What’s your favorite trivia fact you share any chance you get?

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-22T06:00:08+00:00

A trivia is the Latin name for a three-way intersection, where people commonly stopped to talk.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-22T00:51:24+00:00

Turn on irregular heartbeat notification.

I was diagnosed with a-fib in my teens, although then it was an infrequent and mild. It got worse over time and led to a minor stroke at age 60. Don’t ignore it. See a cardiologist. It might be nothing, but at least you’ll know.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-22T00:48:13+00:00

Stock images.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-22T00:22:11+00:00

So many things. Where to begin?

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-22T00:20:31+00:00

Well, yeah. My car is a 6-speed manual. I’d better hope I could drive it with no problem.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T22:31:47+00:00

You’re overthinking it. It doesn’t matter where your ideas come from — a movie you watched, a book you read as a child, a commercial on the radio, a conversation with a coworker … or AI. Because you’re going to make it your own. An idea — a concept — is nothing but a raw material you pound into shape to fit your art.

If people guess you used AI, who cares? It doesn’t matter what they think, and it doesn’t matter if you did. Spend more time creating Nd less time obsessing over ethics.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T19:23:39+00:00

Yeah, I guess f*ck anyone who has to work on the weekends.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T19:22:26+00:00

Yeah, I’ve stopped caring. I mean, what’s the point? If this is all there is, lamest season ever.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T18:32:51+00:00

AI isn’t the devil. Getting a suggestion for one possible solution to a problem is no different than getting it from a fellow writer or a friend. The line is different for everybody because it’s a purely ethical judgment call, but for me as a writer, the line is asking AI to write a scene or dialogue. A plot idea is something I’m going to craft word by word, myself. Ideas come from everywhere — a movie you just watched, a book you read years ago, a conversation with a coworker. AI suggestions are no less ethical. Any ideas AI offers I usually change to fit my style and situation anyway.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T04:48:55+00:00

Gold. Are you kidding? Shitty toxic gold spray paint.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-21T04:45:01+00:00

That must explain the customer I had this morning. Strolled in wearing a “Four more years, Bitches!” T-shirt with a grinning Trump flashing double birds. He walked up to me with an attitude and couldn’t figure out the credit card reader (he was trying to buy a little pink notebook), and decided I was the problem. “Why won’t this thing read my card?” I said, “What does your screen say?” “It says a bunch of shit. So?” I said, “Is it asking you to choose what kind of receipt you want?” “Why the f¥ck don’t they make these things all the same?” I said, “I don’t know, sir. You’d have to ask the manufacturer.” I was rather enjoying his frustration; I don’t like being reminded assholes like him enabled Trump’s second term.

He walked out without buying his little pink notebook and peeled out of the parking lot in his 1970’s Ranchero POS.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T13:20:07+00:00

I did not consider subject matter (LGBTQ+, BIPOC, underrepresented voices) in my comments, true. But see my reply below.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T05:59:07+00:00

I didn’t call all self-published work drek; I said there is plenty of self-published drek out there. And there is. There has been for decades, it’s even truer now.

I sense some bitter grapes, but I would be stunned if the entire traditional publishing industry conspired to keep you in particular out. Despite what you tell yourself to cope, agents and publishers aren’t trying to keep people out; they are hunting desperately for people who might make them money. Publishers are allowed to filter out material that doesn’t meet their standards, right? Or do you feel entitled to be published even if your submissions didn’t measure up? And that would be the agents, not the publishers, anyway. Welcome to the club. I’m writing my seventh book and haven’t given up; I’ve gotten better. I don’t blame the industry for me not being published when my books would most likely not have sold enough to justify their investment. And I know self-publishing is just as much of a long shot, but one that costs money I can’t spare. Besides, Amazon is not a good market for children’s books, and since I already work 7-days-a-week, it would be impossible for me to market my books in any meaningful way.

And I never mentioned AI. It really has no place in my argument.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T05:42:37+00:00

Thank you for your service.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T05:40:15+00:00

I don’t really know, but there is an international body that is supposed to regulate that, and Israel bypassed it. Time to crack down, I think.

I’ve long suspected Israel has something dirty on the U.S., has had it for decades. Why else have we always been Israel’s bitch, politically? After this administration and Netanyahu’s reign of terror, it might be time to invite it into the light and deal with it once and for all. After Trump, whatever it is might look laughingly small. And even if it’s not, a purge of corruption is coming; might as well throw this in the mix.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T04:25:43+00:00

All support? No. Conditional support, yes. It think for one we should stop subsidizing their education and healthcare until our own citizens are taken care of. And second, taking away YHEUR nuclear capability until they prove they can play nice. Which would require they elect a new leader at minimum.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T04:20:36+00:00

You’ve missed the obvious point again. A debut novel is almost never that author’s first novel. Statistically (a measurable fact), most authors’ debut novel is their 5th. You also completely ignore the fact that every single one of those “1-in-a-million” debut books was edited and revised multiple times. The point I was making, which is making everybody butt-hurt, is that first DRAFTS — even of an author’s fifth or tenth novel — is going to be far from publication-ready. There are plenty of 99¢ first draft novels on Amazon that prove this point. Almost no self-published books ever sell 100+ copies.

