Details of Life by Karen S. Wiesner

Details of Life

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this article, I talk about changing your perspective from the negative to the positive when writing an obituary for yourself or for a loved one who's still alive.

Last summer, after we'd all finally come through the COVID crisis worse for wear but still kicking, my family went through a heartrending trauma that (thankfully) was resolved over the course of just a couple days. Even still, once it was finally concluded, none of us could easily go back to our normal lives without feeling haunted for months afterward by it. If a situation that harrowing could actually lead to anything good, if nothing else, it did spur us to get our future financial, medical, legal, and end-of-life "ducks in a row". Those in my family who'd played a role in the event realized that the absolute worst time to focus on these crucial things was literally at the end of our lives.

Over the course of the next several months, my husband and I and our other close relatives filled out all kinds of forms that we'd never taken the time to realize, let alone understand, could be necessary sooner rather than later. These things were filed with the appropriate agencies and copies were given to everyone relevant. More than once we wondered, if we'd done these things sooner, would we have had to go through what we did at all? There is no good answer to such a question.

At the beginning of this year, our local library gave a program called "What To Do Before You Die". While we were fairly confident we'd adequately prepared for the future, we figured it couldn't hurt to make sure. We signed up and convinced some friends to join us. For this program, the library director had gathered an interesting pool of local resources: the County Register of Deeds, a local funeral director, a flag pole and monument business, the local cemetery caretaker, an estate planning lawyer, and the County Veteran Service officer.

Although we'd planned and prepared well, we discovered over the course of the several hours this seminar took place that there were a few considerations we'd missed, allowing us to become even more organized for the future. To cap the highly useful agenda, there were several knowledgeable souls on hand to talk about obituary writing. Those leading the discussion advised writing your own "death details" in advance to make the process much easier for those this task would otherwise fall to once you were gone. I was actually the one who raised my hand during this and suggested not only doing this for yourself but for elderly relatives who were still with you. I'd wanted to write this information down for my parents since I was very sure at that point I would need to ask them numerous questions in order to find the answers needed to complete the forms.

This was something I've had on my checklist to do since the traumatizing incident last summer and the library program earlier this year but hadn't gotten around to yet because 1) given its ties to genealogy, it could end up being a tremendous amount of work, and 2) there's something very uncomfortable, morbid even, about writing an obituary for yourself let alone one for a loved one who's still alive.

Merely looking up the definition of obituary in the dictionary gave me pause:

1. a notice of a death, especially in a newspaper, typically including a brief biography of the deceased person.

Similar words to "obituary" in the dictionary are eulogy (a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has just died), necrology (an obituary notice, a list of deaths), death notice, and necrologue (a published announcement of a death, usually with a short biography of the dead person).

Alas, I kept this unpleasant task on my to-do list, regardless of how disconcerting the idea of undertaking it was to me. When it finally came up in my rotation, I did an internet search with the words "obituary form". I looked at a few and eventually found something that had most of what I wanted. After some brainstorming with relatives, we were able to cull the form contents to what we thought were the best things to include. Once completed, the blank form was hardly more than a single page long.

Still, I was having trouble getting started for the same reasons as before. Filling out an obituary form for myself and family members still living was the height of "not fun". Additionally, I would have to broach the subject with my parents, and that seemed disturbing as well. "Look what I have here, Mom and Dad! Your death notices, all ready to publish!" No, that was even worse than simply doing it on my own and tactfully asking them questions I needed answers to in order to complete the form. While I was hemming and hawing about setting a date to do this work, it occurred to me that maybe I was going about the process all wrong.

The day came for me to sit down and fill out the form. Instead of labeling each individual's form an "Obituary" or "Death Details", I called it a "Details of Life" form. My perspective immediately changed with the revision that made all the difference. Yes, there was a whole lot of genealogy stuff that did bog me down, though I'd done a lot of work in that regard in years past. None of it was particularly organized, so locating and locking down specifics with accurate information was a bit of a trek. But even that was kind of fun as I learned and re-learned new things about the family.

Additionally, I found reminiscing about the past a lot of fun. I spent most of two days getting the new, compelling "Details of Life" filled in section by section for myself, my husband, and both of my parents. When I talked to my parents, it wasn't concerning the unpalatable things like "surviving family members or those who preceded in death" (those things, including a death date can be added later, when they're needed). We covered specific details about their lives that I'd either been told in the past and forgotten because I hadn't written them down before or that I'd unfathomably just never known about them.

Everything on this form, once completed, was something I would need to know to fill out a formal death notice and announcement eventually. In the meantime, it was a concise summary of the details of a life that I cherished and was profoundly grateful to know and share.

I've included a copy of my Details of Life form below, or you can find a PDF of it here:  

https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/details_of_life_form.pdf

Celebrate life today while it's still today.

Details of Life

Name (full, including maiden and married names, and any nicknames):

All cities/states lived:

Location:
Approximate ages/years lived there:
Other details:

Date of birth:

Interesting stories of birth:

Place of birth and details:

Father (name, birth/death, cause of death, burial place, vocation, details):

Mother (include maiden name, birth/death, cause of death, burial place, vocation, details):

How did your parents meet?

