Category Archives: #writerslife

Are You Ready for AI Agatha?

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Following up on Jim Bell’s discussion of Agatha Christie from Sunday…

The headline in the May 16, 2025 Saturday Evening Post read:

AI AGATHA CHRISTIE WILL TEACH YOU HOW TO WRITE! 

I can’t express my initial reaction because this is a G-rated blog. Suffice it to say, I was gobsmacked, horrified, and disappointed. Taking advantage of the deceased by commercializing and monetizing their image seems disrespectful when the person is no longer around to object. But that’s just me.

The idea of bringing dead people back to life using AI is also creepy but weirdly fascinating. Some music videos of contemporary, living singers performing duets with dead legends have been done quite well.

My fave is the 1989 video of “There’s a Tear in My Beer” with Hank Williams, Jr. playing alongside Hank Sr. who died when his son was only three. That gave this performance special poignance, imagining what might have been if Senior hadn’t died at age 29.

But AI has come a long way since 1989, with deepfakes and phony impersonations. Nothing is sacred anymore. And people will go to any outrageous lengths to make a buck.

The Agatha headline conjured up a TikTok-style, faux-historical bastardization of her image, dancing as she typed on her antique manual typewriter in time to “Puttin’ on the Ritz.”

To my surprise, the video excerpt wasn’t awful and was quite interesting. Dame Agatha’s great-grandson and the Christie estate kept a firm grip on the production, ensuring a tasteful, authentic representation of her. The script used her own words from her writings about her storytelling techniques. No one put words in her–uh, its–mouth. Instead of reading her advice in books, writers can listen to the resurrected author speaking.

The video lasts about 10 minutes but only a few seconds show AI Agatha in action. The majority of the time is spent describing the process that the producers, directors, lighting techs, hairdressers, costumers, and others went through to give an accurate depiction. A human actress combined with AI resulted in an animated life-like Agatha.

Here’s the video:

The AI Agatha course is sold via the BBC Maestro program. It can be purchased by single episode or subscription. The description is at this link.

