indie writer

Social Media Fatigue, AI Slop and the Enshittification of the Internet

~ ChanAtkins ~ 5 Comments

I’ve Had Enough – But Where Do We Go From Here?

Image by TyliJura from Pixabay

I learnt a new word this week: enshittification.

I came across it in an article and it struck such a chord I looked it up. Wikipedia describes it as: “Enshittification, also known as crapification and platform decay, is a pattern in which online products and services decline in quality. Initially, vendors create high-quality offerings to attract users, then they degrade those offerings to better serve business customers, and finally degrade their services to users and business customers to maximize profits for shareholders.”

And wow, doesn’t that just sum up the late stage of capitalism we are in right now? Late stage capitalism = end of the world, if you’re feeling really gloomy.

But in all seriousness, it kind of adds up to that, doesn’t it? As the above quote explains, huge companies, the elite, the ultra rich, the CEOs and shareholders, the governments, the rulers and the polluters are paying no heed whatsoever to the plight of the world, the natural environment or human suffering. It’s as if they can see the burning end coming and are trying to hoard as much wealth and security as possible in preparation for when end days really arrive. They’ll be fine in their bunkers while everything collapses around the rest of us.

But let’s go back to my new favourite word. I’d been feeling this way about social media for some time. I even wrote a poem on Medium about it and I’ve posted it at the end just for fun. I recently read a book called The Way Home by Mark Boyle, which is about one man shunning the modern world and technology to live in a self-made cabin in the woods and survive by himself. By the time I’d devoured it I wanted to do the exact same thing myself. I soon realised I couldn’t, of course. You need money to buy land and be left alone. Plus, how could I sell my books or get paid for my writing if I gave up technology? I am trapped. We are all trapped.

That depressed me but I decided to fight back by cutting down my use of tech. I’ve started leaving my phone behind, for example. No, I don’t mean when I leave the house, I don’t have the guts for that yet, but I mean when I move from room to room. Yes, like a lot of us, that’s how glued to my phone I normally am. It’s always in my back pocket. It’s an addiction, let’s be honest.

But it’s an addiction that we all seem to hate and grumble about constantly. Twitter, now known as X, has seen a huge exodus to rival Bluesky in response to Elon Musk’s support for Trump. That includes me, by the way. Facebook has just announced they’re getting rid of the fact-checking facility. So, in the name of free speech, we’ll now be subjected to a tidal wave of lies and misinformation, not to mention hate speech and more political interference from certain wealthy quarters.

Facebook has been declining for some time too and I can see it soon going the same way as X. It is my intention to start building my content up on other platforms from now on.

Medium was a lifeline for a while. In a few months I’ll have been on there for two years and for the majority of that time it has surpassed my expectations. It’s paid me for my writing, rewarded me for my words, made me feel appreciated and valued. But then AI came along and ruined it all. These days Medium is fast becoming another platform I need but actively loathe going on.

All right, it’s not that bad yet. I’m getting good at spotting, blocking and reporting the huge amount of spammers, scammers and bots that now stalk it, but it’s still depressing, not to mention time consuming to have to do this. Reads, views and earnings are down for everyone. People are leaving in droves. It’s becoming impossible to determine what is human written and what is AI generated and Medium didn’t seem to be doing anything to discourage the barrage of AI slop, until today that is. I’ve just edited this blog post and luckily before I published it, because Medium have just emailed its subscribers updating them on their approach to AI slop, spammers and scammers.

I felt a huge sense of relief reading the email. They do seem to be very much aware of the frustrations we’ve been having, even down to the generic ‘nice’ or ‘good’ or ‘follow me’ comments we get on our articles from people who have not read them. The rules for Medium are clearly presented as follows, and anyone who breaks them is being suspended and/or removed. Yay!

  • creating multiple accounts to engage with yourself and generate earnings
  • using responses solely to drive attention to your stories with the intention of creating reciprocal earnings
  • writing responses, clapping, following, or highlighting solely to generate earnings
  • using AI-generated content to earn money for stories and responses in the Partner Program

I don’t know where writers go from here. I sometimes feel like our time is running short. Why will anyone hire a real human writer if they can get AI to do the job for them? Stories, poems, essays, articles, copy, ghost-writing, you name it, AI can do it.

