Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing a book I enjoyed by author Shana Abe, An American Beauty: A Novel of the Gilded Age. This is the second book I’ve read from this… More
AI and Capabilities of ChatGPT
If you’re a writer, you may be concerned about AI capabilities and the possibilities of having copyrighted material stolen from our own books or work. But like it or not, it’s here. And admittedly, I don’t like this technoligical free for all on author’s works, but apparently, there are up sides to using AI.
Despite my opinions on AI, I was scrolling through Youtube one day and a video suggestion came up talking about the good things ChatGPT can do for us. I was curious to learn what it had to offer, despite my feelings toward AI, so I watched the video. It was quite an informing tutorial. And the first question that stood out to me was, why not just ask Google for something we’re searching about?
Google will bring up websites for us to read through for material and information we’re looking for, whereas with ChatGPT we can drill down deeper. For example, you can ask it to summarize content from a book (kind of cheaty for students) , or you can use it to test yourself by asking it to ask you questions on a topic you suggest, or maybe ask it to test you on your language skills, among many other things.
It’s like the great Wizard of Oz. Ask it to find a video or a book relevant to your question, find resources or forums you can learn from. Be specific, ask as though you’re speaking naturally to another person. The more info specific you are, the better detailed the info you will receive.
At this point and time, I’m not really interested in one more mode of technology to be aware of for taking in copyrighted works, but I do believe there are some beneficial uses for ChatGPT. So when I came across this informative video spoken in simple terms about the benefits of using AI, I thought I’d share the video below here to demonstrate the many uses of ChatGPT in simple terms.
50 Different Command Prompt Examples of ChatGPT
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I also came across an excellent article simplified by Nicholas Rossis, which goes into much more better detail about the possible uses for the good that AI can offer for writers:
Skills Writers need to Thrive in the AI Era
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If any of you reading here uses AI for your creations or research, please feel free to share here your thoughts and experience with it.
©DGKaye2024
Sunday Book Review – Cut and Thirst – #shortstory by Margaret Atwood
Today’s Sunday Book Review is for a short story new release I was offered for my monthly First Reads freebie from Amazon Prime, Cut and Thirst by Margaret Atwood.
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Blurb:
Three women scheme to avenge an old friend in a darkly witty short story about loyalty, ambition, and delicious retribution by Margaret Atwood, the #1 bestselling author of The Handmaid’s Tale.
Myrna, Leonie, and Chrissy meet every Thursday to sample fine cheeses, to reminisce about their former lives as professors, and lately, to muse about murder. Decades ago, a vicious cabal of male poets contrived—quite publicly and successfully—to undermine the writing career, confidence, and health of their dear friend Fern. Now, after Fern has taken a turn for the worse, her three old friends decide that it’s finally time to strike back—in secret, of course, since Fern is far too gentle to approve of a vendetta. All they need is a plan with suitably Shakespearean drama. But as sweet and satisfying as revenge can be, it’s not always so cut and dried.
My 5 Star Review:
As a fan of Atwood, I enjoy all her stories. In this book of friendships and folly, three old friends and colleagues gather for one of their weekly get-togethers complete with cheeses and gin and tonics, and the topic of conversation becomes the topic of their good friend Fern who suffered from the group of male poets who tried hard to rip her reputation as a writer to shreds some twenty years prior. The conversations mingled between the women reveal undertones of women belittled by the patriarchal society, something that was accepted commonplace before women learned to speak out.
Myrna drifts off into a diatribe explaining to her friends how lucky they were to retire as professors just in time to not be picked apart microscopically by students and peers on social media. I felt the discussions by characters were opining statements from Atwood herself.
Fern’s crime – she didn’t include a publishing colleague’s long story in her short story anthology. She also knew he would become nosey and nitpicky and try to edit his own way and Fern didn’t need the agro of dealing with him. So poor his ego that the ‘old boys club’ teamed up to try to smear Fern’s successful reputation as a romance writer. The ‘cabal’ of nine published over thirty articles in the next year, ridiculing her writing skills.
As Myrna continues her womens lib conversation, Chrissy reminds that the tactics those nine pulled in their writing, back when it happened, would not be tolerated in today’s society, the way they demeaned women in their prose of thoughts. Everyone loves a juicy scandal, and that’s what those men created about Fern, causing Fern to become insecure and fearful to publish. And fearful to answering back in retaliation for years, until she finally publishes a new book and Myrna voices concern of ‘those boys’. Fern says four have apologized since and admitted Vacher started the whole scam.
