Above is my art. I’m not skilled at drawing realistic animals. I’d like to be, and maybe I can figure out how to work some classes into my life, or at least some YouTube videos. Then I could draw better foxes, rabbits, and dragons.

Please accept my poor rendering of a fox. The sort of sky was hand drawn in blue ink, and our moony little fox was first drawn in pencil, then in ink, and the orange-ish fur in pencil. Finally, after taking a photo of the drawing, I used photo editing to try and make the moon glow, which also darkened the blue and softened the focus.

So, just to say, there’s no AI. I don’t use it in my writing either. I still debate with myself about using simple photo editing, so AI is out of the question.

The other day, I read a post from an artist lamenting not only having her work stolen by AI, but by AI being used to fake images of her making the art. People would believe they were looking at the real thing because they were witnessing the art-making process. Except that they weren’t.

I’ve also read about writers being accused of using AI even though they insist they haven’t. Although I read of one writer saying they would stop writing if they couldn’t use AI. What? I mean, he became that attached to AI that quickly? What? Then quit writing? I have often laughed at that quote about hating writing but loving to have written, but I actually like writing. I like the images in my head and the struggle to put them into words.

Honestly, why write if you don’t want to? There are other things you can do that would actually pay you something. (I don’t dismiss the value of being paid. We do, after all, live in capitalism.) I write because I must explore the images in my head. AI isn’t going to help me do that.

I have no interest in pitchforks and I have a lot thoughts about AI and creativity. But for now, I just wanted to say, my work comes from my own brain and skillset, such as it is. Thanks for reading.

Support my art and writing. Subscribe. Share. Join Patreon. Subscribe to Paper Octopus. Buy a cup of coffee. Everything helps me buy supplies and have time to write and make art from my own awkward brain.

Across the street from me is a group of houses, and on the roof of one of these houses is a pipe and some wires. The wires must be running the electricity to the house and the pipe is, I don’t even know. Laundry room vent? Whatever. The point is, after these houses were built, and I looked across the street, the angle and configuration made it look like there’s a dog on one of the roofs. Sitting on my patio, I stared at this thing a ridiculously long time. I stood up and walked down the driveway. It couldn’t possibly be a dog on the roof, but…was it? Well, dear reader, it was an optical illusion. Now, four or five years later, it still looks like a dog.

Recently my sister-in-law was visiting, and she looked across the street and said, “Is that a dog on that roof?!”

It felt most satisfying to have someone else see the same illusion. She laughed when I explained it, though she agreed it still looked like a dog.

Maybe I should’ve argued it was indeed a dog and the neighbors were freaks for keeping a dog on their roof, and we should ruin their lives even if it means burning down the entire neighborhood with you, me, and everything we all love in it.

Under no circumstances should I change my perspective and see it isn’t a dog.

I feel like this is the world we’re in.

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I’m not at my best. Not even a little.

But in spite of the horrors, here I am, trying to write and make art like some sort of delusional squirrel trying to cross a road.

Who am I kidding. I haven’t made any new art in weeks.

But I have been trying to write. So there’s that.

And soon it will Story-a-Day May, one of my favorite things. I’m either going to write (start?) a new story every day or I’ll go back to an old unfinished one and write an ending. Sometimes I wonder why I bother when I’m in a financial hole, the country is on fire, and the situation with my aging father is its own hellscape. Shouldn’t I be doing something completely different? Yeah? What? I don’t even know. Surely there’s something that would help?

Worrying is not helping. Scouring the internet for additional work isn’t helping. Screaming into the void isn’t helping. (I think the void is tired, y’all. It’s put in earplugs. It’s wearing a tee-shirt that says, “Not today, puny human.”)

Well, I have to write. For my own mental equilibrium, and who knows? Maybe the void will appreciate it.

I love the Story-a-Day challenge not because I write a terrific story every day. I don’t. Some days I’m too tired or down. Some days I write something that is crap. Often, I don’t finish the story a start. Wow! Makes you want to read everything, huh? Hahahaha!

Look. I love imagining other people, other places. My brain does this regardless of circumstance. I love the feeling a good story provides. A good story offers an escape or a release or an understanding. A good story shows us something new about the person sitting next to us or the place we’ve never been (the place where we live but have yet fully seen). Telling stories is deeply human. Granted, some people tell stories to harm. We see that every day. But the best stories, the needed stories, the beloved stories shine a light, open a window, offer comfort. I’ll never invent a great technology or discover a drug that will change the world. But I might be able to write something that changes someone’s day. And that’s a little miracle.

So, I’ll be writing stories and sharing some of them over on Patreon. After all, I finished the latest serialized novel, Sunlight & Mercie, and have to post something. Join in if you’d like to read along!

