chaps me. Also, not being fucked-up enough for, count-em ten, "Marginalized Crip Issues"{talk about being flooded with submissions, though.) But, really? It's like not being weird enough for the sideshow.

Writing is such a painful process so much of the time. Or maybe I should say getting published is the painful thing. There are waaaay too many writers and far too few outlets for it. I'm sorry you're discouraged, erika. Maybe you could write about that, though! How hard it can be to find the right places to submit pieces, and then try a writer's site.

I don't know. You might hate that idea! Just a thought.

It would be easier if the rest of my life didn't feel like that, too. But there is, literally, NO place in my life where I can say "Well, my big dream isn't coming true, but this part is pretty fab."Which counts against anyone wanting my thoughts on rejection, either, probably. ETA: But at least, I could be the one person not trying to pretend there's a bunch to be learned from "It's not you, it's me."(Whose idea was all that happy talk, anyway? If it ever used to help, it isn't anymore. Is there really... IDK, the literary version of Sue Heck out there, racing back to her desk because a computer wished her luck in all her writing endeavors? I don't know whether I'd want to smack her or be her, if there was one.) How would you know when your dream is really dead? Because, on the one hand, I know that "making a way out of no way" is tough--again, a minor pause from that lesson, somewhere in my life? Wouldn't hate it-- and you might have to dig deep sometimes.But am I kidding myself?

I tried... don't think anyone would pay, but maybe I feel a little better. [link]

Authors Are Accidentally Leaving AI Prompts In their Novels

Fans reading through the romance novel Darkhollow Academy: Year 2 got a nasty surprise last week in chapter 3. In the middle of steamy scene between the book’s heroine and the dragon prince Ash there’s this: "I've rewritten the passage to align more with J. Bree's style, which features more tension, gritty undertones, and raw emotional subtext beneath the supernatural elements:"

It appeared as if author, Lena McDonald, had used an AI to help write the book, asked it to imitate the style of another author, and left behind evidence they’d done so in the final work.

Wow! That is both hysterical and disturbing.