During one of their weekly get togethers, the three women talk about possible ways to avenge the five of the nine who didn’t apologize to Fern for the havoc they left on her career. They laugh and drink and as writers, begin to discuss various themes and imagined methods of murder plots for the wrongdoers – if they were to commit any.
I loved that the story took place in Toronto, and through her characters, Atwood shared many of her own thoughts of the city – especially the traffic and construction my city is famous for and the disappearing culture that was once so rich.
I also enjoyed the hilarious banter with the women when Chrissy shares what happened after wrongly targeting Stephen after going forth with her revenge plan on one of the nine. Her plan was to pay him a visit and leave him a gift of laced laxative brownies – only to discover she had chosen the wrong man to avenge, as he had already apologized and was now married. Chrissy shares in hilarity what went down with the laced brownies after discovering she shouldn’t be at Stephen’s place. So the women continue on with plan B, knowing well they cannot murder and have had enough of playing with laxatives. They decide the culprit of the clan, Vacher should definitely receive some karmic payback for orchestrating the whole Fern scandal and start with visiting some bookstores and turning the spine around on all the shelves where Vacher’s books were – except they couldn’t find any of his books, they seemed to be out of print and forgotten. Karma was already there and Fern enjoyed this news immensely.
“Cut and thirst.” “First you murder someone and then you need a drink . . .”
©DGKaye2024
Writer’s Tips – April Edition – WordPress Hacks, Font #Copyright Laws, #Editing, #Writer #Scams, #Blogging Tips
Welcome to my April edition of Writer’s Tips. In this edition, Hugh Roberts is back with two new helpful WordPress tutorials on using the new Comment Box on WordPress and how to reuse older blog posts, the Kindlepreneur with an informative article on the copyright laws of regular fonts we use daily, Anneli Purchase shares a comprehensive list for editing final drafts, the latest Fake Law Scams attacking writers by Anne R. Allen.
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New Comment Box on WordPress by Hugh Roberts
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The Kindlepreneur, Dave Chesson with an important article about using Copyrighted Fonts
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Editor Anneli Purchase with Editing Tips for Polishing Final Drafts
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Anne R. Allen keeping us abreast on the Latest Fake Law Enforcements Scams targeting writers
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Hugh Roberts has another helpful post sharing good ideas to promote older Blog Posts
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©DGKaye2024
Sunday Book Review – SFV-1 – Darkness, Book 2 in the #dystopian Trilogy by Terry Tyler
My Sunday Book Review today is for book 2 in Terry Tyler’s exciting dystopian series – SFV-1 Darkness. Admittedly, dystopian isn’t my go-to genre to read, yet, I’m always captivated by Terry Tyler’s books, and after reading book 1 – Infected in this series, I looked forward to reading the rest of the series (something else I don’t typically read, series). And as always, Tyler had me gripped.
Blurb:
‘This isn’t all our lives are going to be. It’s the darkness before the dawn, that’s all.’
The SFV-1 virus leaves its victims with no instinct other than the need to kill – and eat.
Nine months after this strange new disease scorched a path across the world, Norah and her friends are doing their best to survive in rural Cumbria – but another, larger group is on a mission to ‘redistribute the wealth’ by whatever means they deem necessary.
Meanwhile, new arrivals on the Scottish island of John’s Drift seem friendly enough, but Cat’s group hears warning bells from the start…
‘People react to fear in all sorts of ways; a weak individual falls in with the wrong people, and hey presto: basic human decency loses the battle against that dark side you never knew was hiding inside your head.’
Darkness is the second book in the SFV-1 series.
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My 5 Star Review:
This post-apocalyptic series is addictive reading! In this book 2, Darkness, it picks up with the main characters all in their respective hiding places as the mutating SFV-I virus is sweeping the U.K.- except, the action begins at some friends of Norah’s hideaway house when it’s attacked by rogue looters in search of food and life sustaining supplies. Erin and Martin are grilled as to where they are getting their supplies from, and with their lives threatened to tell all, the rogues devised a plan to transport them to Norah’s house where the looters have it on good authority the house is a fully stocked arsenal of food and weapons.
In Book 1, Infected, the people feared being bitten by those who were already bitten and looking for human blood. In this book, the fear remains real, the country is in darkness with no communication within or with the outside world, bitten humans are a threat to all exisiting humans, and with the added fear of the organized looters who are out to steal whatever they can to survive, there is nowhere safe for anyone, and trust has become a rare commodity. Book 1 brings on the killer virus, Book 2 is all about the fallout and survival, human instincts, all since nine months into the dystopian world of Darkness.
