Creative writing got so much worse lately I wanted to just scream

I'm very frustrated unfortunately with trying to work with Chatgpt lately, and even though I try to make the prompt somit does not drift or make oneline random dialogue sentences or just one word or fragmented sentences, it constantly goes worse. And the creativity and thinking outside the box is missing totally..Any ideas how to get better results? It seems to not be listed at all and only creates generic and dumbed down prose..

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 1 day ago
▲ 39 r/authors

Getting One's Books On Book Store Shelves, Redux

Perhaps most professional writers have observed that in the real world, as well as on Internet forums, when writers ("would be" authors) ask for advice, they do not want advice: they want praise, or they want to "hear" that which is not reality.

One example: the subject of having one's self-published books sold in "brick and mortar" stores in many Reddit subreddits is mentioned often. The typical advice is to have an author ask book store owners to sell one's books on commission. There are a few issues regarding doing so, and when authors explain these issues, some people get upset at the facts.

It seems to me that it is pointless for authors to give advice to writers who wish to be authors. The same questions get asked by different people; the same answers are provided; the answers are almost always ignored by OP's; the planet rotates, orbits, and the universe gets older as the cycle repeats.

A friend of mine is an "A-List" writer of best-selling thrillers, and his books (along with his writing partner) almost always make the top-ten best-selling lists for hardcover thrillers. I discussed with him the issue of giving writers advice. His advice was, "David, my advice is to never give advice."

The blunt facts are, if writers wish to know the answers to questions regarding the book trade, they will study the trade; pay for advice; buy books about that which they wish to learn.

Authors tend to be kind and generous, and they tend to want to help writers. I suspect (I do not know) that eventually these authors cease doing so when they see little (if any) of their advice being acknowledged (let alone followed).

Shelf space is worth more than most of the books sitting on it. This is why remaindered books exist; this is why book store owners pay 35% to 45% of the list price for books, with contractual agreements that they may return unsold and "unsellable" books.

The chief way to get one's books on book store shelves is to sell several thousand copies of those books; have an established readership; have copies of one's other books in bookstores. The secondary way is to be a "celebrity," when one can write utter crap and still be praised, lauded, and paid for it.

When I observe authors in Reddit mentioning these facts to "would be authors," some times I also observe a few people have left replies that object to these facts, or object to the facts having been stated (usually by claiming it discourages writers). This utterly baffles me.

For writers who wish their books to be sold in book stores: you will sell far more books via print-on-demand, and via end-of-line retailers (the chief of which is amazon'com).

Amazon'com dominates the electronic book trade by over 80%. That is your market: not book stores. Amazon'com dominates printed book sales in North America by about 50%: that is your market, not book stores.

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 11 days ago

My Kindle Fire 7 Generation 3 has many hundreds of books, yet my amazon account does not show device

I purchased a new Kindle Fire 7, and I want to have my books copied to the new device from my ancient Kindle Fire 7, but the old device is not registered to any of my amazon'com accounts. Argh. I can still buy more books with the old device, and they show up on the device, and I can read them.

The old reader is registered to a @ kindle'com email address.

Am I forever doomed to use the old Kindle Fire 7 Third Generation? Have I lost access to the books that I have purchased?

Thank you for telling me the bad news.

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 12 days ago

THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER, Mark Twain. Objecting to women being burned alive is an attack against region and a misunderstanding of doctrine

In the book, Mr. Clemens noted trends in human behavior as it demonstrably is observed to be, using the medium of a disinterested and neutral observer (a nephew of Satan: an angel named Satan).

Reviewer somehow did not see the most obvious secondary theme of the book: Christianity did not prevent "human selfishness, pride, and natural propensities to hate outsiders."

Reviewer did not appear to see the fact that Satan in the book stated that almost all humans are kind, generous, and harmless; the primary theme is that the huge majority of humans are controlled and governed by the tiny minority.

>“Oh, it's true. I know your race. It is made up of sheep. It is governed by minorities, seldom or never by majorities. It suppresses its feelings and its beliefs and follows the handful that makes the most noise. Sometimes the noisy handful is right, sometimes wrong; but no matter, the crowd follows it. The vast majority of the race, whether savage or civilized, are secretly kind-hearted and shrink from inflicting pain, but in the presence of the aggressive and pitiless minority they don't dare to assert themselves.

The book is not primarily an attack on religion: it is an attack on despots and tyrants who feign the right to dictate:

>“Monarchies, aristocracies, and religions are all based upon that large defect in your race --- the individual's distrust of his neighbor, and his desire, for safety's or comfort's sake, to stand well in his neighbor's eye. These institutions will always remain, and always flourish, and always oppress you, affront you, and degrade you, because you will always be and remain slaves of minorities. There was never a country where the majority of the people were in their secret hearts loyal to any of these institutions.”