And it was already hard enough for writers, both trad published and indie. Hard and getting harder. So, what do we do? Where do we go?

Well, we don’t give up, that’s for sure. We seek out better places. For me, that means returning humbly to the safety of my blog. I am now adding my blog link to every piece I publish on Medium and since joining Bluesky, I am also cross-posting my blog pieces to there. My blog is mine and I control it. That’s something to value these days and I predict the humble blog will see a rise in popularity and usage in the next few years as writers turn away from the enshittification of social media platforms.

I’m on Substack but need to up my game. I’m still working out how best to use it, because although it is tempting to repost Medium and blog pieces there, this seems a bit dull. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll use it to serialise my next book? I’m not sure. At the moment I’m just using it for my newsletter and I’ve only posted two so far, so there is work to be done.

Bluesky so far is mostly a breath of fresh air. We’ll see though. I’ll definitely be posting there more often and if it takes off along with Substack, then I predict I’ll use Instagram and Facebook far less.

That’s my way of handling it anyway. We can’t give up, that’s for sure. Though I truly felt like it when I was told by one of the kids in my writing clubs this week that their teacher had been showing them how to use AI to write stories. They all thought this was wonderful while I was horrified. They couldn’t understand my horror so I changed the subject. They’re too young for me to rant at but I wanted to ask them what they thought would happen to me teaching them writing, if they could use AI to do the same thing? I’d be out of a job, surely?

I also wanted to ask them if they didn’t see it as cheating, because I do. We’ve got this far without AI churning out stories and poems for us. Why are we so quick to hand our imagination over to huge nameless companies? And yes I know that tools such as Grammarly and even the spell check function on Word are technically AI, but, and you can fight me on this, using a tool to check your spelling and grammar, is not the same as using a tool to form a sentence or a paragraph for you.

It frustrates me. Writing should be hard! It should take your blood sweat and tears! It should enrage and frustrate you because once you get through that and figure it out for yourself, it will excite and thrill you. Can you say the same thing about AI? I doubt it. When you are praised for a piece of writing, can you really take the credit? Can you really feel proud?

Pride. Imagination. Working through those humps and blocks. Thrashing out ideas. Rearranging sentences. Cutting out repetitive words. Are we really going to let AI do the hard work for us?

Well, I’m not.

I’m a writer and I write and I will continue to do so even if things continue to get harder.

What are your thoughts on all this? I’d love to know so feel free to drop a comment…

Sick Of Social Media

I’m sick of social media
it makes me feel sick
dehydrated, disconnected
draining my empathy
til all that I can see
is how I don’t want to be
so please don’t message me
don’t chase me up
don’t hound me down
don’t send me a reel
or assume my time is yours to steal
don’t leave me a voice-note
don’t tell me how to vote
don’t message me a random link
and expect me to click it
don’t pretend to know anyone
don’t pretend you are having fun
don’t say things to strangers online
that would get you battered in real life
don’t send thoughts and prayers
don’t pretend that you care
or that your sympathy isn’t reserved
for some countries more than others
don’t ask me to follow you
don’t assume I want to know you
don’t offer me a service
or expect me to want this
don’t assume I am interested
or that your life has me invested
I’m sick of social media
it is making me sick
dehydrated, disconnected
blunting my sympathy
til all that I can see
is who I don’t want to be

My 2025 Goals!

~ ChanAtkins ~ Leave a comment

Every year I set goals for the year ahead so that at the end of the year I can compare them to the reality!

Image by Παῦλος from Pixabay

I can barely believe another year has flown by so fast, but here we are. It’s time to think about what I would like to achieve in 2025, then at the end of 2025 I will write a comparison post where I revisit these goals and see how well I did!