Ratt is the one looter gang leader who has secured a hotel hideout where he permits his looting recruits to stay – if they behave and take his orders on their looting jaunts under Ratt’s command. In their looting attacks, they look for people hiding out from the dreaded killer zombies, and demand they share their wealth of whatever they have for survival. They have no choice as it is sheer robbery and if they don’t give up the goods they will be killed.
Meanwhile it’s danger for anyone who goes out, especially to loot for survival, as the zombies are plentiful and one never knows where one may be hiding. One bite from an infected and your fate is sealed. After being bitten, the virus sets in making a person mad with hunger for human flesh, sending them in search of any human. There is no remedy for a bite, for once you’ve been bitten, there is only guarantee zombiedom, and ultimately, death.
Although the author recaps Infected, the first book in this series, I highly urge readers to read the trilogy in order. Book 1 sets the story and characters, which makes the whole series an addictive ride. Anything I’ve read by Tyler makes it a difficult book to put down. I look forward to reading Reset, the final book in this trilogy, in anticipation of how the author finds the way to the end of this apocalyptic nightmare .
©DGKaye2024
Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – New Series – Life Lessons 101 – #Kindness by D. G. Kaye | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine
I’ve begun a new tri-weekly series at Sally Cronin’s Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – LIfe Lessons 101. In the first installment I began with the topic of Kindness.
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\KindnKess Matters
Kindness Matters
Welcome to my new series at the Smorgasbord – Life Lessons 101. In this series I’m going to talk about incidence and things in life that are important. Today the topic is kindness. We hear the word get passed around a lot in various themes and context, but it bears talking about because a little kindness can go a long way.
Have you ever had a crappy day when nothing goes right, and per chance, a total stranger comes your way with a friendly greeting, an offer to help with something, or a compliment that just turns around that crappy day?
It doesn’t cost a cent to do something nice for someone or to make them feel a little special. We never know what kind of a day someone is having, and offering a little kindness can be a very welcomed pick-me-up for them. Can you recall the last time a stranger extended a kindness to you?
Complimenting someone can be a real lift to their self-esteem. It’s a verification that they’ve been noticed, someone paid attention to something about them, and maybe you were the only one who noticed, or maybe that person has nobody else in their life that offers kind words. We don’t know, but we know that a few kind words from us may just be a mood-lifter for them. A compliment offers a confirmation that something on their person is recognized and admired. And there are so many people who don’t get any recognition in their own surroundings.
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A simple smile can be a great mood booster.
On the same token, if our faces and/or body language give off a cold or dark feeling, that feeling is also registered by others, instead, leaving a negative feeling, and one that doesn’t inspire us to want to get any closer to that person. Our moods evoke ripples of energetic vibes, and vibes and energy are contagious. So, it’s just as easy to wear a smile to give off a welcoming atmosphere of warmth.
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Good Deeds
There are so many ways we can trickle a little kindness into the world, even doing the simplest of things. Kindness lives under many umbrellas. Kindness can be a smile, a compliment, even a hug when someone needs it. It can also mean taking some time to listen to someone who may need an ear, a goodwill gesture such as offering a helping hand to someone in need, letting in a fellow driver in your lane when we see their signal, offering a service to a friend – or even to a stranger if they’re sick or unable to get out, or just spending time with someone who is often alone . . . please continue reading conclusion at Sally’s blog.
©DGKaye2023
Sunday Book Review – Lovers at the Museum: A Short Story by Isabel Allende
This short book of only 25 pages was a free read offered to me from First Reads on Amazon. It’s a whimsical and bizarre love story by Isabel Allende – Lovers at the Museum: A Short Story
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Blurb:
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Wind Knows My Name comes a mesmerizing tale of two passionate souls who share one magical night that defies all rational explanation.
Love, be it wild or tender, often defies logic. In fact, at times, the only rationale behind the instant connection of two souls is plain magic.
Bibiña Aranda, runaway bride, wakes up in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao still wearing her wedding dress, draped in the loving arms of a naked man whose name she doesn’t know. She and the man with no clothes, Indar Zubieta, attempt to explain to the authorities how they got there. It’s a story of love at first sight and experience beyond compare, one that involves a dreamlike journey through the museum.
But the lovers’ transcendent night bears no resemblance to the crude one Detective Larramendi attempts to reconstruct. And no amount of fantastical descriptions can convince the irritated inspector of the truth.
Allende’s dreamy short story has the power to transport readers in any language, leaving them to ponder the wonders of love long after the story’s over.
My 4 Star Review:
This was a very short story of twenty-five pages. It read like a fantasy of one magical night in the Guggenheim Museum in Bilboa, Spain. The circumstances about how these two people who only just met, were surely fantastical because the girl, Bibina, fled her wedding ceremony. In the pouring rain, a complete stranger she made eye contact with whisks her away into the museum for shelter.
