“The Siesta” Van Gogh courtesy of wikipedia.org
A recent article on scams in Writer Beware has prompted me to write the following disclaimer. None of my blogs are written with assistance from Artificial Intelligence (AI). Google helps me with research and an editing program checks my content for technical errors. Everything else is outpouring from a woman with a B. A. in philosophy.
In my world, using AI to think for me is like hoping to get fit by watching a Jane Fonda exercise tape from my armchair. The brain is like a muscle. Use it or lose it. Besides, taking a bow for an algorithm–a formulation insentient like a rock–is fraud.
Those of us who write know the process involves one part imagination and one part discovery. If we’re lucky, an idea ignites a second and then a third and possibly more until, ballooning from the unconscious, these thoughts dazzle us with surprise. At such times, we are like children at the beach who find a seaweed strand sparkling in the sunlight and are so enamored by its beauty that we run breathlessly to a stranger to share our wonder.
Given that joy…that elation, readers can understand my distress to learn that for several months, subscribers to my blog failed to receive any of them. Google was to blame, and I’m grateful to those who sent up a flare. Without their determination and loyalty, my essays were like notes jammed into a bottle and set adrift in the ether without a destination. A few strangers found them, which is lucky, because my scribblings aren’t meant to be entertaining but to serve as mental floss for the mind. As such, those who welcome me into their lives are as precious as drops of blood in that their companionship nourishes me.
Because it has taken time to discover and fix the technical problem, I have reposted recent ruminations for your approval.
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/in-search-of-meaning/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/learning-from-the-apes/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/a-fly-buzzed-when/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/the-god-delimma/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/the-time-travelers/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/art-in-the-time-of-chaos/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/everyone-has-a-story-to-tell-2/
https://www.booksbycarolinemiller.com/musings/i-die-you-die-they-die/
Now that my audience is restored, I leave them with a reminder. My memoir, Getting Lost to Find Home, publishes on November 1. The early reviews continue to be favorable. I share another below.
Maggi White, journalist and founding editor
of the Downtowner, Portland, Oregon
Caroline Miller’s memoir Getting Lost to Find Home
is a finely crafted story of love lost, renewal,
and wisdom gained