So. without further ado, I hope 2025 looks like this:

  1. Publish The Mess Of Us February 2025 – this is already ready and set up for pre-order so should be easy to achieve and is the first goal for me for the New Year.
  2. Go through my editors suggestions for The Dark Finds You and prepare it for release summer 2025 – The Dark Finds You will be the final book in a universe of interconnected books. If you’ve been kind enough to read all my books, you will recognise several of the characters. This crime drama storyline will tie up all their individual stories and issues and it was possibly my favourite book to write ever, so I’ll be very excited to release it!
  3. Publish The World You Gave Us through Chasing Driftwood Books – This is an anthology of fiction, poetry and non-fiction written by the children I work with within Chasing Driftwood Writing Group. I started it a few years back and got quite far but then lost it when my laptop died, so we had to start again from scratch. It’s looking very good so far but I intend to really push for content between January and April and then start getting it ready for a June release.
  4. Send Black Hare Valley Book 1 to beta readers and my editor – I am currently on the fifth draft and already feel like the next stage is beta reader feedback.
  5. Get both Black Hare Valley books 2 and 3 to 5th draft status – They are both in the first draft at the moment, but while the first book goes to beta readers, I’ll direct my attention to them and get them further along the road. They are both much shorter books than the first!
  6. Finish the companion book I am working on – I started this the other day. It’s basically a diary written by one of the main characters. There is a thirty year gap between book 1 and book 3 where this character is basically alone and sort of trapped. I thought it would be really fun if he kept a diary during that time and I could use it as a companion book. I also have lots of short story ideas for the Black Hare Valley universe. And it certainly is becoming another universe!
  7. Continue to build and progress Chasing Driftwood Books – This is the indie collective myself and author Sim Alec Sansford started with a group of authors. We were all in the same boat, struggling with low sales and reviews and low incomes. So we decided to band together and work cooperatively to get our work more out there. We only launched the website and the social media pages very recently, but there is lots we want to achieve this year.
  8. Continue to keep as physically and mentally well as possible! – I have dived in and out of pilates throughout my life but I’m currently in my longest streak of sticking with it and I’ve really started to see results. I started back in August and very rarely go a day without doing at least fifteen minutes of pilates exercises. I find it very relaxing and calming for me mentally and it has certainly helped with the age related aches and pains I was starting to feel set in. I will be 47 this year, and as I edge closer to 50 I intend to stay as fit and healthy as I can. For mental health this means pilates, writing and being outdoors as much as possible. Let’s see if I can stick with it!
  9. Restart my vegetable plot – I had a year off last year. It was stressing me out because every year I started with the best intentions and soon found I run out of time and energy. The vegetable plot would end up horribly neglected and I would feel disappointed with myself. What I did do was take down all the fencing and let the earth just rest for a year. I planted a few bits in old car tires and that was it. This year I intend to start small and slow and see how far I get. The whole area needed sorting and tidying so at least I have done that. I missed it a lot. I’ve just got to allocate time for it and that’s usually the tricky thing.
  10. Reconnect with nature whenever and wherever I can – part of this is my new goal to learn the names of things I do not know. I have a certain amount of knowledge when it comes to plants, trees, weeds, birds and wild animals but there is so much I do not know. I’ve decided to choose three things on every dog walk that I do not know the name of and then find out. So far already I have identified turkey tail fungi, wild honeysuckle, purple moor grass, Douglas Fir, Scots Pine, Spindle, rough chervil, celandine, sedge grass, noble yarrow, hogweed, sweet violet, common bittercress and a few more. I hope by learning to identify them and then sharing it to Facebook, I will remember them for good. I also hope to get out in nature and explore some new areas this year.

So, that’s everything I hope to achieve in 2025! It will be interesting to revisit these at the end of the year and see how it went.

Why Do So Many Authors Forget To Create Characters?

~ ChanAtkins ~ 8 Comments

It genuinely puzzles me…

Image by JULIO VICENTE from Pixabay

I read a lot. A few books a week usually. I have a to-read-list in a notebook and I jot down the titles of anything I come across on social media or anything recommended to me that sounds like my kind of thing. I am a bit fussy – I’ll admit that – but there isn’t much I won’t read other than romance and erotica. I’m not mad keen on fantasy in its typical form but I will read anything paranormal, supernatural or magical.

