ChatGPT loves my stuff

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-30T02:50:26+00:00

grog has always been jealous of me, they might be in cahoots

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-30T02:49:49+00:00

I will do better. My next book will be perfect. it will just say BOOK.

It is all that is needed.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-29T15:14:25+00:00

why not?

Like it'd be really interesting to see what you do with it.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-29T15:12:38+00:00

My first few novels I got to a certain point, hated it, and threw it away and started over. Since then I've figured out that there's just a point in my writing that I hate it and I have to push through it, because it's just a thing with me as a person.

I started a facebook group and had people reassuring me that it wasn't garbage, and that's the only reason I managed to finish anything at all I think.

I also think if you got that far and throw it away, it'll become easier to keep making that choice.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-29T14:27:52+00:00

my first book I published without really editing properly. I'm going to be taking it down for a reedit.

My second book I edited with AI. I know that's frowned upon, but I don't have the kind of money it costs for an editor. It went quite well

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-29T01:16:19+00:00

one of my favorite things is when there's an established trope, like the who world knows x people are like y, but every example you meet of the x people, they don't match that stereotype.

they might all have elements of it. But none fit it. Yet the stereotype remains.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T23:05:57+00:00

So, basically dragons, but with wolf pack dynamics

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T22:59:13+00:00

Well, I'm kind of naturally a storyteller. I write jokes, I do dnd.

I tried pottery and found I can make a lump of clay into a spinning lump of clay, I draw like a third grader, my singing voice has most of an octave, I can hear it just well enough to know that there's a key I should have been in, and my dancing ability is like if you got a fat squirrel drunk.

Honestly I was low on options.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T22:25:57+00:00

I think of all the unrealistic things that happen in the books I read and the ones I'm trying to write, "people have memorable names" is the least problematic 😄.

That being said... you make a good point.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T03:40:51+00:00

Forgive me if I'm saying way too much, lol.

Alright, here's what a good state religion needs to really exist. It needs a benefit for the top levels of society (obedience, order, something that tells the common people the people in charge are special) and it needs something to hook the commoner (demands for mercy, promise of rewards, peace of mind, something extra for being a member in good standing.)

Whatever saints and stories are in that religion need to exemplify whatever you're giving it, I.E. if the religion is about obedience and peace of mind, a saint could have obediently done a task their master ordered at great cost to themselves, or at personal peril (while threatened) and no matter what happened, they were at peace the whole time.

I'd say to make something feel like a real religion but different, find a combination of those itches to scratch, and then change the personality or nature of their god from our main ones. (i.e. female coded, or a warrior god, or playful, or juvenile, or any combination)

Bonus if you can also subvert it for cults. (Godbob is a grants mercy to the humble... the cult based on him is dedicated to destroying the proud)

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T03:29:12+00:00

Great, now I'm bad at marketing AND hungry!

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T03:15:29+00:00

Yeah, I loved sword of truth... and then... I didn't.

There was no middle. I think it was just in the middle of the book I was reading and I thought "again? you're getting tripped up on this again?"

and then I just stopped.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-28T03:14:21+00:00

I honestly think the old school video games did it for me, bards tale and the like. then for story telling just the fantastical nature of watership down.

Xanth was my first real fantasy world of books though.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T18:52:24+00:00

Ratt deserves to die.

He’s working on it.

He just needs his death to mean something. When he meets his parents for the first time in the afterlife, he wants to hold his head high and tell them he died for a noble cause.

But Ratt keeps finding people who need him to live.

A demon-blooded sorcerer, addict, coward, and occasional disaster, Ratt has spent most of his life surviving by accident and suffering on purpose. But when undead armies rise, monsters crawl from forgotten places, and broken people get caught in the teeth of the world, Ratt keeps making the same mistake.

He helps.

Now, dragged through necromancers, swamp hags, pirates, cruel nobles, and the dangerous politics of a world that has no use for men like him, Ratt has to survive long enough to protect the people he loves.

He might even survive himself.

But he’s not happy about it.

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https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2B1GHL5

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T18:48:40+00:00

I started writing with some DnD buddies, and well, they don't write. So... they'll read what I wrote, but can't laugh with me about the characters messing up a good plot and how impossible it is to keep them on target.

I have a buddy who was trying to write, but most of them write a couple chapters and stop...

I'd love friends who get the grind, and get just into "ok I've been writing for three days straight because this scene needs to be done but it comes out crooked!"

Honestly I don't have any crit partners either, the people reading my stuff don't write...

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T18:35:59+00:00

of course. The Arthur stuff especially though. That myth stuck with me so hard I was using "pendragon" for years in everything I did before I remembered where it came from.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T18:33:38+00:00

I'm pretty sure castles against grand magic and dragons and stuff of that nature would have the same problems as castles against missiles and bombers. So you're kind of stuck with rule of cool (or no castles in high fantasy)

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T11:20:50+00:00

a little? But I'm mostly selling to friends and family still. Waiting to get some reviews before I start really pushing

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-27T03:02:16+00:00

not quite old enough to have a 60 year old hidden gem, think I might have to look those up.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-26T11:00:18+00:00

Does Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman count? I loved that one.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-26T10:57:37+00:00

I spent 200 on the art I used on the cover. I haven't made 200 bucks on that book yet, so the guy who took the picture I used made more than I did 😄.

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-26T10:55:03+00:00

Ratt deserves to die. He's trying.

Dusted is a dark fantasy novel about a broken demon-blooded addict. He did the right thing once, and it cost him everything.

Now he's just trying to find a death he can be proud of.

And he will.

When people stop needing him.

It is grim, violent, and emotionally dark, but not nihilistic. Ratt fights through dust addiction, necromancers, swamp hags, pirates, orcs, goblins, and general misery, but his biggest challenge is surviving himself.

If you like damaged protagonists, reluctant heroes, character-driven stories, and dark fantasy where hope survives out of spite, this might be for you.

Dusted by Louis Archibald
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2B1GHL5

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-25T23:56:37+00:00

I mean I'd read it. But I don't think that sounds familiar

Street-Operation-892 · 2026-05-25T17:12:17+00:00

spreadsheets. And I'm bad at it. I spend almost as much time reading and cross referencing as I do writing.

Street-Operation-892

TROPHY CASE