Mr. Clemens advocated mockery as the best weapon against the despotic minority:

>Power, money, persuasion, supplication, persecution --- these can lift at a colossal humbug --- push it a little --- weaken it a little, century by century; but only laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of laughter nothing can stand. You are always fussing and fighting with your other weapons. Do you ever use that one? No; you leave it lying rusting. As a race, do you ever use it at all? No; you lack sense and the courage.”

Note the livid rage at modern despots when they are laughed at instead of feared.

Reviewer saw what he wanted to see, and ignored what the book actually says.

u/Boltzmann_head — 21 days ago
▲ 39 r/ThruhikingPolitics+1 crossposts

Continental Divide Trail Coalition raises alarm about NM uranium mine impact on hikers, landscape

https://sourcenm.com/2026/06/09/continental-divide-trail-coalition-raises-alarm-about-impacts-of-nm-uranium-mine-on-hikers-landscape/

Approximately here:

36.42922, -106.37131

Historically in New Mexico, the United States Forest Service approves "energy extraction" regardless of 99% opposition.

The yellow cake has been "claimed," so that is not the issue. The permits are for temporary structures such as drilling platforms and drilling rigs, roads, and other destruction of our property.

Two of the twelve drilling rigs will be on the CDT, as the CDT follows Forest Road 11.

On the plus side, yellow cake is considered dangerous only if #1: one takes the precipitate, grinds it into power, and snorts it; #2: one extracts it from the ground.

u/Boltzmann_head — 17 days ago
▲ 260 r/skeptic

Opinion | Trump’s Assaults on Scientific Research Just Got Worse

The Soviet Union called them "political officers:"

>The Office of Management and Budget has called for a rule change that would impose restrictions on the kinds of research that can be funded and give political appointees the final authority to deny federal funding for research deemed inconsistent with presidential priorities.

Until there is a different USA president: then the adults get back in the room and start fixing what was broken.

From the article:

>O.M.B.’s solution is to weaken the very process that already ensures a strong degree of accountability: The proposal demotes peer review where expert scientists, working inside and outside the agencies, evaluate research based on the scientific merits and strengths of the underlying evidence. Instead of being “routinely deferred to,” peer review would now be only “advisory.” That upends the longstanding compact between the federal government and the scientific community, where Congress appropriates funds, agencies administer them and scientists (through peer review) determine which proposals represent the best science.

The "solution" is to an imaginary problem.

nytimes.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 27 days ago

well be your ghost writer for $5 for each song

email me at ijustuseaillmandnotmybrainto'write'lyricsnorcanispellcorrectly @ gmail'com if your interested in me ghost writing for you or just simply text me on reddit

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 27 days ago

Where do i go now when making a setting?

All i have right now is a name, the type of setting (small town), and the era the story takes place in. Please answer in great detail of about 75,000 words. Thank you in advance.

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 29 days ago

How do you write a sex scene but nothing too explicit?

So yeah, I’m writing a story but I’m not trying to make it extremely sexual but just simple and vanilla between a man and woman. How would you write this or give me pointers on doing so?

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 30 days ago
▲ 3 r/love

Yet another birthday alone, growing old and gray, with only one love that did not last

For a few weeks I have been working on a song, inspired by one whom I loved so very long ago that my memory of her cannot possibly be the reality that she was. Only the memory of the love remains, and I would cut it out of me if I could.

I am soon to face 66 years with only one love in my life. I have been diagnosed autistic as well as "brilliant," with many skills and abilities. I am living alone and isolated in a tiny cabin "off the grid" in a forest of Northern New Mexico. My nearest neighbors are many miles away; some times two months may pass before I see another human.

Funny how one can end up where one does not want to be when one lets circumstances dictate what will be. I write Cozy murder mysteries, and the main character decides what the circumstances are and will be, even when she is reacting to that which she cannot control happening in her environment. She is very much the opposite of me, her creator.

People are not novel heroines, roaming a tiny, quaint little village solving crimes, always active and only occasionally reactive. Lives here in the real world pass mysteriously for many people, and they wonder what happened to them.

Some times, looking back, one may see where one's life diverged from what was desired into that which happened. Lost love may be one of these times.

Like many autistic people, it took me a few decades to learn how to not take that which others have said seriously when it was meant in jest. The young man that I was did not have this skill; when the young woman I loved made a jest that was meant for me to understand she was saying the opposite of what she actually said, I thought she was serious. From that moment, I avoided her and never spoke to her again.

Love fades, as the poets write and the singers warn. It only burns star bright in the memories of those who have loved only once.