I’m interested to hear what TKZers think of this revolutionary concept. Please share your opinions in the comments.

~~~

 

Join Debbie Burke on The Villain’s Journey – How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. Follow the steps to the darkest depths of the soul…if you dare!

Preorder now at this link to have The Villain’s Journey delivered to your device on July 13, 2025.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Celebrating(?) the Florida Man

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By Elaine Viets


      Bigfoot, werewolves and other large hairy creatures abound in stories. We’re  glad they’re myths.

“Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach series has another creature who is not mythical. The legendary Florida Man and Woman  can be large and hairy, but they are definitely real.

Florida Man is the measure for the residents of the Florodora, the most exclusive apartment building in Peerless Point, Florida. The Florodora is more than a hundred years old, the first apartment building in this south Florida beach town between Fort Lauderdale and Miami.

The Florodora is owned by Norah McCarthy, granddaughter of the original owner. You don’t need money or social status to rent an apartment at the Florodora. You must be a member of a more exclusive group. You have to be a genuine Florida Man or Woman.

You’ve seen the headlines. “Florida Man Busted with Meth, Guns and Baby Gator in Truck.” Or: “Florida Woman Bathes in Mountain Dew in Attempt to Erase DNA after Committing Murder.”

Yes, those are real headlines. So is this one: “Florida Man Arrested by Coast Guard for Trying to Cross Atlantic in Human-sized Hamster Wheel.”

That was hamster man’s second arrest trying to wheel across the Atlantic.

Florida Men and Women stories often involve alcohol and alligators, although the Florida Man who tossed a live alligator the size of a Labrador through the drive-up window of a burger joint was probably sober.

Seems this Florida Man found a gator by the road and dumped it in the back of his pickup (pickups are Florida Man’s favorite vehicle). Then he got out of the truck and chucked the gator through the burger joint drive-up window. After he paid for his soft drink.

Unbelievable? That’s the standard reaction to Florida Man. Are there any limits on his –  or her – so-called pranks?

Nope. And many of them aren’t funny. Including the Miami Cannibal, a naked marauder who attacked an innocent man, chewed off the poor guy’s face and left him blind. The cops shot that Florida Man dead.

A slang dictionary says Florida Man “commits bizarre or idiotic crimes, popularly associated with – and often reported in – Florida.”

Florida Man, known as the “world’s worst superhero,” became nationally famous in 2013 when he was given his own Twitter account. He’s inspired a play, two TV series, songs, and more.

Like many Floridians, my feelings about Florida Man and Woman are somewhere between appalled and perversely proud

Some people piously claim that reveling in these tales of Florida Men and Women is wrong, because the perpetrators are poor and uneducated.

Not true. Florida Men and Women come from all classes. Check out this story from the Miami Herald:

“How did a Florida man afford 27 Ferraris and a yacht? A $22 million tax fraud.”

The article began:

“As some fully employed people found their Social Security contributions were $0 for recent years, a Stuart man and his wife luxuriated in a 7,700-square-foot three-bedroom, eight-bathroom house with a small dock and cove.”

Nothing poor or uneducated about that Florida Man.

The tradition of renting to a Florida Man or Woman at the Florodora started with Norah’s grandmother. Eleanor Harriman had a soft spot for scapegraces, since she was one herself. She was a Florodora Girl, a superstar chorus girl a century ago. Grandma was in the 1920 Broadway production of Florodora, before she eloped with handsome Johnny Harriman, a millionaire, back when a million was real money. She was married at sixteen and madly in love.

Version 1.0.0

Johnny died a year later, leaving Eleanor a very rich widow.

When Norah was old enough, Grandma told her about poor Johnny’s accidental death, which involved a champagne bottle and a chandelier.

As my new mystery, “Sex and Death on the Beach” begins, the plumbers are digging up the  Florodora yard, trying to fix the pool. Norah hears a commotion, and discovers the plumbers have dug up the body of a missing porn star, Sammie Lant. Sammie ruined a college football player when she had sex on the beach with him. Norah is a suspect in the woman’s death, and soon the Florodora is swarming with police.