I don’t consider myself a reading snob. I do have a few favourite authors of whom I will happily devour every new release they put out. I’m not majorly into the classics and I read graphic novels and comic books as well as traditional books.

But there is one thing that annoys me and frustrates me more than anything else and I just keep coming across it – more often than not in traditionally published books with amazing sales and thousands of reviews…

Authors who forget to create characters!

Now, bear with me. Obviously these authors don’t pen books with no characters, expecting the location and plot to carry themselves. But it does feel a bit like this:

Author checklist

location: researched, described beautifully – check

plot – ironed out, checked over, worked through, twists and turns, no plot holes – check

research into topic – yup, done – check

writing skills/talent – yep, can string a sentence together and construct a story – check

characters – oh, they’ll do. – check

NOOOOO!

They won’t do. ‘Any old character’ will not do. I’m genuinely getting sick of it so excuse me if this comes across as a bit of a rant. Before I talk about the lack of characterisation that has driven me crazy lately in numerous books I’ve read, (and I won’t be naming them, to be fair to the authors) let me first tell you about a book that has got its characters right.

I am currently reading Deadly Animals by Marie Tierney. It’s a crime thriller about a serial killer and its set in 1980s Birmingham, UK. It’s the author’s debut novel which I find incredibly exciting as I would happily read anything else she releases. I won’t go into the plot too much but essentially the main character is a 13 year-old girl called Ava, who has the unusual hobby of searching for and studying dead animals. It’s while doing this she comes across the body of the first victim, a teenage boy she knew. Ava is quite simply a memorable character. She is smart, wise beyond her years, fiercely loyal to her friends and her dysfunctional family, and she is constantly one step ahead of the police in solving the crimes. However, the other characters are also wonderfully drawn. Her best friend John has his own personality, life and background, as do the two detectives Delahaye and Lines. I would argue that Delahaye is another main character along with Ava, but Lines is just as well realised.

Let me put it simply. There are two detectives investigating and they have different personalities. You know, like real people do in real life. They look different but they also sound different. I can tell them apart and I don’t just mean by their different names. They have particular ways of saying things, little gestures or mannerisms that are mentioned here and there, they have different ways of responding to the brutal scenes they witness and so on. These characters will stay in my head for a long time and although the plot is brilliant and the writing gorgeous, personally, I need to care about the characters to care about the plot.

Is it just me?

I keep imagining how I would feel about this book if the author had not created her characters so vividly. I would want to know who was killing the children and why and I would enjoy the investigation’s progress in revealing the killer. I’d appreciate the location and research gone into the story and plot. But would I care about Ava? About John, and Delayhaye and Lines? No. I wouldn’t.

And when you don’t care about the characters it makes it very hard to care what happens next…

Okay, onto the books that annoyed me recently. There have been too many but I’m going to talk about two. The first was marketed as a found footage style horror story. The blurb intrigued me and I bought it because it came up in a book group I’m in on Facebook. I added it to my to-read list months ago and finally got around to reading it recently. The story was interesting. A reporter who fears losing her job asks if she can investigate some footage that has gone viral online and her boss agrees.

The main character decides to head to the last known location of the missing friends (on her own) to find out. Despite numerous warnings and red flags on the way, (the locals are either vile to her, downright creepy and pervy, or try to tell her to go home) but she ignores them and gets to the location, which by the way, is totally secluded. I was already tiring of this character. Why would you do that? Why would you go alone?

Anyway, what then follows was a series of bad decisions on her part and the whole story stepped up a gear as she began to unravel what was going on. The plot itself was fine. It had twists and turns. I didn’t guess what was going on. But I truly did not care…

There were times when the main character was running for her life, or hiding from danger, or crying down the phone and there were times when it seemed she was about to be killed… but I did not care. I had no attachment to her whatsoever in fact I started to wish she would get killed because there was just no point in her. Zero.

The other characters were just as bad. You couldn’t tell them apart. They had different genders and different names, if that helps? That was about it. Oh, they looked different. You know, some girls had blonde pixie cuts and some boys has brown curly hair or whatever. But when they spoke they all sounded the same.