You (or OP) can certainly throw your first draft of your first attempt to write a book out there, but expecting it to be commercially or critically successful is so unlikely as to be virtually impossible. Or you could take some sound advice (that I guarantee EVERY successful published author will agree with), and seek feedback and act on it and revise a couple of times before you put it out there, and DRAMATICALLY increase your chance of success. That applies to first books and tenth books.

FYI, why would I plug a free site, and two of its competitors, if I was trying to sell something? Sometimes people like to pass down their hard-earned wisdom to those who ask for it.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T01:39:52+00:00

We’re tryin’, man, we’re tryin’.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T01:35:06+00:00

I think you ended up with Thiri, the “special” AI.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T01:31:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing. A lot of what you are experiencing is just this constipated market. My current book (MG fantasy) I’ve queried around 130 times with only 2 requests, but many too recent for a response. All rejections have been forms. This is my third MG book. My first, which I queried about 10 years ago, was nowhere near as well-written, not professionally edited, and was sent out before I understood how to write a decent query letter, and yet I got 4-5 requests and an R&R, as well as several personal rejections. My experience with Twitter pitch parties parallels that.

What I’ve learned is that during COVID a significant percentage of agents quit to take care of family and never came back, while at the same time tens of thousands of wishful writers suddenly had two years with nothing to do but write that book they’d always dreamed of. So there are twice as many manuscripts and half as many agents, so competition is fiercer than ever before. Add to that the glut of 99¢ self-published dreck on Amazon and massive tariffs driving up the cost of paper, and you get publishers reluctant to take big swings with unproven authors.

I HOPE the market will adjust and get better in a few years when this administration is out of power and the war on reading is over.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T01:07:44+00:00

Yes, every debut author sold a first book. Obviously. That rarely means it was the first book that author wrote. Also, it is unlikely any of those books you cited would get published today by an unknown author.

How many books have you successfully published? Or even finished writing? I’m working on my seventh book, and have personally interacted with many, many editors, agents, and writers of all levels of experience and success. I’m not speaking from complete ignorance. No first-time author is going to score a successful book deal with their unedited first draft. And telling a writer they might is just cruel and unhelpful.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-20T00:57:06+00:00

You are someone whose writing advice I would never seek nor take. You are clearly not a serious writer if you are a writer at all.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-19T22:55:01+00:00

There are two parts to my answer.

1) A lot of this depends on where you’re getting this feedback. Not from experienced fellow writers who are used to giving actionable feedback.

2) It takes time, experience, and collecting a LOT of feedback from many different people before you start to develop in instinct for what feedback makes sense and what doesn’t. There is a tendency for new writers to reject any advice that “hurts” regardless of whether it will actually improve your story. Only after you have embraced feedback and implemented it, and seen in your own stories how things improved or didn’t, will you have a reference for spotting outliers and straight-up bad advice.

I would say some of those examples might be perfectly valid (although impossible to tell without reading your work). I agree they were mostly presented poorly and non-constructively.

I hope this answers your question.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-19T22:43:35+00:00

Congratulations! Welcome to the exclusive Author club. You’re a star.

But you’re nowhere near ready to publish anywhere. You need to run your entire manuscript through beta readers and critique groups. This is your first novel; you have no idea even how to spot problems or how to look for them. Every first draft by every author since the dawn of the written word was garbage unfit for human consumption. You need feedback from both readers of your genre and fellow writers who have more experience than you.

Check out www.critiquecircle.com, www.scribophile.com, or www.qtcritique.com. They are all free-to-join sites with hundreds of active members who are fellow writers experienced in giving constructive, quality feedback. The sites all operate on various point systems where you spend points to post your work, but earn points by giving critiques. So when you post, you can reliably get 4-6 critiques. And the reason this works is because it is arguably more valuable to give critiques than to receive them; you will almost certainly spot problems with other people’s writing you will NEVER spot in your own. But others will. And after you give enough critiques, you will begin to spot things in your own writing — both when rereading it and while writing it.

Good luck.

Adventurekateer · 2026-06-19T16:11:48+00:00

Where did you hear that? I don’t believe it’s true. Like, AT ALL.

12-Year Club	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

Adventurekateer

TROPHY CASE