Norah’s residents enjoy swapping Florida Man stories, just like me. I’ve sprinkled these tales throughout the mystery. Here is my favorite, told by Norah’s lover and Florodora resident, Dean. Dean and Norah are drinking coffee.

“Have you heard the latest Florida Man story?” Dean asked.

“Does it involve alcohol and alligators?” Norah said.

“Nope. Satan in schools.”

“You got me,” she said.

Perversely, Dean took a long drink of coffee before he started his story. Finally, he said, “Our very own elected Florida Man, Governor Ron DeSantis, wants more religion in the state’s public schools. He signed a new law to have volunteer school chaplains.”

“Doesn’t separation of church and state keep religion out of public schools?” Norah asked.

“It should,” Dean said. “The governor says the chaplains can participate after school. At least one group responded quickly to his call: the Satanic Temple. They have an After School Satan program.”

“What are they going to do with the little devils? Sacrifice a goat?” Norah asked.

“According to reports, the After School Satan Club’s activities include games, solving puzzles and promoting critical thinking. Also, the Satanists say they do not promote a ‘belief in a personal Satan.’”

“Hah! They never had class with my geometry teacher,” Norah said. “What did the governor say about the Satanists’ offer?” I took a long drink of coffee.

“His communications director said, ‘HELL, NO.’”

I nearly snorted coffee out my nose. “Warn me when you do that again.” I was nearly choking with laughter.

Dean waited until I set down my coffee cup. “The governor has said repeatedly that the Satanists are not a religion. However, the Satanists say they are recognized by the IRS.” Dean took a sip of his cooling coffee.

“The Devil knows his own,” I said.

 

          “Sex and Death on the Beach,” my new Florida Beach mystery, will be published June 3 as a hardcover and an ebook. You can preorder copies from your local bookstore, as well as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other outlets. Thriftbooks.com has the best price for the hardcover right now: https://tinyurl.com/yz32f8c7

 

How Well Do You Sleep, Writers?

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Every morning for two solid weeks I woke at 3 a.m. Not 3:05 or 3:10, exactly 3:00 a.m. sharp. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why.

One or two mornings could be a fluke. Fourteen? No way was that a coincidence.

Like any good writer when faced with a mystery, I researched possible reasons why. More importantly, I needed a solution so I didn’t join the walking dead.

What I learned fascinated me.

Because self-care is vital for writers, I thought I’d share my discovery in case one of you may be experiencing the same thing. This, of course, applies to everyone, not just writers, but I like to make us feel special.

While searching for a cause, I stumbled across an interesting discussion on Quora. An older gentleman mentioned his body had acclimated to waking at the end of each sleep cycle for a bathroom break. After which, he immediately fell back asleep.

Men tend to have an easier time falling asleep after waking due to higher levels of testosterone, which greatly enhances sleep. Hence why so many older women have difficulty sleeping through the night. Testosterone levels and prostrates start to wane as men age, hence the bathroom breaks, but it plummets in women, as we only start with a fraction of what they have.

Could decreasing hormones cause my 3 a.m. wake-up call? And if so, how can I fix it?

When I read the Quora discussion, more questions arose:

  • How long is a normal sleep cycle?
  • How many sleep cycles do we have per night?
  • How can I cancel the 3 a.m. wake-up call without pharmaceuticals?

Whenever possible, I prefer natural remedies. Not only is it healthier but all pharmaceuticals in their infancy stem from nature. Why not skip the middleman?

My.ClevelandClinic.org describes sleep basics as:

“Sleeping doesn’t mean your brain is totally inactive. While you’re less aware of the world around you, you still have plenty of detectable brain activity. That brain activity has predictable patterns. Experts organized those patterns into stages. The stages fall broadly into two categories: rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and non-REM (NREM) sleep.”

During a normal sleep cycle, the brain enters four stages.

