Boiling

Greetings from the 12th Floor, where it is hotter than the rent is high. Damn hot. Mookie with a garbage can hot. As I write, the air coming off the fan is cool, but my skin feels sunburnt and my insides are starting to bubble. If I were a pig, my skin would be crispy and the meat would slip from my bones.

It’s hot.

The benefits of living on the 12th Floor accrue in the winter, when the delicious heat that everyone else pays for rises to the top of the building, but this living situation bites me in the ass in the summer, when the sun yawns up over the bay by 5:00 a.m. and begins its long slow arc over the building. I figure I’m in direct sunlight for at least 10 hours, indirect for a few more. I predicted last month we would skip Spring and emigrate directly into the worst part of Summer, and as usual, I was right. See below re: how artificial intelligence affects the brain’s neural connections.

We’re approaching an era where our calendars should read January-January-January-March-March-March-August-August-August-October-November-December. I should copyright this.

Despite the heat, I still have more ideas than I have resources to implement them.

I have a unified mastermind plan for my various websites - some active, some merely parked - but the web design skills of a neanderthal.

I have concepts for at least 2 podcasts I’d like to create and host, but no time for either.

I have at least two novel projects lined up after the two in progress, and a half dozen ideas after that, and if you think I’m tempted to jump onto the fun part of brainstorming a new story rather than grind out the fine details of the work in progress, you are correct.

But despite the heat and a jittering attention span, I persevere.

Also in this letter:

• Posts from June 2025

• WIP News

• A Parting Song

Monthly Posts
A few more posts about author platforms and AI, as last month’s activities churned up more thoughts I needed to offload before I could move forward. Late in the month, MIT released a study of people who use ChatGPT to do their writing for them and the results were about what you’d expect, and close to what I worried about in my first post below. No participant’s brain literally turned to mush, but relying too much on AI didn’t do them any favors either. I also squeezed in a few posts about writing, including a peek at the chiastic story structure, methods for mastering a cause and effect chain, and a group of writers I’d like to invite back from the dead for an evening.

Can Using Generative AI Ever Be Ethical?
An Invitation to Dance
What You Should and What You Can
Tools of the Trade
There and Back Again
Talking With Ghosts
AI Will Rot Your Brain, Kid
Angles for Creating a Strong Cause + Effect Chain

WIP News
Spent a good portion of the month layering in motifs and bits of worldbuilding, and finding places to foreshadow what is inevitable in retrospect, but shocking in the moment.

Chapters are being completed. A big move forward from the messy first draft stage. Won’t say more lest I bang it up. I don’t hate it yet, and that’s promising. Ask me again in a month.

A Parting Song
Hot weather needs a hot tune. Here’s a perfect song for peak hour dancing in a sweltering honky tonk with bad lighting and worse ventilation. Put on your best jeans and tightest tank top and dance like your mama’s told you not to. Watch below or listen on Spotify.