u/NobodyButMyself357

For context, I’m a published author in my country, with literary awards and nominations and I’ve been writing for almost 25 years, with several (non-commercially) published novels and novellas and two commercially published novels. One thing about my craft, I will NEVER use GenAI in my work, not even to find meanings of words (Merriam-Webster is there) or for cover arts (I commission art from small and upcoming artists or just use Canva ) I do enjoy helping other authors to write and publish, and do proofreading and beta reading for free.

Just today a friend reached out with a novel written by her brother, inquiring about publishing and she shared the manuscript with me. I open it, and the start seems okay. But then I see those one liner scripts of GenAI, the soulless writing you see on social media captions and such. You know, like:

“It’s cold.

Not like the refrigerator

Not like in the Arctics

Like pins in your eyes”

(I didn’t take from the manuscript here or use AI, I just made up the above lines)

I have already agreed to proofread but I feel a headache coming every time I open the manuscript. It’s the same one liner script over and over and over again, vomited across the pages. How is that writing? As someone who’s spent hours over the computer, carefully crafting my work, writing well and writing badly, struggling with writer’s block and taking months to emotionally recover, that manuscript is a slap on my face. And one day, that author might publish that book. He’d call himself an author. What does that mean for me? I’m so angry and upset, and I don’t know if I’m going to address this with the person who generated the manuscript or keep my mouth shut.

I always plan vacations around concerts. I love this one Korean pop/rock artist whom I have followed for 15 years and since he started touring in countries that I can visit (with my 12th worst passport in the world) I planned my vacations around his tour stops. This year he skipped his usual SEA stops and went to Manila. Manila became an expensive trip for me. Hotel bookings, flight reservations, concert ticket, visa fee (yes, my passport needs visa to visit Philippines) and general expenses.

I was in such a bad place mentally since my last trip two years ago. I had to skip last year because I was leaving my previous job due to facing workplace bullying. I have a new and an amazing job now, which I know I worked really hard for. From this job I saved up a bit so I invested a lot of it for the Manila trip. I really needed that escape. As soon as I landed in Manila from a 9 hour journey and two flights, there was an email in my inbox from my current work place.

I had received a salary increment of 98% based on my performance within a year. 98 percent!! That makes it almost twice as much as I earn now, and that will be my new salary from the next month!

I will be recovering the expenses of my expensive trip soon. But the point is, I made a leap of faith and invested on it. I only live once, and I’m going to live it being happy! The concert is happening today and I have a second row middle seat. I’m so excited!! I just wanted to share this little story with everyone.

What are your stories where something expensive became a blessing in disguise?

I can go first! People with negative energy attract negative energy, so unfortunately I’m one of them. I have many supernatural experiences, but one memorable experience is walking into a washroom at school and seeing a girl braiding her hair. Crazy thing is, she was visible only on the mirror. This bathroom had what you call a “mirror vortex” on which pure energy could travel through an infinite number of times. That was one of mine. What are your stories?

I’m a local author writing in English, and I have one published book under my belt. Before I publish my second novel I want to see what people think about local authors and how interested they are in reading novels by local authors. I write romance and women’s fiction. I know my writing is quite good because I have bagged a few awards and nominations. But as women’s fiction and romance genre is dominated by foreign authors in Sri Lanka, readers here, particularly girls, would you be interested in reading locally written romance novels? This is not a promotion or anything, just checking interest because I’m seriously considering publishing my second novel.

I (33F) come from a south Asian family of three daughters and two sons. I’m the oldest daughter and I have 2 sisters. This is about my 1st younger sister who’s just 2 years younger than me.

My younger sister is really really beautiful. She looks like Lisa from Black pink, and she’s basically my parents’ pride from a young age; she was pretty as a child too. I look the complete opposite; less than average and I struggled fitting into crowds all my life, especially because I grew up being mocked for my appearance and being compared to my sister. I’m very awkward and introverted and I dislike being in crowds and especially meeting distant family and friends because of what people say about my appearance compared to my sister.

As a habit, my parents got for me anything they’d get for my sister because they didn’t want me to make her upset. The same dresses, the same toys. As grew older, I had to take over the parenting role for my two youngest siblings who had a significant age gap from me. I raised them. It became my duty and responsibility. Since then my father will speak to me only to talk about my siblings. I grew up to be the smart and academically gifted kid because I had no choice but do well at school to get my parents’ to love me. I was desperate because nobody else will love me and I knew this.

Anyway, fast forward to now, academia I’m the most educated daughter in the family but my parents were never happy with that. Why? Despite having 2 masters degrees in human rights and international politics, I was still incomparable to their beautiful daughter. And I’m unmarried so I’m a burden. I’ve never been in a relationship, and I know this is because of how I look so I never even tried. Now my sister is going to get married.

My father who doesn’t talk to me and ignores my whole existence has told my mother that they should find someone to marry me off to and have a combined wedding with my sister because 1) I will probably ruin my sister’s wedding by being an unmarried older sister and bring shame to the family and 2) he doesn’t want to spend for a wedding if I later decided to get married.

Now, I never wanted to get married nor I asked them to spend on a wedding for me. And so them planning this is really hurtful, realizing that their only goal is to get rid of me without considering my emotions. I know my parents never viewed me as a daughter and much less a human being but I tried to give them grace because they at least gave me a roof over my head and education.

But now when I think about it, this is not the only instance that they dehumanized me like this. Once I got a horrible asthma attack and my father kept complaining about admitting me to hospital because he didn’t want to pay although I fully covered it with my health insurance. I didn’t want him to pay anyway, but why did he have to say that to me?

When I had severe depression with suicide risk and was getting treatment, they kept asking my psychiatrist when he would stop the treatments and always said I was pretending to have symptoms even after a suicide attempt. When my sister was later diagnosed with the same thing, my father kept taking her to different doctors, counsellors, followed through her treatments and even sat in her room for hours talking to her. I got depression because my parents started to isolate me from everything when I didn’t pass my university entrance exams as highly as they expected.

When I got dengue, they refused to take me to medical treatments until I got septic shock and red spots appeared on my skin. So I know they won’t care whom they marry me off to even if it’s against my wishes as long as they can push me off to another man. Now I am heartbroken and upset, slowly realizing the amount of abuse I have tolerated for such a long time just because of how I look.