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I’m trying to be zen. I’m trying. Perhaps the zen part of my brain broke this week. Possibly. It seems likely. Is there a zen repair shop? It’ll probably cost too much. Everything does these days, and this is why my zen is broken.

Anyway, my apologies, y’all, for conceding to the capitalism hellscape by agreeing for ads to show up here. A hellscape denizen with a broken zen dispenser has gotta do what she’s gotta do.

In related news, remember that I have this little Patreon corner of the internet! I send zines and art prints to folks who join me. You get real mail in your real mailbox for as long as the post office exists. *tries to stifle sigh*

And none of it is AI generated. So, if you’d like evidence of the tangible and handmade, come on over. I’d be infinitely grateful.

Or just buy me a coffee! Or beautify your home!

Thanks for reading! And next week I’ll write again.

The title of this blog post may make no sense. Hey, it describes the what’s in the photo, does it not? This entertaining creation sits on a table in a local coffee shop.

This particular coffee shop has been through it. I love its tenacity. Its vibes.

But it seems like nearly everywhere is going through it–only without cute dinos and ghosts. If our country is our house, it’s on fire, and there’s very little entertaining about it.

But hey, while we run around trying our best to rescue folks and to douse the flames, sometimes, let’s sit down and make things–fun things, delightful things, solemn things. I’m not the first to say this, obviously. And y’all–there is plenty in my life stressing me out and making me cry. Heartbreak haunts us all eventually. Sigh. But if you were happy non-stop in this chaotic life, you’d probably be a psychopath.

Nonetheless, somebody needs to build weird houses and decorate them with paper ghosts and plastic dinosaurs. Otherwise, what are survivors of the wreckage going to see? Ash? No, y’all. We can’t have that.

So, yes, help put out the fire, sound the alarms, take the harm seriously.

But also…make things. Write stories. Share delight.

Thanks for reading.

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In my office, I’ve stuck a few dozen glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls. It’s silly because during the day, I can’t see them. Well, I can if I look for them, but they’re easy to miss. And I don’t sit in my office in the dark. Weird, huh?

So I see the stars only at the end of the day when I turn out the light to go to bed. For a moment I see the glowing stars, then I shut the door. But that brief moment of fake starlight always makes me happy.

Years ago in one of the first apartments my husband and I lived in, I put glow-in-dark stars on the ceiling of the bedroom. If you’ve ever looked at packages of these things, you know that there are different kinds. The ones I have now are a thick hard plastic. They’re endlessly reusable. The ones I had back in that early apartment were more like stickers, more challenging to remove and not really reusable. And I had put a lot of them on the ceiling. But again, during the day, not obviously visible. So, when we moved out, I left them up there.

The apartment manager never contacted me about having to remove them, so I assumed they stayed there and surprised the next tenants. I like to imagine that first night sleeping in the apartment, after a long day of hauling boxes in the Texas heat, they turned out the light and realized they were sleeping under stars.

Perhaps they were charmed. Perhaps annoyed. I guess not everyone wants glow-in-the-dark stars. But I’m going to believe they stayed up there until a few years later when the apartment complex was remodeled, and they made somebody happy.

When I was about ten or eleven, by step-sister and I had these glow-in-the-dark skeletons. They must’ve been about four inches tall. We played with them when we were supposed to be asleep. For a while we shared a room, sleeping in the same queen-sized bed. So we’d put the glowing skeletons between us and whispered made-up stories. We’d often get yelled at eventually because one of us would laugh or get angry and talk too loud.

Why is glow-in-the-dark so appealing? Phosphorescence and bioluminescence are beguiling. Magical. Dreamlike. Glowworms and jellyfish and deep-sea creatures. Sure, you can have the glowing eyes of demons or shining figures of ghosts, which scare or unsettle. But mostly they enchant–like the silvery moon in the night sky. Like crows, we like shiny things.

Curious about why humans actually like shiny, glowing things, I googled. (Emphasis mine.)

…we present our theorizing to explain that people’s preference for glossy is innate and stems from the human need for fresh water as a resource. We present a series of six studies in which we demonstrate the preference for glossy among both adults and young children … ruling out socialization as the explanation underlying the preference for glossy, investigate the hypothesis that the preference for glossy stems from an innate preference for water as a resource … and rule out the more superficial account of glossy = pretty ….

Hmm. Glossy and glowing aren’t exactly the same, but as far as a river winding its way through a dark forest, they are.

How ironic we ruin the water in our pursuit of shiny things.

Oh well. I’ll still love stars whether in the sky or in my office, even if I see them for only a moment in time.

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Thanks for reading!

