To all my followers, please be patient. Currently, James O. Youngcliff is on hiatus. I’m writing, but not for children and YA.
I’ve decided to “upgrade” to adult fiction and shortened the manuscripts to around 35K words, or novella-sized stories. This change fits with our lifestyle right now. We’re hobby farmers and enjoy the animals. Life can’t be all about the word; it’s about living.
However, no fear; look for Clay Stoner as the brand-name author. He’s just published “The God Cell,” a short story that is offbeat but interesting, if I may pat myself on the back. There will be other novellas to come out in the next six months. Please be on the lookout for them.
For now, I’m most excited to announce that the first novella, Deliver Unto Me That Which Is Mine, should be available by the Holidays this winter. It is at the editor’s as we speak for bidding. Here’s the Stoner website: www.claystoner.com. Where you’ll be seeing more updates.
I’ve got to get into the AI Fight
I know, and you know the arguments, and I won’t bore anyone with them. I’m an author who appreciates AI as a tool. Yes, as a tool. Remember the days of dictionaries and thesauruses? We all use them. It wasn’t a big deal then, and so why is AI a big deal today? Sure, many abuse it. And that’s wrong on any level.
I only use AI to help with proofreading, sentence structure, and logic. Everything that goes into my stories, the material, the style, the voice, the tone, and the contents, is mine. All mine. Not AI. So, when some high and mighty editor, or anyone for that matter, refuses to edit my work because I’ve used AI, then it gets me going!
Granted, if you use it to develop your content, that’s wrong and lazy! I don’t write with an outline, so for me, it’s not what I would do. So, let’s get off this sudden cry AI is taking over, and we’re losing jobs and money! If so, then why don’t we burn dictionaries and thesauruses? And just for the record, after I use AI, I take my manuscript and hand it over to an editor to read and proofread, and line edit, and whatever else I require, bringing a finished copy of my work to the reader to enjoy.
Thanks for hearing me out. Again, look for more of Clay Stoner on Amazon, IngramSpark, and Draft2Digital in the coming months. And please, don’t forget to check out James O. Youngcliff’s latest BluBerrie illustrated story: Folly’s Folly, now available. (www.amazon.com/author/jamesoyoungcliff and www.amazon.com/author/claystoner)
CYA.