Name of spouse (include maiden name):

How the person of focus on this form met his or her spouse:

Marriage date:

Your age:

How long you knew each other prior to marriage:

Place of marriage (city/state):

Ceremony information (church, city hall, etc.):

Wedding details

Wore:

Reception location

Witnesses/Maid of Honor/Best Man:

Honeymoon date/location:

Names of children (could include birth/death, vocation):

Education (name/location of school, year graduated, focus of study, degree received):

Employment history: (business/locations, position title and description)

Military service (branch, boot camp location, years of service, places stationed, type(s) of work done):

Hobbies/interests:

Memory(ies) growing up and/or memorable one(s) of your life: 

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

Do Plants Think?

A relatively recent (2021) article on plant intelligence, which includes an interview with Monica Gagliano, a professor in Evolutionary Ecology at Southern Cross University in Australia:

Plant Intelligence

It's known that plants can communicate with each other to "warn" their neighbors about potential attacks. Some plants also use animals to defend against pests, such as by releasing chemicals to attract wasps that prey on caterpillars. Researchers have discovered evidence that plants may have "memory" of a sort. In the interview, Gagliano defines intelligence as decision-making in reaction to one's environment. She insists that "you do not need a nervous system or a brain to embody this kind of behaviour and decisions." She goes so far as to declare, "Of course plants are intelligent, as much as bacteria and amoebas, and fish and birds and humans."

Bacteria? That wide-ranging application of the concept may come as a shock to many people's mental categories, as it does to mine. We typically think of intelligence as requiring brains and involving sapience or at least consciousness. I'm reminded of a vintage horror story that begins with a conversation about the nature of mind, in which one character rhetorically asks, "With what does a plant think, in the absence of a brain?" The other character scoffs, while the first maintains that intelligence exists everywhere in many shapes. When or if we eventually travel to extrasolar planets, we might plausibly discover plants or a vegetative group mind possessing a capacity for thought we'd recognize as similar to our own. However, mutual communication might be hard because organisms the size of trees or larger might think on a slower time scale than we do—like Tolkien's Ents, only much more so.

Another article on plant intelligence I came across queried whether, if plants can think in some sense, we would be obligated to stop eating them. If so, we'd be stuck with rather narrow diets, composed entirely of foods we could harvest without killing any complex organism (dairy products, unfertilized eggs, fruits, nuts, honey, the leaves of green vegetables that regenerate throughout the growing season—that's about it). Fortunately, the writer of that essay reassured us we wouldn't, since animals regularly consume plants as part of the cycle of life. Besides, many plants have parts (e.g., fruit) especially meant to be eaten by animals for the purpose of spreading seeds.

Remember the Shmoos in the old "Li'l Abner" comic strip, delicious animals that rejoiced in sacrificing themselves as food?

Shmoo

Maybe on a world shared by intelligent plants and humanoids, some vegetative life forms would partake in a symbiotic partnership whereby they produced renewable offshoots to feed sapient animals in exchange for helpful services such as fertilizing and pest control.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Don't Sleep In The Subway

Don't Sleep In The Subway, Darling.

There are probably several messages there. For me, one is that this song by Petula Clark did enormous and lasting damage to the English language because she sang "the whys or the wherefores" ... as if there were a difference.

Just to be clear, there is no difference. Why and wherefore mean the same. When Juliet asks rhetorically (thinking herself alone on the balcony with no stalker below), "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" she means, "Why do you have to be the son and heir of my father's greatest enemy?"  

Possibly due to Pet's success and abuse of the English language, too many folks think that wherefore is a fancy British way of saying Where.  It isn't.

Another message  might be the advice of an urban prepper or survivalist who was interviewed by a controversial TV host who rejoices in a name that is Australian slang for food.

The host can't help it. His parents probably liked a very innovative car that was too good to be allowed to succeed.

The prepper suggested that everyone should be prepared with 3 ways of making fire, and more than a couple of ways of getting drinking water, because one cannot trust The Man and his windmills to be there in a catastrophe.

https://tastecooking.com/preppers-dont-survive-thrive/

For Greens, survivalists, or Science Fiction authors, a most inspiring piece, for real life terraforming Is the low tech project that has been going on in the Sahel of Africa to combat Saharan desertification.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590332220301007

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/africa-great-green-wall-trees-sahel-climate-change

California could learn a thing or two from the African farmers of the Sahel and their humble crescent shaped pits dug in the hard, dry soil, and surrounded on the down-weather curved side with a line of rocks

https://www.goodnet.org/articles/traditional-farming-techniques-are-stopping-desertification

Zai pits, supplemented with compost, hold water long enough for seeds to sprout and grow, and as plants and trees grow, they create a virtuous cycle of darker vegetation that pulls in heat, that generates condensation, that recycles evaporation, and creates shade, and allows more plants to grown, and that cools the area, increases rainfall, and so on. 

Carbon Dioxide is not bad, it is plant food. Oxygen is excreted by plants. We let the trees respire, they let us breathe and eat. 

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday   

How Will AI Transform Childhood?

According to columnist Tyler Cowen, "In the future, middle-class kids will learn from, play with and grow attached to their own personalized AI chatbots."