The detective who found them both passed out cold and their bodies entwined, shook them awake and questioned them as to how these people were able to get into a locked museum with high tech security systems, undetected. But when taken into the police station and questioned individually, they both described the whole event from their meeting to their instant love attraction to one another with the same details told by both of them. The whole situation is a big mystery for the detective, more concerned about how they got into the museum, while for the lovers, it was one magical night.
This whimsical story has no real beginning or ending – or conclusion; but a brief fantastical interlude of escapism for readers, magical romance for the lovers, and a great mystery to one detective.
©DGKaye2024
Grief and Loss and Spirit Connection – 3 Years and Still Feels Like Yesterday
“Love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation” – Kahlil Gibran
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This week’s post is an acknowledgment to the third anniversary of my husband’s passing this past Sunday April 7th. That day wasn’t any easier than any past years, in fact, because I keep my husband close in my heart and talk to him daily, I still feel his presence around me daily just as though he is still here with me. Because he is.
I talk to him all the time. He hears me, this I know. I’m not crazy, I’m spiritual and I feel spirit. I’ve long since given up second-guessing myself, asking myself if every sign and moment I sense spirit is just wishful thinking, accepting what I feel as real and not imagined.
A medium I went to see last summer told me how she saw my husband, and relayed messages from him to me. Messages that may have made no sense to her, but I understood the language, personal things that only he and I would share with each other and understand.
I talk to my husband all the time, especially when I have a dilemma – large or small. He was always my best sounding board, and still from the other realm where he now resides, he always sends help. My magical husband seems to beckon to my call when I can’t perform a simple task, or when looking for something I’ve misplaced. Somehow it always works out, just as it always did when I relied on him here. There have been so many of those moments to even speak of, but with each time he is there in my time of confusion or need, problems are magically solved. Too many times to believe otherwise. All I have to do when I’m at my wit’s end of solving, finding or fixing something is look up and say, “Hun, please intervene here and give me a hand or a clue” and miraculously, dilemma solved.
Now, I don’t expect everyone to understand or even believe this continuing connection I have with my husband, and I do believe there are a host of elements attached to these uncanny gifts I receive from him, elements that many aren’t privileged to receive, but I have the gift of being clairsentient, being able to feel when spirit is around, and being able to identify who that spirit is. Also there’s the fact that my husband and I were twin flames together on earth. We were velcroed at the hip spiritually and often physically together whether physically together at a moment or not. We knew each other’s thoughts without speaking. We were each other’s biggest cheerleaders and both of us would have gone to the ends of the earth to make one another happy. We were beyond the realm of the physical on earth, so it is no surprise to me why our connection continues. And I am very grateful for that because it helps me get by daily knowing my husband is still with me in spirit. I’m not sure I could function otherwise.
Energy never dies, hence the soul never dies, which makes it clear to me how my husband remains in my orbit even from another dimension. He has proven it to me so many times over. We were a true love story and love never ends, hence, never will grief. The more we loved, the more we will grieve. I can attest to this. Grief is just pent up love with nowhere to go.
One of my favorite mediums I listen to is Matt Fraser, as he talks about the connections we on earth still share with lost loved ones on the other side. I find comfort in listening to someone who understands much of what I experience. Truthfully, I feel that if it weren’t for this continued connection I am gifted to still have with my husband, I don’t know how I could continue living if I were to believe my husband’s death was the final end of us. I know in my heart it is definitely him pulling me along this journey, guiding me to where I need to be along the way to where my next path leads. He remains my guide while he knows I’m still in limbo going through the motions of life, not yet knowing where I’m going, walking in baby steps with many pauses along the way. Just as I know that as much as he will never leave my side, one day he will know when I’m strong enough for him to let go of my hand when I find the new path my life is supposed to take and once again learn to walk steadily on my own. And still, he will remain by my side. I take comfort in knowing this.
I brought some new ornaments to his grave (shrine maybe?). Doing these things makes me feel better.
The Bite – I Love You to the Moon
I love you to the depths of my soul.
When you asked me to marry you, my heart held all the joy in the world.
Yet, the fear of the future and concern about how I’d deal if I were to lose you because of our age difference, frightened me to my core.
I weighed the odds and decided that another love like ours could never be.
I hugged you in true laughter, and said yes, but I made you promise me at least twenty years.
What a fool I was, short-changing myself and not asking for thirty or more.
Your promise gave me twenty-two,
That fateful fear that’d haunted the corners of my mind, came back to bite.
No number of years would have ever been enough to have to let you go.
I love you now, still, and forever.
I love you forever into the beyond.
