Okay tonight I need to write a scene. Someone really push me to.
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Morning, guys. The Junior Worlds are finished, so my goal is to start writing for ONC again today. I still have a chapter to finish reading, but other than that I should be good to try to get back into it. I set aside Tetrachromat until the results of Round 1 are announced and I am hoping to finish Played by the Mafia prior to April 5th. 
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Go for it!
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It should be 1000 words.
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Glad to see you back. Missed where you wigged out for your passion and was starting to get antsy. Lol
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I was having an off day today, having a lot of those “why do I even bother?” and “Who am I kidding? This is a terrible idea!” feelings.
It sort of coincides with what my MC is going through. Hmmm. Is he affecting me? It’s possible. Interesting…
But in other news, after I got feedback from my critique group (which seems to have gone down to just two people, including me), I went back to the beginning and edited and posted and I feel good about the quality now. I’m sure there is more to edit in it but it can wait. This is a fairly presentable draft at this point.
So I’m done editing up to chapter 5. Chapter 6 still bothers me a bit. There’s something off about the dialogue in it.
I wrote a bit of chapter 7 today on my phone at work, and it was all the angsty feels that likely put me in the blues. Or it’s a coincidence. I don’t know and I’m too tired to tell.
Oh, as part of editing, I revised the opening sentence and it cracks me up so I think I’ll keep it.
Crossing over to the In-Between was like riding a bike, except no one rides a bike well on their first try, and they usually stay within their bodies during the effort.
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Guess who wrote a nightmare sequence? 
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Update.
I finally climbed a bit on the ONC tags. Yay.
Not much discoverability yet but looking at the other entries this year, at least I’m one of the few that posted more than 2 chapters. Lol. So I have that going for me.
I haven’t fallen off of the paranormal tag yet. That one is always temporary so I don’t expect it to last.
I need to post the next chapter. That’s what I need to maintain this, but it’s not ready yet.
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I think I’ve come up with a good title for myself and that’s an AI image editor.
I’m becoming more and more proficient at digitally altering AI images, blending them with each other. I’m getting faster at it too.
Summary
Today, I sat down to create a realistic image of Sam. I used one of the old generations as my start image. I had a couple more “official” Sam images and I tried using each today, but this one produced the best results so let’s stick to this one.
This is an old NightCafe image of Sam which I heavily edited way back.
I’ve always liked it and it works great as a sort of combination of realistic and oil painting, but since I’ve created the other characters in a realistic style, I hoped I could do the same with Sam.
Using Dream, I evolved the image over and over, saved results and then would evolve those results. Lots of tries but finally I landed on these two.
This one is my fave because I like her face. It’s a shame that hair looks so fake.
This one is too doll-like for the realistic style I wanted, but the hair looks better.
So I thought, can I use the face of one and the hair of the other? The answer is Yes!
Using Krita, I blended the two images together, gave her realistic eyes and fixed things up with lots of edits and voila, here’s the new and improved Sam.
Her shirt is kind of weird but let’s not dwell on the shirt.
I like it. It feels like Sam. She looks real. This is now the official Sam.
Hmmmm. Now I’m looking at it and the eye bag under her left eye stands out to me. Should I fix it. Should I drop it. Fix it or drop it? It looks like she’s got a healing black eye. Ugh. Fine. I’ll fix it.
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I’ve kind of always been in that category because I was a meme editor for years, and I’ve altered pics since the late 90s… Taking pics that are almost there and getting them to really work without being 100% accurate was fun.
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Oops. I posted in the wrong thread. 
I’ll hide details.
Just curious, how did you alter analog photos? By drawing on them with markers or something? Like colorization?
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I was on computers in the late 90s. We scanned in analog photos. One of the first scanners I dealt with, had a slot for negatives.
But in college, I was around people doing the last of editing photos by hand from the negatives. There’s a lot of work that you just didn’t have to do in a couple short years, there.
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Go! Write write write! 
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I love that first line. 
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I need 4k more ;O
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Literally, everything gets into the way of ONC this year. I did some deadline-related writing yesterday/this morning in response to a out-of-the-left field request (but that weirdly corresponded to the plans I was sketching while I didn’t have time to write during Junior Worlds, so it was good to firm them up). Now I am backed up on reading. Hopefully I can get chapter 15 into shape tomorrow.
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Good luck.
Thanks. I keep questioning myself if it requires an explanation or if letting readers figure things out with the info that’s given later in the chapter is enough. I like that line though. Not only is it fun, it’s also linked to a major story theme so I hope that it works.
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It’s unique, which is good.
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Unfortunately, I’m bogged down in the 8K on the last one because I’m having to figure out which fairy tales to invoke. Not bad, but I’ve still got to post the 2nd to last of the 7 and this one before I can start the end stretch on any. Lol
Oh, and I started reading the first paperback I’ve touched in about 2 years. Apparently 45ish pages, the first chapter of the original Witcher, translated into English. Doing that while my kid was screeching at a Talking Tom app in a car, for about 45 minutes. Not too bad.
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