I read this essay in our local newspaper a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find the article on a site that didn't require registering for an account to read it. The essence of its claim is that "personalized AI chatbots" will someday, at a not too far distant time, become as ubiquitous as pets, with the advantage that they won't bite. Parents will be able to control access to content (until the kid learns to "break" the constraints or simply borrows a friend's less restricted device) and switch off the tablet-like handheld computers remotely. Children, Cowen predicts, will love these; they'll play the role of an ever-present imaginary friend that one can really interact with and get a response.

He envisions their being used for game play, virtual companionship, and private AI tutoring (e.g., learning foreign languages much cheaper than from classes or individual tutors) among other applications. I'm sure our own kids would have loved a device like this, if it had been available in their childhood. I probably would have, too, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and similar inventions were the wild-eyed, futuristic dreams of science fiction. If "parents are okay with it" (as he concedes at one point), the customized AI companion could be a great boon—with appropriate boundaries and precautions. For instance, what about the risks of hacking?

One thing that worries me, however, isn't even mentioned in the article (if I remember correctly from the paper copy I neglected to keep): The casual reference to "middle-class kids." The "digital divide" has already become a thing. Imagine the hardships imposed on students from low-income families, who couldn't afford home computers, by the remote learning requirements of the peak pandemic year. What will happen when an unexamined assumption develops that every child will have a personal chatbot device, just as many people and organizations, especially businesses and government offices, now seem to assume everybody has a computer and/or a smart phone? (It exasperates me when websites want to confirm my existence by sending me texts; I don't own a smart phone, don't text, and don't plan to start.) Not everybody does, including some who could easily afford them, such as my aunt, who's in her nineties. Those assumptions create a disadvantaged underclass, which could only become more marginalized and excluded in the case of children who don't belong to the cohort of "middle-class kids" apparently regarded as the norm. Will school districts provide free chatbot tablets for pupils whose families fall below a specified income level? With a guarantee of free replacement if the thing gets broken, lost, or stolen?

In other AI news, a Maryland author has self-published a horror book for children, SHADOWMAN, with assistance from the Midjourney image-generating software to create the illustrations:

Shadowman

In an interview quoted in a front-page article of the April 12,2023, Baltimore Sun, she explains that she used the program to produce art inspired by and in the style of Edward Gorey. As she puts it, "I created the illustrations, but I did not hand draw them." She's perfectly transparent about the way the images were created, and the pictures don't imitate any actual drawings by Gorey. The content of each illustration came from her. "One thing that's incredible about AI art," she says, "is that if you have a vision for what you're wanting to make it can go from your mind to being." And, as far as I know, imitating someone else's visual or verbal style isn't illegal or unethical; it's one way novice creators learn their craft. And yet. . . might this sort of thing, using software "trained" on the output of one particular creator, skate closer to plagiarism than some other uses of AI-generated prose and art?

Another AI story in recent news: Digidog, a robot police K-9 informally known as Spot, is being returned to active duty by the NYPD. The robot dog was introduced previously but shelved because some people considered it "creepy":

Robot Dog

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Voice Over

One of the lesser-discussed intellectual property rights is the right of publicity, and until recently, the right to use --or more importantly to stop other people using--ones voice was not much of a problem.

Have you ever telephoned a bank, or brokerage house, or utility company and been bullied by a bot into giving your consent to let them set you up to use your voice to identify yourself as a security short-cut for future "convenience"?

Personally, I have never given any kind of consent to a recording as a means of identifying me. I have always been suspicious of that, and after reading legal blogger Belinda Scrimenti's article for Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP's Broadcast Law Blog about the violation of celebrity voices, I think I was right to be wary.

For any author who reads an excerpt of her book in public or on social media, records her own audio book, does an interview on a podcast or radio, maybe you should think twice about giving any business permission to recognize you by your voice.

If you are not a celebrity, your voice might not be used to endorse a product, point of view, or a political candidate that you would never recommend without extreme duress, but it could be used to steal your identity, or your money, or both.

The Broadcast Law Blog discusses the misuse of living and deceased celebrities' voices that is now possible owing to AI with some interesting examples. Apparently, a bot only needs to hear sixty seconds worth of someone's voice to be able to make them seem to say almost anything.

They don't say it, but I will, this could be seriously misused in political smear campaigns.

https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/2023/04/articles/using-ai-to-replicate-the-voice-of-a-celebrity-watch-out-for-legal-issues-including-violating-the-right-of-publicity/#page=1

Belinda Scrimenti explains the right of publicity thus:

"The right of publicity is a right that is based on state laws. Elvis Presley’s estate was one of the forerunners in advancing legislation to protect publicity rights in Tennessee, but laws now exist in most states that protect the use of living individuals’ name, image, likenesses, and other identifying features, which includes the voice."

Another interesting source is Seth Resler on "How To Use AI To Impersonate Celebrity Voices (And Why You Probably Shouldn't)."

Since I mentioned banking, I am reminded of the old proverb that I suspect is not taught to children in school these days: All that glitters is not gold. (My search engine associates the proverb with SpongeBob.) It is a shame, because the Trojan Horse of Homer's Iliad was very much something that appeared to be desirable, and was not. 

There are whispers of a convenient and trendy move by brilliant minds in high office to create a digital currency that might work very fast indeed, and that will be centrally managed, rendering banks obsolete. 

In dystopian novels, such a wonderful system would mean that individuals would be unable to purchase socially undesirable products such as cigarettes, briquettes, fortified beverages, drinking straws, flammable liquids made by nature from jurassic plankton, or even toilet paper. As an added convenience, it would be impossible to do anything without carrying around a portable tracking system.