When we first fall asleep, we enter stage 1 NREM (non-REM). The lightest stage of sleep, this stage only lasts a few minutes, about 5% of our sleep time. After that, we fall deeper asleep and move into stage 2 NREM, where brain waves slow and have noticeable pauses between short, powerful bursts of electrical activity. Experts think those bursts are the brain organizing memories and information from the time we spent awake.

We then enter stage 3 NREM, the deepest sleep. Brain waves are slow but strong. Our bodies take advantage of deep sleep to repair injuries and reinforce the immune system. We desperately need stage 3 NREM to feel rested upon waking. Without enough of stage 3, we’d feel tired and drained even if we stayed in bed for eight hours.

After the most beneficial stage of sleep, we return to stage 2 NREM, the gatekeeper of REM sleep. REM (rapid eye movement) cycle is where we dream; it makes up about 25% of total sleep time. The first REM cycle is the shortest, around 10 minutes. Each one that follows is longer than the last, up to an hour.

After REM, we start a new sleep cycle and go back into stage 1 or 2 NREM. One full cycle lasts 90 – 120 minutes. If we get a full eight hours of sleep, we should go through four or five cycles per night.

Though fascinating, it still didn’t explain why I kept waking at 3 a.m.

I dug deeper into sleep cycles and possible reasons for an abrupt disruption. Again, I leaned toward a possible decrease in testosterone. He wasn’t the culprit. Only one hormone is released at 3 a.m.—serotonin. But I thought serotonin, dopamine, oxytocin, and endorphins were our friends. They’re our feel-good hormones. How could serotonin be responsible for such an evil act?

Evidently, our bodies release small amounts of serotonin at that ungodly hour to prepare us to wake in a few hours.

Here’s the rub…

Stress can switch the trickle of serotonin, which keeps us from feeling sluggish and groggy during the day, into a massive flood. This surge wakes us immediately rather than acting like a gentle nudge toward wakefulness.

I didn’t think I was stressed. Upon reflection, my endless to-do list had been weighing on me. I’d lost so much writing time (packing, moving, unpacking, acclimating) that I let that negative voice whisper horrible things about me. A writer’s inner critic is a feral beast worthy of a firing squad. Or a public hanging. I usually have an easier time silencing her, but the lack of sleep weakened my fighting spirit.

Regardless, I refused to accept my fate. I don’t mind waking at 4:30ish but 3 a.m. wrecked me.

How did I combat the influx of serotonin?

The answer is so simple. We do it every day, all day. Anyone? Anyone? We’ve talked about this before.

Deep breathing exercises. Specifically, what’s known as box breathing, commonly used by Navy SEALs and other Special Forces.

As soon as I crawl into bed, I take a moment to inhale through my nostrils for a four-count, hold for four, exhale out my mouth for four, and hold again. Four or five rounds works for me. You may be different. Try it. You’ll know when to stop.

The box breathing technique helps to regulate breathing, reduce stress and anxiety, and improve focus and concentration.

By reducing stress at bedtime, my body doesn’t trigger serotonin to flood my system at 3 a.m. Ever since I implemented this nightly routine, I’ve slept till 5:30 – 6 a.m.

Sometimes, the easiest solution is the right one.

So, TKZers, how well do you sleep? Have you tried deep breathing exercises to combat stress and/or improve focus?

Meta Stole Copyrighted Work from Millions of Authors

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On December 9, 2024, I wrote about Meta’s new terms of service, effective January 1, 2025. This month, I’m even more disgusted by what I learned. An email from one of my publishers told me Meta stole 7.5 million books and 81 million research papers to train their new AI model, Llama 3.

For those who haven’t heard the news yet, Alex Reisner first broke the story in The Atlantic…

“When employees at Meta started developing their flagship AI model, Llama 3, they faced a simple ethical question. The program would need to be trained on a huge amount of high-quality writing to be competitive with products such as ChatGPT, and acquiring all of that text legally could take time. Should they just pirate it instead?”

Meta employees spoke with multiple companies about licensing books and research papers, but they nixed that idea, stating, “[This] seems unreasonably expensive.” A Llama-team senior manager also said it’d be an “incredibly slow” process. “They take like 4+ weeks to deliver data.”