What the author did here was come up with a good horror story – a bit of a Blair Witch, if you like, and there is nothing wrong with that. What the author did not do was create any characters. He gave them names, but the main character, for example, could have been anyone. I could not tell you a single thing about her personality other than her vocation and that in my opinion she was a bit dim to go out there on her own.

Okay, the next one was similar. It was a crime thriller and part of a series. Needless to say, I won’t be reading any more in the series and I am genuinely confused about the amount of positive reviews these books have. The writing was fine, the locations were fine, the plot was fine. It involved two private investigators, one man, one woman, who I believe appear in all the books. This time they had been hired to try and solve the cold case of a missing teenage girl. There were two notorious and now behind bars, serial killers in that area at time, which made it a tad interesting. But also, I guessed really early on who had actually killed the girl.

But back to the characters. The man and the woman. That was the only way I could tell them apart. She had a son. He also had no personality and said things that any of them could have said. None of them had any mannerisms or nuances of personality. There was some back story, obviously, as its part of a series, but that didn’t seem to help give them personalities. If you met these people in real life you would be bored stiff in minutes. They were so forgettable, so banal, so pointless…

I just didn’t care.

But maybe it’s just me? Plenty of reviewers seemed to love these books but personally, I want to feel something for the characters, even if its hate and loathing! I want them to stand out from each other and everyone else. I want them to have back story, past trauma, motivations and hidden desires. I want them to be flawed and interesting and funny and smart, and, well, anything that makes them human!

I won’t be going back to those authors to find any of that.

I truly think there are two types of writers out there. Those who come up with a great idea, a concept, a plot and a way to weave it all together. They then have to shove some characters into the plot to do the heavy lifting.

And there are those that come up with everything, maybe not all at once, but bit by bit, both plot and characters developing alongside each other. Those that know the story is the character. The character is the story.

There would be no story without the character. Yes, work on the plot, weave that magic, keep the reader hooked, write beautifully and do your research… yes, yes, yes. But please, please, for the love of my sanity, remember to create the characters as well. And put the same amount of effort into them!

Genuinely though – is it just me?

If You’re Planning More Than Writing, You’re Going To Miss Out

~ ChanAtkins ~ 4 Comments

A balance between actual writing and preparation is what to aim for

Image by Yerson Retamal from Pixabay

I’ve been running my own creative writing business for over ten years now. I used to run creative writing workshops for adults and kids, but these days I just concentrate on the kids. My writing clubs are run on Zoom or in person via after-school clubs, and my clubs are always full. My school clubs all have waiting lists. It thrills me to know there is a thirst for writing among young people and I love my job.

However, in all the years I have worked with young people and with adults, whether its running clubs and workshops, or taking part in literary and writing festivals, there is a phenomena I always come across and it always, always worries me.

The over-planner.

The writer, whatever their age, who plans, plots, preps and then plans, plots and preps some more. Often this process, for older writers at least, has been going on for decades. I have met countless adults who are still working on a book they had the idea for as a youngster. I fully understand that life gets in the way. That happened to me and I had a ten year break where I did not write at all. I also understand that self-doubt gets in the way and even money gets in the way.

Let’s not doubt that writing a book, finishing a book and publishing a book is a hard road to hoe.

But many writers seem to be self-sabotaging themselves from the beginning and I am curious to know why.

Within my writing groups, I come across three types of writer.

One, the writer who loves writing, happily responds to every and any prompt or challenge, writes short sharp things, declares them done and then moves on to the next.  These writers are a joy, and I predict that as they get older they will settle down to something a bit longer, something that takes more of their time, but for the moment they are having fun and more importantly, they are finishing things. 

The second type I come across is the ‘have a million stories on the go at once but rarely finish one’ writer the ‘have a million stories on the go at once but rarely finish one’ writer, and again, this is very common with young writers. I used to do this myself. I always tell them not to worry. Having too much to write is not a bad thing, it shows how much is going on inside your head and it also demonstrates that the writer is constantly being stimulated and inspired by the world around them. Great stuff. I have every faith that this writer too will eventually find a story they are passionate about and will stick with it and finish it.