All the best, 

Rowena Cherry

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing   

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 2 by Karen S. Wiesner

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List,
Part 2
by Karen S. Wiesner

In this final of a two part article, I discuss the wisdom and benefits of, and strategies for, drawing up a personal bucket list as early as possible--long before the curtain of a life is drawn.

Thanks for my fellow blog mates Rowena and Margaret for inspiring this impromptu article with their suggestions for potential topics I could cover on Alien Romances. Also thanks to those who critiqued this article for their suggested improvements and enthusiasm before it was posted.

Last week we went over what a bucket list is, and I discussed my own realizations of wanting to achieve my most desired goals early enough in life to enjoy them throughout all the days of my life that followed. Let's continue with actual strategies for forging ahead.

Taking the Next Step--Are You Ready?

Coming up with a formal or informal bucket list as early in life as possible will help anyone focus their time and energies in areas they're already passionate about as well as provide excitement, inspiration, and the push toward finding purpose and a sense of accomplishment long before the curtain of a life is drawn.

While I was working on this article, I was asked a couple questions that are worth considering on your own as you consider whether you're ready to take the bull by the horns yourself.

Had I been making bucket lists since my twenties, or did I just start making them recently? All things considered, I’d have to conclude I’ve actually been making them mentally since I was 20 and I just never really considered that was what I was doing all this time.

Would I have benefited in my twenties by formally writing my goals down? Have I benefited now for writing them down versus just thinking about my plans in my head? I suppose the blanket answer to these two questions that feed into each other is about the same: It might have benefited me to formally write down my bucket list goals at any point; however, I’ve always had a mind like a relentless robot seeking out all the dark corners of my own soul. For me, it didn’t really make a huge difference to officially spell out my goals for myself. What you've seen presented in this article is what I saw in my head from the beginning. That said, I think most people probably will benefit greatly from actually make their bucket lists formal plans with loose or definitive goals.

I have several pieces of advice to those wanting to forge ahead into a life lived with purpose:

A.     Choose wisely. You don't have to feel like you're required to have a certain number of goals on your list. I have four, which is a nice, even number, but if you only ever have one, that's fine. You can add to it if you want to (no pressure) at any time as you complete or become proficient at priority items. This thing isn't set in stone, nor should it be. If you discover one of your wishes isn't really something you like after all, well, you've learned something about yourself you didn't know before, right? That said, you do want to include on this list only things that you're strongly zealous about and are deeply committed to fulfilling. This is another reason why limiting the list is advisable. There's no point in having a checklist of this kind that includes a bunch of things you're not serious enough to actually make deliberate preparations in undertaking. I don't think anyone needs another random to-do list lying around collecting dust.

B.     Prioritize your bucket list in the order of the things you want to accomplish first and last, and don't try to take on the whole list at once. That's a recipe for failure. Start with the top one, the most important to you, and make a serious go of completing and/or developing it over time, perhaps even years. Make this part of your daily or weekly life. The whole reason for doing this long in advance of having an actual deadline (especially one as final as death!) is to accomplish things you enjoy and may spend the rest of your life taking pleasure in and cultivating. In many cases, the items on your list will require an investment: Of time, discipline, energy, money, and frequently all of the above. Trust me, you're embarking on a labor of love with any one of these.

C.     Make a plan for how to go about fulfilling the items on your bucket list, one at a time. Set goals over time so you're doing something toward making the wish reality. Make a commitment to forging ahead with your goals. Start small, if you need to, and make initially small investments of time, energy, and finances. Work into the passion that can motivate you to keep going bigger and better. I know a lot of people can't think of long-term projects that require large investments of time, energy, or money because their lives are busy, complicated, and/or they're financially unable. In those situations, creativity may be needed to get started. Devote just five, ten, fifteen minutes--whatever you can eke out every day or once a week to advance your project. Take free classes at your local library or online. Ask close friends and family to gift you with an item you need for a birthday or Christmas. Small, slow, and frugal can produce results eventually, too!

D.     Define your reasons for what you hope to accomplish with each item on your bucket list if for no other reason than that you set yourself on a path toward seeing where it's going, or where it could be going. I wanted to understand my motivations clearly from the start, whether I intended to advance in these areas for individual edification or for something more--such as, my drawing could potentially lead to an exciting new career for me in the future.

E.     Only you can decide if your pursuits are worthwhile. Don't let yourself or anyone else tell you that something you've chosen to do isn't meaningful or significant. The goal of personal development is valuable--whatever your chosen aspiration. At the very least, anything you achieve is one regret you'll never have to feel.

Nearly three decades after I started pursuing the wishes on my informal bucket list, I find myself realizing that as I look back over what I've managed to accomplish, I'm satisfied. If my time in this world ended tomorrow, I would feel as though I lived with purpose and that I'd accomplished something worthwhile. Instead of waiting until I was close to kicking the bucket, you might say I took the bucket out of my bucket list. I took the bull by the horns, and I'm reaching for previously categorized "don't even bother wishing 'cause they can't come true" things and I'm making them a passionate part of my everyday reality, one at a time, step by step, until my time runs out.