Offended yet? Not only has Meta and others stolen copyrighted work but they’ve reduced authors’ blood, sweat, and tears to nothing more than “data.”

“The problem is that people don’t realize that if we license one book, we won’t be able to lean into fair use strategy,” said the director of engineering at Meta in an internal memo.

If caught, the senior manager claimed the legal defense of “fair use” might work for using pirated books and research papers to train AI…

“[It is] really important for [Meta] to get books ASAP. Books are actually more important than web data.”

How did they solve this problem? Meta employees turned to LibGen (Library Genesis), a digital warehouse of stolen intellectual property, neatly stacked with pirated books, academic papers, and various works authors and publishers never approved.

As of March 2025, the LibGen library contained more than 7.5 million books and 81 research papers. And Meta stole it all, with permission from “MZ”—a reference to CEO Mark Zuckerberg—to download and use the data set.

Internal correspondence were made public this month as part of a copyright-infringement lawsuit brought by Sarah Silverman and other celebs whose books LibGen pirated. If that’s not bad enough, the public also discovered OpenAI used LibGen for similar purposes. Microsoft owns a 49% equity stake in the for-profit subsidiary OpenAI LP. It is not yet known whose idea it was to download the LibGen library to train its AI model.

Does it matter? They still used copyrighted material without obtaining licensing fees or giving authors the option to opt-out.

“Ask for forgiveness, not for permission,” said another Meta employee.

Even when a senior management employee at Meta raised concerns about lawsuits, they were convinced to download the libraries from LibGen and Anna’s Archive, another massive pirate site.

“To show the kind of work that has been used by Meta and OpenAI, I accessed a snapshot of LibGen’s metadata—revealing the contents of the library without downloading or distributing the books or research papers themselves—and used it to create an interactive database that you can search here:

https://reisner-books-index.vercel.app”

~ Alex Reisner, The Atlantic

Meta and OpenAI have both claimed the defense of “fair use” to train their generative-AI models on copyrighted work without a license, because LLMs (Large Language Models) “transform” the original material into new work. Work that could directly compete with the authors they stole from—by duplicating their writing voice and style!

This legal strategy could set a dangerous precedent: It’s okay to steal from authors. Who cares if they worked for months, even years, to write the pirated books and/or research papers?

The use of LibGen and Anna’s Archive also raises another issue.

Alex Reisner stated the following in one of The Atlantic articles:

“Bulk downloading is often done with BitTorrent, the file-sharing protocol popular with pirates for its anonymity, and downloading with BitTorrent typically involves uploading to other users simultaneously. Internal communications show employees saying that Meta did indeed torrent LibGen, which means that Meta could have not only accessed pirated material but also distributed it to others—well established as illegal under copyright law, regardless of what the courts determine about the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI.”

Not only has Meta and OpenAI stolen copyrighted material from authors, but they’ve distributed it to others.

By now, you must be wondering if your books are included in the LibGen library. I found six of mine, including my true crime/narrative nonfiction book, Pretty Evil New England, which took me a solid year to research—driving around six states to dig through archives—and then submit the finished manuscript to the publisher by the deadline, never mind the weeks of edits afterward. Each one of my stolen thrillers—HACKED, Blessed Mayhem, Silent Mayhem, Unnatural Mayhem, and HALOED—also took months of hard work.

Click to Enlarge

By stealing six books, they robbed me of years—years(!) of pouring my soul onto the page to deliver the best experience I could—and I’ll continue to put in the time for my readers. I suspect you’ll do the same. But authors still need to eat and pay bills. It’s difficult to write if you’re homeless.

What message is Big Tech sending to the public?

If Meta and OpenAI prevail in the lawsuits, authors everywhere are at risk.