The third type is the ‘have an amazing idea, have created an entire universe, but can’t stop planning and prepping’ writer. This one worries me and in my groups, I keep an eye on these ones as it is a tricky trap to escape from once you fall into it.

There is perfectionism at work here and we all know perfectionism can stop us writing. I think these writers are able to write regularly but everything becomes about planning the book more than writing the book.

Often it’s a complex story, perhaps one that has been with them a long time. It means a lot to them and they want to get it right and do it justice. And of course over time, the writer changes and matures and evolves, so they go back over their writing again and again noticing things they can improve. There is nothing wrong with doing this as a young writer by the way. In fact I would advise against publishing books at a very young age because undoubtedly your writing will get better as you get older.

But I come across a lot of adults with amazing stories they’ve been working on for years, yet they are still not ready to publish. This isn’t about them trying to find an agent, or trying to decide what publishing route to choose, this is about them not thinking the story is ready at all. This is about them working on it, planning, preparing, researching, plotting forever and ever…and never letting go of it to move on to the next thing.

For some reason they can’t quite let it go. They can’t quite share it or declare it finished. Or perhaps they can’t quite write it, because the planning has totally absorbed them and taken over. Some writers are natural planners. They like to plan everything out before they start. I’m talking full plot, sub-plots, intricate character profiles, location research, general research and much more. They often end up with a vast body of work which is undoubtedly impressive, but the story has still not been written.

My advice to this kind of writer is always the same. I always tell the young people in my writing groups that planning and plotting should be a balancing act alongside actual writing — dipping your toe in the water, if you like.

Some writers hate planning and just want to dive right in but I encourage them to do just the minimal amount. At least a plot idea, or brainstorm, at least a character bio or a vague idea for the location. Get that down then start writing. When you get stuck, go back to planning. Does this character need more fleshing out, for example? More back story or motivation? Do you now need to research the location a bit more so you’re not just winging it?

Planning and writing can go hand in hand and happen alongside each other. But they need each other. We cannot have a great story without a bit of planning and we cannot have a great story if we never write it because we are too hung up on the preparation.

Personally, I like to have a vague plot and my characters sorted first,  then the location and after that I start writing. I always like to know what’s roughly going to happen in the next chapter or two and that is enough to keep me going. The story and the characters undoubtedly change and evolve as I write and that is part of the beauty that too much planning can sometimes rob us of.

I don’t like knowing everything before I start – I like finding out as I go along.

But I also won’t start with a blank slate because I’d get stuck really quickly.

It’s all about balance.

For those who don’t finish, who spent maybe years planning and plotting and adding to their body of preparatory work, just consider how fast life goes. Please. On day it will be too late. How sad is that? My greatest fear is dying before I tell all the stories in my head. My goal is to get them all written and published before I die. I can’t think of a greater pain for a writer than bearing untold stories!

Once something is written, once something is out of your head and your planning notebooks, you can make it better. You cannot edit a blank page. You cannot improve a story that has not been written. You’ve got to become comfortable with the process of a first draft.

This is perhaps something some writers struggle with.

A first draft is you telling yourself the story. It should be basic and clumsy. Ugly, even. You should wince a little when writing it, but you should not let that stop you. You are building something for the first time. You are finding your way and if you start writing it, believe me, the characters and the world you have created will start to help tell it for you. A process will begin. Something simultaneously controlled by you and in control of you.

It’s magic, I promise.

I cringe at my first drafts but no one is ever going to see them. I don’t know my characters that well yet, despite the bios I’ve created. It feels clunky and unnatural when they speak or act, but I push forward. I tell the story. Once it is done I go back over it and wow, often its better than I thought it was! But if you don’t ever write the first draft, how will you know?

To the over-planners I say this. A first draft is your friend. A first draft is your starting point. A first draft is a promise. A first draft has so much potential and once it is written in all its stumbling unsure glory, you can sharpen up those perfectionist and over-planning skills and put them to use.

Preparation, notes, ideas, research and snippets are no good all on their own. Plus, you are missing out on the best part of writing if you never get past this stage — writing ‘The End’ and cracking open a bottle of bubbly to celebrate before the real hard work starts…

Go on. Stop planning. Write.