If you're interested in taking the bucket out of your own bucket list, jumping in now on the things you've always wanted to do, the worksheet below might be helpful in getting you started. You can and should come back to this often in the future to revise and hone your goals, re-strategizing as you make progress from one item to the next. Remember, small, slow, and cheap still means moving forward.

My Bucket List

Date: (may include the dates of whenever revised)

What's in My Bucket

Wishes: (listed in order of priority, #1 being the one I'm most passionate about and the one I'll get started on first)

#1

When and how will I begin to reach for things in my bucket?

a)    How long do I want to experience this goal? 

Circle one: Once | Ongoing | Until I'm finished

b)    Detail the first step to beginning:

c)     Describe later steps to developing my goal:

d)    Specify the time(s) and day(s) I'm devoting to the undertaking:

e)    Brainstorm strategies to help accomplish my wish:

f)      Identify why this is in my bucket and what I hope to get out of it:

#2

When and how will I begin to reach for things in my bucket?

a)    How long do I want to experience this goal? 

Circle one: Once | Ongoing | Until I'm finished

b)    Detail the first step to beginning:

c)     Describe later steps to developing my goal:

d)    Specify the time(s) and day(s) I'm devoting to the undertaking:

e)    Brainstorm strategies to help accomplish my wish:

f)      Identify why this is in my bucket and what I hope to get out of it:

You can find a PDF of this worksheet here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/bucketlistcourtesyofkarenwiesnertypeb.pdf

For those who are more goal-oriented, Type A personalities like myself, you might want an even more vigorous plan of attack. For that, I offer a more in-depth worksheet, which you can find here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/5/5/23554234/bucketlistcourtesyofkarenwiesnertypea.pdf, or you could even incorporate the heart of the bucket list ideals into a SMART goals program (a simple internet search will hook you up for that).

"Seize the life and the day will follow!" ~Linda Derkez

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.
Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/
and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/

Must Fiction Have Conflict?

I recently read FANTASY: HOW IT WORKS, by Brian Attebery, a distinguished scholar of fantasy and science fiction. In addition to the solid content, he has a highly readable style. While I can't unreservedly recommend this book to every fan, given the price (but still very reasonable for a product of a university press), anybody who enjoys in-depth analysis of fantasy in all its dimensions would probably find it more than worth the cost. Some topics include realism and fantasy, myths and fantasy, gender and fantasy (mostly focusing on male characters), and the politics of fantasy. Of particular interest to me is the chapter titled, "If Not Conflict, Then What?"

Advice to writers almost always maintains that a story can't exist without conflict. Attebery is the first critic I've encountered who casts doubt on that alleged truism. In fact, he flatly states, "This may be good advice for getting published, but it isn't true." Conflict, he points out, is simply a single metaphor, implying combat. Among other metaphors he suggests are dissonance, friction, and dance. He maintains there's only one "essential requirement for narrative," which is "motivated change over time."

This discussion intrigued and reassured me, since the necessity for goal-motivation-conflict in a properly structured story is usually taken for granted. Reflecting on examples of my own work, I realize some of my fiction contains what could be called "conflict" only by stretching the term almost out of recognition. Suppose we subsitute "goal-motivation-obstacles"? Marion Zimmer Bradley, after all, summarized the universal plot as, roughly, "Johnny gets his behind caught in a bear trap and how he gets out." Elsewhere, I've seen the essence of story encapsulated as: The protagonist wants something. What's keeping them from getting it?

For example, my contemporary fantasy, "Bunny Hunt" (to be published as an e-book on April 10), features a protagonist whose long-range goal is to have a baby, a wish gaining new urgency because she and her husband are over thirty. Her problem is that they've been trying for a while with no result. The impediment, her possible infertility, might fall under one of the classic types of "conflict," person versus nature—if we count her own body as part of "nature." But that interpretation seems to strain the definition of "conflict." The short-term goal, to help a rabbit woman through a potentially fatal childbirth (no more details, sorry—spoilers!), involves problems that might possibly be labeled "person versus nature," but again that reading feels like a stretch.

For me, I believe thinking in terms of the more general formula "goal-motivation-obstacles" will make plotting future fiction projects easier.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Call IT Unavoidable

The earworm is "Call Me Irresponsible". The lyrics are a strange choice to associate with a medication that helps some patients to relieve migraine, but that has side effects such as unreliable bowels.

The subtext is AI... and the loss of honour.

Take academic dishonesty. The Northern Illinois University has a very good Academic Integrity Tutorial here:

https://www.niu.edu/academic-integrity/faculty/types/index.shtml

https://www.niu.edu/academic-integrity/faculty/causes/index.shtml

It examines cheating, plagiarism, fabrication or falsification, and sabotage, then goes on to explain the What? Why? How? and consequences of cheating. And there are quizzes!

Without cheating, of course, I got 10/10 on Quiz 1; 6/6 on Quiz 2; 6/6 on Quiz 3; 10/10 on the plagiarism quiz...at which point, I felt I ought to get back to blogging. The section on plagiarism might be particularly relevant for authors. There is more to it than one might think, including inadequate attribution...and much more.

https://www.niu.edu/academic-integrity/faculty/committing/plagiarism.shtml

The fifth quiz is about detecting and preventing cheating, which brings me to an interesting article by Karen Gullo of the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF).