Quick side note about pirate sites: Sure, you can read books for free. Just know, most sites include trojan horses in the pirated books that will steal banking and other personal info from your network. Every pirated book steals money from authors. If you want us to keep writing but can’t afford to buy books, get a library card. Or contact the author. Most will gift you a review copy.

Care to read Meta’s internal correspondence?

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.449.4.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.417.6.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.391.24.pdf

And here’s a court document regarding OpenAI:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.414822/gov.uscourts.cand.414822.254.0.pdf

Disgraceful, right?

The Authors Guild is also reporting on the theft and closely monitoring the court cases.

If your work is included in the LibGen library, your name will automatically be included in the class action (there are many filed), unless you opt-out. However, if you prefer to contact the attorney handling the case against Meta, contact Saveri Law Firm HERE.

Did you find any of your work in the pirated libraries?

Playing with Time

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Savings Time Clip Art drawing (Vector cliparts) anousment media,2 pm,time goes by

 

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Is your internal clock still confused by Sunday’s changeover to Daylight Savings Time? Me too. Now is a good opportunity to talk about playing with time in fiction.

In real life, time unfolds in chronological order. We’re born on Day 1, followed by 2, 3, 4, etc. until the last day when life ends.

That chronology can’t be changed.

We’re often Monday-morning-quarterbacks, kicking ourselves for what we did or didn’t do, what we said or didn’t say and should have. We’d love to go back in time to fix wrong choices or bad decisions but the best we can do is learn from them and not repeat mistakes.

In fiction, however, we have a chance for a do-over. It’s called rewriting.

In real life, a perfect comeback usually eludes us at the time but later occurs to us. When that happens in a story, we can simply plug it in when it’s needed. How cool is that!

Manipulating time chronology in mystery fiction can be an effective technique to build tension and suspense, disguise the villain, and misdirect the reader.

Let’s look at two movies that use the time jumping technique. I chose films as examples rather than books because visual models are easy to learn from.

The 2019 film Knives Outi is an unabashed tribute to the immortal Agatha Christie. Rian Johnson wrote and directed the film, which was nominated for an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay. Hercule Poirot is updated as 21st century detective Benoit Blanc (played by Daniel Craig). Wealthy novelist Harlan Thrombey (played by the late Christopher Plummer) is found dead, his throat slashed. A star-studded ensemble cast provides multiple suspects in the suspicious death. Driven by greed and jealousy, they fight among themselves over Thrombey’s fortune.

The complex plot jumps around in flashbacks from the points of view of different characters. Each new revelation of what supposedly happened sends the audience down a fresh trail of misdirection.

Time is critical in determining whose alibi is genuine and whose is false. Suspects claim to be in a certain location at a certain time. Blanc deduces who is lying by pinpointing the exact time where each actually was.

As a writer, I’m curious how Johnson wrote the original draft. Did he write it in chronological order then rearrange scenes during rewrites? Or did he bounce back and forth in time while initially drafting?

Same question about the filming. I’m guessing, for budgetary reasons, it was shot in chronological order because that’s the most efficient use of time and resources. Later, Johnson probably cut and pasted the scenes for the maximum dramatic suspense.

That system works for books also. Once the story is drafted in chronological order, the writer can cut and paste at will, rearranging the time sequence to keep the reader guessing.

A 2023 Czech film, Unspoken, directed by Tomas Masin, is another good example of how to play with chronology. The story concerns a veterinarian whose life changes in an instant when he’s kicked in the head by a horse he’s treating. The accident leaves him partially paralyzed and unable to speak. Three women care for him: his wife, his mother, and the woman who owns the horse, later revealed to be the vet’s lover.