God gifted me you, but only on loan. Because he wanted you back.
I had to give back the most precious part of life, honoring the bargain.
You were my lesson on love.
I tasted true unconditional love,
A gift that many have been denied the privilege.
You’re a gift that will blanket my heart for the rest of my days.
I love you.
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And from the wise words of one of my favorite compassionate poets, Donna Ashworth, whose poetry speaks always of one who wears the badge of loss, and seems to sum up that unexplicable connection that remains long after loss, from her book, Loss:
“Maybe people don’t want to stop grieving…
Maybe they are terrified, that the grief they feel is the last thing they have left of their person.
That if they move on from this grief, they will lose the final connection, the only tie.
Maybe people feel united with their loved one,
in the realm just outside our reality.
United in pain and loss.
Banished to a parallel universe where they can both exist together, still together.
Maybe that’s just too precious to move on from . . .”
Donna Ashworth
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©DGKaye2024
Sunday Book Review – Julia’s Violinist by Anneli Purchase
Today I’m reviewing a book I’ve been meaning to get to for awhile, but somehow kept getting pushed down the TBR pile – Julia’s Violinist by Anneli Purchase. This is a memoir/novel about the author’s mother’s life after WWII ends, and as a Sudeten German living in the outskirts of the northern Czech Republic border and the Czechs and Russians punishing the innocent Germans after the war ends in relatiation for Germany’s war on humanity. I found it a fascinating read as I typically read historical fiction on the topic of WWII and about how all the persecuted people survived, and not about how the Gemans who endured who were caught up in war’s aftermath.
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Blurb:
The lovely Julia has it all—a seemingly perfect life. The aftermath of WWII changes all that. Widowed and homeless, Julia and her two small children become refugees in their own land. As she tries to rebuild her life, Julia is drawn into a love triangle. New flames or old flames—both can burn and destroy.
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My 5 Star Review:
A fictionalized memoir of the author’s mother’s life in the aftermath of WWII, which left a family struggling to stay together.
In the first part of the book we are in present time – 1949 where Julia is a young widow with two daughters living on the the northern border of the Czech Republic enduring daily retaliations from Germany’s enemies in the aftermath of war. The military wants to rid the Republic of Germans, and these citizens are sent to barracks to work in forced labor to starve and be raped.
Julia, now a widow, and her two young daughters, along with her sister-in-law and parents are re-located to forced labor camp for almost a year until they are loaded onto filthy cattle wagons and transported back to a refugee place in Germany.
In part two, we are taken to the the past – early 30s when Julia met her Michael who played the violin beautifully at weekly choir practice. But, due to hardships during wartime and Michael’s obligations to run the family bakery, it left little time for the star-crossed lovers to see each other. At the same time, handsome Lukas gave Julia plenty of attention, and they eventually got married. But Michael will re-enter Julia’s life again, later in Julia’s journey.
The love stories woven through this engaging story are a mix of the historical brutality with a softening aspect of the love Julia felt for her husbands, and especially her children.
The setting takes us to different time frames – pre war, after war and wartorn life for the Sudetens after losing their homes after the war, a new marriage to Karl, and a move to Canada.The timelines jump around, but the author makes this clear through chapter headings.
Karl has had a difficult life, but is quite handy at finding odd fix-it jobs, and with already losing one wife in a childless marriage, seeks the simplicity of having a wife and children. He eventually meets Julia and becomes an important character in her life. Julia’s relationship with Karl is a comfort for her to finally make a new life, have her own roof over her head, and have more children. Julia is a soft and compassionate character, while Karl is hard-working, he’s very rough around the edges, offering Julia a more comfortable life without the real romance. In the last part of the book, it focuses on the life Julia makes with Karl, but never fulfilling the emptiness of what could have been with Michael is never far from Julia’s thoughts.
Julia remeets her heartthrob Michael. Michael has never forgotten Julia through all the years and never stopped loving her. Michael knows Julia is remarried but makes a brave stance to contact her despite. Their friendship creates a world of jealousy for Karl, and plenty of grief for Julia. I’m not going to get into spoilers here about how this love triangle will play out, but the situation makes it crystal clear how damaging unrequited love can be to the heart, and how the strongest who love deeply can keep temptation at bay, and yet, so easily cave to it at the same time – and the repercussions that follow.
I found this book an addictive read as I was immediately invested in the characters for all their strengths and weaknesses, and whatever it took to survive a horrendous war. Julia’s tender mothering and strength shone through this story despite all the horrible living conditions she endured and the uncertainty of daily living. This is a story of love and loss, compassion, survival, and one selfless, loving woman, Julia.
©DGKaye2024
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