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/03/after-students-challenged-proctoring-software-french-court-slaps-testwe-app

Apparently, academic dishonesty is an issue which some French examiners take very seriously, especially when it has been necessary to allow students to take examinations in private settings, as opposed to in the traditional hall with human proctors prowling between the ranks and rows of desks.

According to a group that one might call the Parisian version of EFF (as I just did), La Quadrature du Net (LQDN), objected that the monitoring software called TestWe was too much of an invasion of the students' privacy. 

LQDN presented a good argument that, "...just because the data exists or is available does not mean it is legal to use it for any purposes.”

One could make the same point about much of AI, and also about ChatGPT and all the "cheating-facilitating software" that AI provides, and does so without attribution. Which is one reason why AI-generated prose or art may or may not be copyrightable.

Legal bloggers Haim Ravia and Dotan Hammer for the lawfirm Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz discuss an initiative that has been lauched by the US Copyright Office to look into copyright law and policy questions risign from the use of AI.

https://www.pearlcohen.com/u-s-copyright-office-issues-guidelines-for-registering-works-with-content-generated-by-ai/

Currently, copyright only protects works that are created by humans.

Legal blogger Benni Amato, on the IP Blitz blogsite of the Intellectual Property law firm Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani uses the Q and A format to discuss (in very small font) the two burning questions of the moment, namely "Can You Copyright AI Art?" and "Does AI Art Constitute Copyright Infringement?"

https://www.ip-blitz.com/2023/03/ai-art-and-copyright-in-the-unites-states/#page=1

He is particularly interesting on the use of AI to create art fakes, or "vicarious copyright infringement".

Finally, for me, for today, legal blogger Daniel Lumm for Nelson Mullins Riley and Scarborough LLP details an experiment that he carried out using ChatGPT.

ChatGPT is the bot that can pass the bar (to become a lawyer), some medical exam or other, and some business school exams.

Imagine, and this is my own imagining, if HAL 9000 of 2001 A Space Odyssey were to replace, say, Dr. Fauci!

Back to Mr. Lumm's experiment and analysis of the issues to consider with regard to OpenAI and ChatGPT, which include ownership, responsibility, confidentiality, privacy, security, and more.

https://www.nelsonmullins.com/idea_exchange/insights/chatgpt-on-what-terms-is-the-future-so-bright

To riff off the good people of LQDN while taking legality out of the equation, just because it is there, and one can use it, maybe does not mean that one should (use it).

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™  

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List, Part 1 by Karen S. Wiesner

Taking the Bucket Out of the Bucket List,

Part 1

by Karen S. Wiesner

In this two part article, I discuss the wisdom and benefits of, and strategies for, drawing up a personal bucket list as early as possible--long before the curtain of a life is drawn.

Thanks for my fellow blog mates Rowena and Margaret for inspiring this impromptu article with their suggestions for potential topics I could cover on Alien Romances. Also thanks to those who critiqued this article for their suggested improvements and enthusiasm before it was posted.

About 10 years ago, I sort of watched the movie The Bucket List out of my peripheral vision. My husband is fond of watching movies on one of our TVs while I play Xbox games on the other. Condensing the theme of that movie, two terminally ill, older men come up with a wish list of things they want to do--and, in an abbreviated amount of time, they attempt to fulfill them--before their time on Earth literally runs out. My first thought in response to the theme of this film was, Why would anyone want to do this when they're old, tired, dying, and it's nearly too late? Why not do the things you're passionate about long before there actually is a countdown to death and while young enough to truly enjoy the adventure(s) undertaken? Few questions have ever motivated me more than these two.

As far as the internet can tell, the term "bucket list" was either created or popularized by that 2007, so-named movie. A bucket list is believed to relate to the idiom "kick the bucket", which is a term that originated in the 16th century. Be prepared to cringe: The wooden frame that was used to suspend slaughtered animals was called a bucket. I think you can guess what happened after they were hung up by their hooves. Yikes. Long story short, there was a lot of kicking done just prior to death. A bucket list, then, is created to clarify what one wishes to accomplish either in a specific timeframe (as in, "one and done" tasks completed in a short amount of time) or by the end of a life (long-term projects). Bucket list wishes can be self-actualization goals or ones you've set for endeavors such as charity work, career, or family or friend-related purposes.

While at that time I didn't really sit down and write up a formal bucket list of my own, I thought long and hard about which goals would make mine. The most important factors in doing this, for me, were, first and foremost, that I would be able to enjoy them all throughout the rest of my life, and, only slightly less important, that I'd be able to accomplish my personal goals earlier in life than "at the end".

My list actually wasn't that difficult to come up with, as I'm sure other people will discover as well, because many of these were already passions I was unwilling or unable to indulge in thus far in my life. In the process, I formulated a list of four things I'd spent my lifetime up to that point dreaming about but not believing I could do. My reasons for not doing them stemmed from a) the expense involved, b) the lack of time to undertake them, and c) being very aware that it takes me a long time and a whole lot of effort to learn new things (in part because I was already 45 years old when I embarked on this).