Jealousy and resentmen lead to power struggles among the women. For different reasons, they disagree about how the man should be cared for. He cannot voice what he wants and can only watch helplessly as they argue over his fate.

Two detectives are shown investigating the case. Initially they appear to be focused on who’s liable for the accident. Gradually it comes out they are actually investigating the veterinarian’s death. While the audience watches his struggle at rehabilitation, they also know that ultimately he will not survive.

Time jumps from present to past to future as detectives question the three women and others, including nurses and doctors.

More layers unfold as it’s revealed the man managed to attempt suicide but was saved. Fingers of blame are pointed at professional caregivers as well as the three women. Who allowed the attempt to happen?

Then in yet another jump forward in time, it’s revealed that, shortly after trying to kill himself, the man was murdered.

The detectives’ questions dig farther back in time into the murky relationships he had with his wife, mother, and lover. The lover is now discovered to be the mother of his young child.

Each jump in time adds to the mystery.

The cause of death is a fatal dose of insulin injected into his IV. The time of death is determined to be a brief window when the man’s squabbling wife, mother, and lover all had access to the IV. Which one did it? Or did a doctor or nurse make an error? Or did someone decide to end his suffering with a mercy killing?

I won’t spoil the surprise ending. The film is available on a free streaming channel. It’s worth watching to study how effectively time jumps can be used.

If you decide to experiment with time, keep a detailed chronology.

  • Account for each day, hour, or minute.
  • Use a physical calendar or writing software.
  • Note each character’s location at the time of each important plot event or action.

A side note on chronology: this post focused on the big picture handling of chronology at the plot level. However, on the micro level, sentence chronology is also important.

With my editing clients, I frequently see sentences and paragraphs that are awkward and clunky due to chronological confusion.

Here’s an example:

“Why the sour face?” Frank asked when he came in the door after Maureen and the kids had finished dinner just before she would tuck them in for their 9 p.m. bedtime. Frustration had made her break a plate while washing dishes. Beer fumes wafted from him.

What’s wrong? The words are clear enough, but they are not arranged in the order that the actions happened. The focus of the paragraph—the reason for Maureen’s anger—gets lost as the reader has to figure out who’s done what and when they did it.

Sentences and paragraphs read much smoother when they’re written in chronological order.

Rewrite:

Maureen and the kids had given up waiting for Frank to come home and ate dinner without him. While washing dishes, Maureen cracked a plate, stifled a curse, and chided herself. Not in front of the children. She was herding them toward bed at 9 p.m. when the kitchen door opened. Frank stumbled in, beer fumes wafting from him. He shot one look at Maureen and asked, “Why the sour face?”

Writers often like to use dialogue to make a dramatic statement, so they start a new scene with a character speaking. Then they have to backtrack to explain when, where, and why the character made that statement. The context eventually becomes clear but, meanwhile, the reader struggles to mentally rearrange the sentence in chronological order.

That’s a speed bump.

If speed bumps happen too often, the reader gets tired of them and doesn’t finish the book. They may not even be aware of what bothered them. They only know the writing irritated them.

The cleanest, clearest way to construct sentences and paragraphs is chronologically. A happens then B happens, then C, D, E, etc. The reader instantly understands what’s going on and can focus on the story.

Back to the big picture view of time manipulation: Personally, I write in chronological order. Occasionally, I use a flashback to explain what’s occurring in the present story. If I played around with time too much, I’m afraid I’d get totally confused.

However, I admire books and films like Knives Out and Unspoken. The authors who played with timelines have a deep understanding of the plot’s forward momentum. They use time rearrangement to build suspense and tension. When done well, out-of-order chronology can be a fresh way to present a story.