The news is a horror show. Yes, perhaps it has always been this way, but these days, the horrors pour nonstop into our lives thanks to the technology we created to improve our lives. Ahem.

Anyway. I’m going to write about something with no real stakes. Because frankly it’s nice to be distracted by something that doesn’t matter. A movie adaptation.

Yes, that’s right. I’m wandering into the “Wuthering Heights” fray.

I’ve watched YouTube videos and read think pieces about this latest movie even though I am indifferent to the book (I read it in college but didn’t love it–grim books about terrible people aren’t my thing) and have no plans to see the movie (watching beautiful people be obsessive about each other is also not my thing).

One columnist was clearly annoyed with the book lovers sharing their rage over this film. She said, “It’s a book. Grow up.” I mean, yeah, but also, isn’t responding to art part of the point. A filmmaker takes a beloved novel and makes a film based on it, why shouldn’t people voice their reaction? It’s part of the conversation. Can be be overwrought? Sure. But this is Wuthering Heights we’re talking about. I wish more people were that passionate about books and film. They’ve taken things to heart. I find the statement grow up to be a thought-terminating cliché. It misses an opportunity to have interesting discussions. So if your response is grow up and it’s just a book/movie and don’t be so sensitive, well, okay. Those things are kind of true, but I’m writing for the people who care, who want to have those literary discussions that warm my English-major heart. (I enjoyed listening to the two academics discuss the film, and it made me wish I could take one of their classes on adaptations.)

Now we shall sit in a circle in our internet classroom and discuss.

• What makes a good adaptation? Do you have examples?
  • Lord of the Rings
• What adaptations have you seen that you love even when it strays far from the source material?
  • For me, Howl’s Moving Castle. I have friends who disagree vehemently, but nonetheless, I love both versions.
• What adaptations have infuriated you? Why?
  • Netflix’s Watership Down. They took out the heart and kept only the action.
• Assuming the filmmaker is making the adaptation because they love the book, what does that filmmaker owe the author or the lovers of the book?
  • My own thoughts so far–sometimes it feels as if the filmmaker has betrayed the original, but what if the original can be improved, its racism, misogyny, transphobia can be removed? Is that okay? Can we save a work? Should we?
• Who gets to make the adaptation? (I admit to being annoyed upon learning how posh Emerald Fennell is.)
  • I think of all the works by lesser known authors–or work never actually written because of various systemic issues preventing some writers from getting their story out there–should we be attempting to salvage problematic work?
• Why do people become so attached to a novel (or song or artwork) that they can’t countenance any adaptation that isn’t exactly what they imagine?
• If the author is living, should they just take the money and run? Should they fight over changes? Should they badmouth the final film? If the author hates the film, can they be wrong?
• Does a generation get the adaptation they deserve? Or rather, how does an adaptation reflect the time its in? Why this adaptation now?
  • Fennell has talked about wanting to capture how she felt reading the book at 14. I’m just not sure how I feel about that. They’re her feelings and its her film, so okay. I don’t know…I’m not her therapist. And this movie isn’t for 14-year-olds, is it?
  • I fell in love with Watership Down at the age of 11 or 12. But readings later in life taught me more about the story, valuable things about the characters and the world. I was thrilled to understand the story more deeply.

I don’t care about the incongruous hairstyles or dresses. Hey, I loved Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge. Sue me. (My feelings about his Great Gatsby are more mixed, but the music was terrific.) And I love weird sets and landscapes. It seems the movie has that going for it.

Ultimately, Fennell made the movie she wanted, and we need more women directors making big movies that get lots of attention. That said, I’m disappointed in the casting choices anyway. No shade on the actors, but I feel something important has been lost. It’s not as if we have so many Romani characters in stories that we should blithely erase the ones we have so that handsome white actors can play sexy roles. (Maybe Heathcliff isn’t Romani, but he isn’t white.) And can we stop making abusive men into brooding romantic heroes? Can abusive men be held accountable somewhere?

Oh well. That’s enough of that. It’s just movie, right? It doesn’t have to be the book. No movie can be the book. And any retelling–whether fanfiction, song, movie–should bring something new. Otherwise, why make it?

I still have no interest in “Wuthering Heights.” Book aside, nothing I’ve seen in the trailer makes me want to see it. Maybe if it had been Wuthering Heights in Space? Or Cathy turns to witchcraft? Or Heathcliff time travels. Then maybe…

Anyway, if you see it, have fun!

(So many content warnings, y’all. Don’t click the links if you don’t want to see the images. I linked them in order to cite some sources.)

Many of us know what it is to lose someone. We may journey through the land of grief on different paths, facing different monsters, but everyone who lives long enough goes through it. You’d think it could make people more empathetic, and sometimes it does. Sometimes, however, it seems to turn people into monsters themselves. But that’s not what I want to write about today.