Unofficially, I suppose the first real bucket list wish I made started with writing. I wrote (and illustrated) my first story when I was eight, and I always knew that was what I wanted to do more than anything else. There was little if any encouragement around me for this endeavor but, in the defense of my friends and family, becoming a success in this field isn't exactly a stable environment or income. When I was 20, I was determined to make a go of it regardless. My first book was published when I was 27…just after I'd made the heartrending decision to quit writing because I'd already invested nearly a decade attempting and failing to get published. Sometimes it takes that kind of irony to kick you in the pants and inspire you to reach for more. I spent the next 27 years of my life setting goals and pouring my all into making something of my writing. As I near the end of my writing career at the age of almost 55, my published credits in most every genre imaginable have passed 150 titles and these have garnered nominations or wins for over 130 awards.

The bucket list of lifelong passions I officially came up with after watching The Bucket List was quickly assembled (written down here years later in all the detail I imagined from its origin), prioritizing my wishes according to my deepest desires:

#1: Learn to play piano. I've loved music all my life. I can't stand silence so music fills all my waking moments. I wasn't allowed to learn an instrument in school, and I'd wanted to from the moment the possibility was brought up. My goal in doing this wasn't fame or to perform in a professional setting. It would only ever be for private enrichment and perhaps to accompany family and friends--many of them musicians.

I started small with the first Alfred's Piano instruction book and my son's discarded keyboard. I practiced every day, teaching myself from the manual and asking my guitar- and saxophone-playing husband (who was part of the praise team band at our church) for help whenever I needed it. Naturally, that keyboard quickly didn't have what I needed to advance (88 keys and pedals), but a generous gift allowed me to purchase the beautiful piano I now cherish. I also started taking piano lessons nearly a year into my efforts and took them for more than four years. When my instructor moved away, I went back to teaching myself.

At the time I started, I committed myself to this, my #1 bucket list priority, and I was disciplined in daily practice and learning as much as I could about all aspects. I knew going into it that it would be the biggest challenge of my life, and, boy, was (and is) it. But it's worth it. Eight years in, and I'm still learning, still developing, still passionate about it, and it's something I'll do, and enjoy, until the day I die.

#2: Develop my drawing and artistic skills across many types of media. I've been writing children's books as long as I can remember, but finding someone to illustrate them hasn't been easy. I've had many stories that I've written that I couldn't get anyone to provide artwork for so they're sitting in my story cupboard, unpublished. In the past, I often wished that the fledgling talent I've had all my life in this field could be cultivated and honed into true ability. While I didn't at first intend to make illustrating children's books a career, when I made my decision several years ago to retire from writing soon, I realized that it was exactly what I wanted to do once I've completed the last of my book 16 series.

I started slow and cheap. Using inexpensive pencils and drawing pads or typing paper I already had lying around the house, I randomly drew whatever inspired me whenever I had downtime from writing. In the first year I undertook this, I produced a few good things. I wasn't trying to do anything serious beyond seeing what I could accomplish and what my strengths and weaknesses were. I knew if I let myself get too excited, it would interrupt my writing, and I didn't want to do that, considering I was counting down to completing my last several novels. I wanted to devote myself to making those stories the best they could be.

Last year, finding myself slowing down in general with nearly everything in my life, recovering from writing projects became much more difficult for me. I needed longer breaks and other ways to relax in between projects. I invested a bit more time and money into my artistic endeavors. I found a place that offers affordable DVD/streaming courses taught by some of the best experts in their respective fields and purchased three art classes on drawing, pencil coloring, and painting. These could be done as I had time and I could set my own pace. I purchased artist grade pencils, paper, and other supplies and equipment. Additionally, I reworked my daily and yearly goals to include times of writing and times of art. I also decided to bring along my readers on this endeavor by posting my art (such as it was) on my Facebook page. The response has been both motivating and moving.

As my artistic abilities grow, I'm finding the process hard, but also realizing I can do things I could never have imagined I was capable of in the past. At the moment, I'm still reining in how much time and effort I devote to these endeavors, but I'm only a few books away from finishing the last of two series. Until then (mid-2024, if I stay on track with my goals), I'm applying myself to learning and honing my artist talents in the time I've allotted to it each day, week, or month, so, by the time I'm ready to get started illustrating my first children's book, I'll have a wide variety of mediums I'm skilled enough in to utilize.

#3: Learn a second language. I took a year of French in high school and I was actually really good at reading and writing the language, just not speaking it. When it started getting mathematical (the way they do numbers is hard!), I dropped out. I've regretted my decision not to continue. My husband is very good at languages--he taught himself ancient Greek and he's using a program that makes learning a language fun and easy to advance for Spanish. He's constantly asking me to join him in the program, but with writing, piano, and art in my daily life taking up most of my time and energy, I'm spread a little thin. I used to have a friend who spoke native Spanish, and I always wished I could understand her when she talked to her family in the language. That would have been the perfect time to start learning, as I could have gotten real feedback and help in learning, but I was motivated at that time. After I retire from writing, I'll have one less thing on my plate and I expect I'll get involved with the program hubby's using to learn Spanish at that point. (I do actually have a loose goal of 2025 set to start this.)

#4: Learning. Just learning. Like most people, I have a lot of random interests that I've never had a lot of time to explore--learning to sing professionally (I do have natural talent in this regard, luckily) as an accompaniment to playing piano, finding out more about unique periods of history (Medieval specifically), geography, space, art culture, and science. The place where I got my art DVDs offers courses in a lot of these disciplines that interest me. I don't currently have a lot of time, but I've already mentioned that I don't care for silence. Usually I fill it with music or art lessons. However, there are frequent slots in my day where I could easily be listening to a lecture, learning more about any one of these random interests. I always want to be learning new things that may inspire any of my other abilities to new heights of creativity. That said, I wouldn't undertake this goal until I'm well into learning a second language.