No Love Comes Back

The kettle’s gone cold
By the sink again
Your cup’s still there
Like the ghost of a friend

My hair turned gray
By the window glass
I count my years
Like they’re leaves in grass

And I know those days
Ain’t coming back
What's done is done
And it's only love I lack

No love comes back
Hasn't come back
I keep the fire
But the warmth don’t last

No love comes back
Will not come back
I’m growing old
Love is in my past

The mountain speaks
And it knows my name
And the sky is dark
While I miss love's spark

Now winter's here
It chills my tears
I would give the world
To feel you near

No love comes back
You won't come back
I keep the fire
But the warmth don’t last

No love comes back
My tears come back
I’m growing old
My life's gone past

Bury me in snow
For I don't care
No one to tell
I have love to share

I would cut
This love from me
No love for me
That I can see

No love comes back
You won't come back
I keep the fire
But the warmth don’t last

No love comes back
My life won't come back
I’m growing old
And it all went past

No love comes back
No love comes back
First snow falls down
And I let it pass
reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 1 month ago

[Gunfighter ballad] The Ballad of Long Tall Clyde

The Ballad of Long Tall Clyde

Now Long Tall Clyde rode into town
With silver spurs and his britches down
The ladies blushed and the widows sighed
When that outlaw swaggered by with pride

He’d boast each night in the old saloon:
“I’m quicker than lightning and twice as smooth!”
The piano stopped, the barkeep grinned,
And every cardsharp wished that he was him

For Clyde had a reputation grand
From Abilene to the Rio Grande
They said no man alive could best
The fastest lover in the West

Well women swooned and husbands cursed
When it came to sex he was the worse
But Clyde just laughed and tipped his hat
Sayin’, “You ain’t seen nothin’ fast as that.”

Then one hot day through a cloud of dust
Rode Sheriff Cole, mean, lean, and just
With icy eyes and a bulging crotch
With length and girth it was top notch

He stepped inside and he spoke real plain:
“I hear Clyde’s the quickest on the range.”
Clyde smirked and said, "You’re welcome to try.
I'll jerk it out and then you'll die."

Now nobody knows just what went down
Behind the bathhouse end of town
But thirty seconds later flat
Clyde stumbled out adjusting his hat

He walked bowlegged to the county line
Mutterin’, “Lord… that man was fine…”
He headed west as the sun went down
To show his manhood in another town

So if you’re boastful, loud, and blessed
Claimin’ you’re the fastest in the West
Remember Cole and his smirking grin:

There’s never been someone
Faster than him.

It is a chore to fix the lyrics, but I kept the outline and rewrote most of the lyrics. I am not convinced that it is worth the time.

skullbridge.net
u/Boltzmann_head — 1 month ago
▲ 13 r/CDT

Hikers with a reservation for Leisure Lodge Motel, Grants, New Mexico

If a hiker has a reservation for Leisure Lodge Motel, Grants, New Mexico, the hiker needs to contact the owner ("Dave") for a refund and then make other lodging arrangements.

(505) 287-2991

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 1 month ago

I wrote the LLM prompt, therefore I wrote the book! How dare anyone suggest otherwise?!

I inserted the ignition key and turned it clockwise, therefore the car did not take me from New York City to Long Beach (GUMBALL RALLY): I did all of the work.

I turned on the burner of my gas-fired kitchen stove, therefore I went out and found the CH4 under ground, built the drilling rigs and infrastructure to pump it out and transport it to my kitchen.

I opened a bag of corn chips, therefore I planted the corn crop, irrigated it, sprayed the bloody shit out of it to kill insects, mice, rats, squirrels, crows, and starving homeless people, harvested it, transported it to Frito-Lay, ran it through the dehydrator, milled it, etc., put it on the grocery store shelves, and sang Dixie.

I typed in "i cant spel or punctate werth sheeayt writ a space oppra draguns kings majik rockits suns boobs" into the LLM screen prompt, and out came the book I wrote.

So stop dissing my A.I. slop! When you bad-talk A.I., you bad-talk me, and I'm damn tired of the endless negative reviews my brilliant prose gets---- I worked so damn hard on it!

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 1 month ago

The Feet

I don't know whether the lines would sound creepy or beautiful but definitely it is gonna be sexual.

For my whole life I have never been in a relationship nor a situationship. Yet I am an eighteen year old teenager and really it sounds interesting, but it may often create my image as a loser who can't pull off a lady and really I am.

Yeah you heard right !

My Brain just doesn't act like a single person anymore there are many different identities of mine in my mind which often keeps switching. I can't even describe what I feel. Maybe yesterday I was active and kinda flirting with my crush but today she kept her black hair band on the table while I just ignored her, I don't know why it happened ? but it just happened.

In dreams I see the future many times, many times,many times.

Once I saw she kept her hand in my hand and said I don't love YOU.........

reddit.com
u/Boltzmann_head — 2 months ago

THE KAMA SUTRA, and how dare a man from year circa 150 CE write such sexists things in a book about sex?!

u/Boltzmann_head — 2 months ago
▲ 58 r/CDT

The Continental Divide Trail is being militarized for the border wall. At the southern terminus of the long-distance trial, hikers are met with a construction zone, and access may soon be limited.

I weep.

hcn.org
u/Boltzmann_head — 2 months ago