Denis Baldwin - Aspiring Author

      Ahoy!     Many beginning writers (or perhaps all) have primary/secondary jobs in order to pay the bills. The craft itself is often time consuming with little compensation. The reward itself is the work created, but of course we want the work out there, and that generally translates to sales since it correlates to people desiring/wanting your creation. I'm not there yet.     I work a day job. Nothing wrong with that. I actually enjoy it even, and I'd say I'm quite good at it. It allows me an environment with access to a wide variety of people and it's my job to entertain/take care of them. Why am I being vague? Because I don't need people harassing me at work. That wouldn't be nice. I keep it professional, even if my job sometimes necessitates ribald banter. I also get bored at work, so the wordplay itself is always fun. Do I talk like this? I actually do. People have compared me to Sheldon, which is a shame because I'm not a big fan of the show. (Nothi

      Aloha!     Last post I talked about AI tools and how I'm of the belief that now that the tools are here, they aren't going away any time soon (or ever for that matter). Reedsy did a more in depth newsletter regarding AI and how it's still in its infancy stage and that it needs a fair amount of hand holding in order to get anything of value out of the application. I actually find this beneficial. What better way to know your own material than having to describe it in different ways, trying to produce varying yet similar results. It's a fun game if you think of it as such. If you care to read Reedsy's article, click below! Reedsy Article - AI and Writing     On my end I've been researching different recommendations and templates regarding query letters to pitch my novel to agents ( and researching agents). I really need to sit down and dedicate a few hours to this practice and just get the ball rolling. I have small issues regarding "is the material rea

      Beep boop blorp.     Artificial Intelligence has come a long way since early science fiction narratives and hollywood movies. Terminator and iRobot are a little more in your face when it comes to issues related to AI. Those stories act as if a not-too-distant problem will come about all at once in a sort of hostile takeover. It's probably not going to be so devestating (although possibly) and the issues are smaller and already happening.     Artificial Intelligence is harming us in subtle ways. The GPS that malfunctions and causes a driver to go the wrong way, causing an accident; autopilot on an aircraft that is overriding the pilot, causing a plane crash; these two examples have happened, and are fairly obvious. But we're talking about subtle. What about ChatGPT, Artificial Intelligence that is used to write and create things? The deceptions are out there and have been covered well by others. What interests me is that in each case it was a human being that was behind ea

      Happy Mother's Day!          Anyone who knows my dark sense of humor and the fact that I lost my mom to cancer at the age of twelve will understand that the hilarious jokes I've said are in good spirit. The jokes are always said to friends or trusted co-workers as a means of touching on a topic that can still hurt to this day.       See what I did above? "Happy Mother's Day!" Then bam!  Launch right into the heavy stuff. It's a coping mechanism, and it triggers automatically. I'm not entirely sure why, although I am thankful for it. My sense of humor has gotten me through some pretty tough times. I've also been thankful to read my audience well enough that when joke or share something it's generally well received. I think people understand intentions and that some lines are obscure.     That being said, I'm human. I've apologized for things I've said. Comedy is a strange thing. No one understands why we laugh, only that we do. Wha

      Welcome!      Today I'm going to go on a small spiel regarding virtual reality (VR) and how the medium is influencing me as a writer. I grew up with video games. I love them. There it is. Growing up in the 90's I saw the invention of the internet, the evolution of personal computers, cell phones, and a whole assortment of technological advances. It seems as if the possibilities are endless in creative spaces these days and it has both helped and hindered.     For my book Inkwell, I put strict limits on myself when I set the time period from the 1920's to the 1960's. Man hadn't even landed on the moon yet, but there were inventions such as answering machiens and wiretaps, so I had to do a fair bit of research. I've found that technology these days is so obscure that a lot of writers are using it to their advantage, explaining away overly intricate science or engineering with the wave of a hand a few clever words. That's fine. I don't always need to

      Welcome!     Today is Day Two of this blog, an ongoing writing excercise for my own development (see Day One). I've been using several different resources to help my out, various websites, articles, books, etc. that have advice on developing your writing into a career. A lot of the information is a "best practices" soup that more or less says the same thing: there are many paths to the same destination. Or another, easier way of saying, "writers need to write".      For Day Two, I'd like to highlight the website www.reedsy.com a website dedicated to book editors and writing. They have a ton of fantastic resources that include articles, videos, live streamed interviews, and writing contests. I've enjoyed some of the live streams since it helps writers hear from other people in the industry, how they got their start, and how the different moving parts come together (writing, while initially a sole endeavor, needs a fair amount of colloboration). They

        Greetings!     My name is Denis Baldwin. I'm an aspiring author out of Las Vegas, NV with my first novel "Inkwell" in a second draft state and making the rounds with a few of my beta readers before further edits.      I decided to start a blog because it was recommended to me in a "30 Day Platform" Challenge for authors that I found in the book "Guide to Literary Agents." The book itself has been a big help navigating the problem of what-to-do-next writers seem to have after they've written something. (Turns out the next step is finding an agent that is willing to represent my material.) As far as the blog goes, I'll maintain a Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday release format with topics ranging from my writing, my learning process (for anyone else who's in the early stages like myself), personal stuff, and creativity in general. I don't expect this to take off in any way, but it would be nice if one of my posts had a positive effect on