Next week we'll talk about strategies in taking the next step toward achieving the goals in your life you're most passionate about seeing fulfilled.

"Seize the life and the day will follow!" ~Linda Derkez

Karen Wiesner is an award-winning, multi-genre author of over 150 titles and 16 series.

Visit her website here: https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/

and https://karenwiesner.weebly.com/karens-quill-blog

Find out more about her books and see her art here: http://www.facebook.com/KarenWiesnerAuthor

Visit her publisher here: https://www.writers-exchange.com/Karen-Wiesner/ 

One Bite at a Time

Cory Doctorow's column for the March 2023 issue of LOCUS, for once, asserts a position I can support without reservation:

End-to-End

Concerning the many problems involved in making the internet user-friendly, a quest for perfection may result in no improvement at all. As Doctorow summarizes the situation, "The internet succeeded where other networks failed" because it didn't try to implement a "seemingly monolithic technological project" that would require all parties to agree on an ultimate solution that would deal with all difficulties once and for all. Instead, find one small element that everyone can accept. "Build that, then do it again, finding another step that everyone can get behind." In other words, figuratively speaking, eat the elephant one bite (or byte?) at a time. To quote Doctorow again, "I want a better internet now, not years down the road. I’ll happily take a smaller bite."

The main issue to which his current column applies this approach is the end-to-end principle, an older name for what's now usually called net neutrality. In brief, "when a willing speaker wants to say something to a willing listener, our technology should be designed to make a best effort to deliver the speaker’s message to the person who asked to get it." After decades of development of the internet, why don't we have this transparently obvious, user-friendly system?

When we ask a question with Google, why does it prioritize its own search engine's results over those of others that might be more relevant to the questioner's needs? When we search for a specific book or other product on Amazon, why do several other products pop up at the top of the page ahead of the one we typed in the search box? Why do Facebook posts from people and organizations we actually want to hear from get drowned in a sea of sponsored posts? Well, yeah, money and profit (duh). But why are such practices legally permitted? Why is Facebook allowed to restrict our access to posts from users we've liked or followed by blackmailing them into "boosting" their posts—paying to have their material seen by people who've expressed a wish to see it? Suppose when we tried to telephone a local business, the phone company routed the call to a rival business that had paid for the privilege? Nobody would stand for that, yet the equivalent happens online all the time.

Doctorow suggests examples of a few modest rules that internet companies should be required to follow: E.g. “The first result for a search should be the product that most closely matches the thing I searched for” and “If I subscribe to your feed, then when you publish something, it should show up in my feed.”

For a long time I was puzzled that my posts on my Facebook author page showed such low numbers of "Reach." The page doesn't have a huge throng of followers, but it certainly has a lot more than those being "reached." It was a shock to learn that in order to be read by more than a handful of followers, those posts needed to be boosted. In other words, I would have to bribe Facebook to carry out the function it purports to perform, connecting senders with willing receivers. Likewise, it's a constant, though minor irritant that searching for a book on Amazon often connects to a page where I have to scroll halfway down to find the desired item. According to Doctorow, the volume of ads and sponsored posts is delicately designed to stay "just below the threshold where the service becomes useless to you." I fear he may be right.

Will the limited ideal of his online utopia ever become a reality? Maybe not, but it's worth discussing.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Lorum Ipsum or Blah Blah Blah

My title should be lorum ipsum, but it indicates to printers not to waste ink, and I fear that the bots might over ride publishing when I click the Publish button.

The copyright/trademark/advertising law legal blogs are awash with thoughts about A1, so I am looking elsewhere again for today.

One of the blogs that I have followed for many years is that of Dr. Bob Rich.

https://bobrich18.wordpress.com/category/bobbing-around/

There's a tab called How to change the world. If you click on it, you will be treated to a long, and thought-provoking essay.

Aside from the environment and Faustian bargains, and strictly in my opinion, one way *not* to change the world is a bumper sticker on an athlete's protective gear that advocates for third party thought control.

Using the present participle would make a big (meaningful) difference, but that would necessitate two more characters... more ink, smaller font, less visibility for the Message. 

Dimly, from my studies of philosophy and psychology at Cambridge, myriad moons ago, I seem to recall a school of thought (possibly Nietzschean) that the best way to eliminate an undesirable emotion from the culture is to remove the word from use or discovery.

If there is no name for an emotion or feeling, one cannot express that emotion or feeling. One might feel confusion and frustration instead...

https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/think/article/an-emotion-without-a-name/84385B7BA22C5BE8A098C428F3CF51EF

For the purists, I am not so ancient that I have seen 10,000 moons since graduating. It's more like 600, but I like the alliteration of "myriad moons", and also the teachable moment it afforded (where it all comes down to whether "myriad" is a noun or an adjective.)

All the best,

Rowena Cherry 

SPACE SNARK™ 

http://www.spacesnark.com/  

http://www.rowenacherry.com

EPIC Award winner, Friend of ePublishing for Crazy Tuesday