Today, I’m thinking about the people whose loss becomes public, becomes spectacle, becomes meme-ified, weaponized, or dissected.

In 1947, LIFE Magazine published a photo of the body of a young woman who had leapt to her death from the Empire State Building. She’s been called “the most beautiful suicide.” Imagine being her family, friends, or her fiancé?

Think of everyone traumatized by September 11, 2001 seeing the image of the falling man. Even if it wasn’t your loved one, you might know your loved one faced a similar death. And maybe you knew no one in New York City, but the image haunted you because you’re human and such a sight is terrifying and you’re empathetic. But also plenty of people were upset the photo was taken and published for the world to see. They said the photo was exploitative and wrong.

You can debate, of course, the ethics of photojournalism, but now everyone has a camera, and so if something terrible is happening, someone–not a photojournalist–is filming it. I imagine that even things happening behind the walls of detention centers where abuses and murders are happening, someone is still photographing at least some of them. People did, after all, photograph torture in Abu Ghraib prison and lynchings throughout the United States. (In case you never learned this horrifying fact, white people would lynch someone Black or brown and take pictures in order to make postcards. Postcards. This is not the action of people afraid the truth will come out. These are people who know they don’t need to care.) The whys and wherefores of it all are a necessary discussion, but today, I’m thinking about the loved ones of the victims in the photos. What is it like to be scrolling on social media, and suddenly, someone has shared an image that goes straight to your heart because its your child, parent, sibling, friend.

I don’t mean to suggest the families don’t want the pictures. Emmett Till’s mother certainly did. Well, she wanted an open casket for her murdered child so that people would see and bear witness.

Witness.

I’m thinking, as you may have guessed, of the families of Renee Good and Alex Pretti. What must it be like for their families to see those videos. They’re everywhere. Slowed down. Labeled. Analyzed. Argued over. Lied about.

I’m thinking of the family of Tamir Rice. That was filmed. And there was no justice whatsoever. Tamir was 12. There’s video of Philando Castile. No justice there either.

Photographs and video don’t automatically bring justice. No shit. It can’t. At least not in our here and now with our denial, biases, fascism, and deep fakes.

But again, in this moment, I’m thinking about the families. They can see their loved one harmed and hear people lie about it. They can replay the video again and again. They can, years down the road, be scrolling on social media, thinking about the most light-hearted of things, and then bam. There it is. The pictures. The clip. The comments.

I don’t know how each person involved processes that. It’s a personal journey on a road you don’t know until you’re on it.

May it be a road you never see.

There’s so many other instances I could write about and aspects of all this to discuss. This is only a fraction.

Thanks for reading.

I am, in spite of the state of things, an optimist. Not an oblivious cheerful cheerleader of relentless, cloying positivity. No. Life is hard. When you’re trapped in the headlight of an oncoming train, life may very well come along and hit you in the back of the head with a bat. And I say this from experience.

But also, the train passes. The bat stops swinging. The sun shines and the flowers still bloom and poetry gets written and jokes get told. I’m perilously close to saying the sun will come out tomorrow.

Let’s be real. For maybe another five billion years the sun will come out tomorrow. That’s a good run, isn’t it? And nobody is going to be around to see all those sun rises. (That’s about 1,825,000,000,000 sunrises if you’re wondering. Maybe I should start a sticker chart…)

As I write this, some people are having the worst (or last) day of their lives. That’s a terrible thing to say, but also horrifyingly true. And Superman isn’t going to fly around the Earth, reversing time and tragedy.

So, considering the horrors that surround us (and I do not minimize the horrors–they are monstrous and tenacious), I’m still an optimist. Because the wheel turns. Deserved happiness is happening somewhere. And I won’t let the bastards grind me down.

Also, what right have I to give up and say we’re doomed. There are circles of hell I’ve never had to visit, but many other people have, and they kept fighting for another day. I have a roof over my head, food in my kitchen, and a job to go to. Now, those could certainly change, but for now, I have the best doggos, a family, and friends. I still have time to write and make art.

My optimism doesn’t mean I believe I’ll be a successful author. It means I’ll keep writing as long as mind and body allow.

My optimism doesn’t mean I believe I’ll live long enough to see this country finally face its tragic flaws and its crimes against humanity and become a country the world needs. But someone will live that long. And if I can carry (or drag kicking and screaming) my little portion of this place closer to that end goal, I’ll do my best. The sun will rise on a future generation. And it will be good.

Here are few Instagram accounts I recommend: ashleytheebarroness, mspackyetti, mainandvine, optimisticsoap, and tad.stoermer.

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Thanks for reading. Good luck out there.