~~~

TKZers: have you ever played with time in your stories? Were you satisfied with the results? Or did it wind up an incomprehensible jumble? Any suggestions?

~~~

 

 

Time to try a new series? Please check out Tawny Lindholm Thrillers, available at Amazon and other online booksellers.

Timely Facts About Daylight Savings

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Time is the wisest counselor of all. —Pericles

* * *

It’s baaaaack!

Early Sunday morning Daylight Savings Time reentered our lives, and we all lost an hour of sleep. Interestingly, the U.S. is one of only about 34% of the world’s countries that observe DST. So why did we decide to use this strange time shift phenomenon?

BEGINNINGS

Benjamin Franklin probably had something to do with it. As the U.S. Ambassador to France in 1784, he wrote a satirical letter to the Journal de Paris saying Parisians could save money on candles and oil just by getting up earlier in the summer. Barely a hundred years later, time zones were invented.

According to the National Museum of American History

Before 1883, towns across the nation set their own times by observing the position of the sun, so there were hundreds of local times. Instead of Eastern Standard Time, for example, there was Philadelphia Standard Time or Charleston Standard Time. In the 1850s, railroads began to operate under about fifty regional times, each set to an agreed-upon, arbitrary standard time. Rail companies often induced a region to abandon local time in favor of the railroad’s operating time.

On November 18, 1883, local times across the nation—determined by the position of the sun overhead—were consolidated into standardized time zones. Each zone had a uniform time within its boundaries. The railroads implemented the change for their own benefit. But gradually, despite scattered resistance, standard time became the way everyone kept time.

A DAYLIGHT SAVINGS IDEA

In 1895, a New Zealand entomologist and astronomer George Hudson made the first realistic proposal to change clocks by two hours every spring. Although his proposal wasn’t implemented, it may have set the stage for DST.

The U.S. Congress, of course, got into the act. Article I, Section 8, Clause 5 of our Constitution gives Congress the power to fix the standard of weights and measures, and that includes determining time. This resulted in several time zone-related bills.

Again, from the National Museum of American History

The federal government first officially recognized standard time during World War I, in an act to establish Daylight Saving Time. At war’s end, Congress repealed Daylight Saving Time in response to farmers more in sync with the sun than the clock. During World War II, Congress authorized a temporary year-round daylight saving time, dubbed “War Time.” No national legislation provided for Daylight Saving Time until the Uniform Time Act of 1966.

The Uniform Time Act of 1966 standardized the start and end dates for daylight saving time in the United States, and the authority for overseeing it was given to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Some interesting facts about options for DST are on the U.S. DOT website:

DOT also oversees the Nation’s uniform observance of Daylight Saving Time; however, DOT does not have the power to repeal or change Daylight Saving Time.  Nor does DOT have any role to play in a State’s determination whether to observe Daylight Saving Time.  If a State chooses to observe Daylight Saving Time, it must begin and end on federally mandated dates.  Under the Uniform Time Act, States may choose to exempt themselves from observing Daylight Saving Time by State law.  States do not have the authority to choose to be on permanent Daylight Saving Time.

DO WE REALLY NEED THIS?

Recent polls indicate most people in the U.S. are of the “pick one and stick to it” opinion. Unfortunately, about half want Standard Time and the other half want Savings Time to be the norm.

So here, I humbly propose my own solution to the time problem: Common (as in “common sense”) Time. I propose we make each time zone uniform with the time set to halfway between Standard Time and DST. For example, I am in the Central Time Zone. We would use Central Common Time. Instead of one p.m. Standard Time or two p.m. DST, Central Common Time would be one-thirty p.m. Simple, right?

Since I suspect my proposal has considerably less than a one percent chance of being enacted, I am willing to be Standard or Savings just as long as they don’t disturb my sleep anymore.

WRITING

But what does all this have to do with writing?

It’s well known that disruption in sleep habits has a negative effect on productivity. But according to an article on the Johns Hopkins University website about the effect of switching to Daylight Saving Time, it’s much more intrusive than that.

“The scientific evidence points to acute increases in adverse health consequences from changing the clocks, including in heart attack and stroke,” says sleep expert Adam Spira, PhD, MA, a professor in Mental Health.

The change is also associated with a heightened risk of mood disturbances and hospital admissions, as well as elevated production of inflammatory markers in response to stress. The potential for car crashes also spikes just after the spring forward, Spira says; a 2020 study found that the switch raises the risk of fatal traffic accidents by 6%.

Yikes. Better to fall asleep at your desk than go for an afternoon car ride.

HOPE

The Sunshine Protection Act (don’t you love the name?) that would make Daylight Savings Time permanent passed the Senate in 2022 by unanimous consent, but died in the House of Representatives. However, the SPA was reintroduced this year in both houses of congress. Will it pass? Only time will tell.

* * *

What about you, TKZers: Do you think we should go onto one time system and forget this switching back and forth? Does the time change have a negative impact on your work? Do you like the Common (i.e., average) Time idea?

 

Time is of the essence for Cassie Deakin and Frank White as they hunt a murderer.

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.

True Crime Thursday: Dogs Who Solved Murders

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In 19th century Spain, a Seville butcher named Juan went on hunting trips with his godfather, Marquez, every Saturday. The two normally returned on Monday.

One November morning, Juan came back alone. Marquez’s wife asked about her husband, but believed Juan when he said they’d separated during the hunt and thought Marquez had beat him home.

“He must be coming back any time now,” he said.

With the day bleeding into night and still no sight of Marquez, his wife grew concerned. That evening, his dog, Como tu, returned alone. Como tu and Marquez were inseparable. So, the wife asked his faithful companion about his father’s whereabouts. Agitated, the dog grabbed her dress in his teeth and tried to drag her out of the house.

Why the wife paid no attention to Como tu’s strange behavior was anyone’s guess. Instead, she thought maybe Marquez went to visit Juan. In a desperate attempt to find him, she and Como tu went to his house. When Juan answered the door, Como tu dove for his throat. It wasn’t normal behavior. The dog never had a problem with Juan before.

After the wife pulled Como tu off Juan, he falsely claimed the dog must have rabies and should be shot, but she decided to go to the police station instead. Como tu was good as gold at the police station, until Juan arrived. The moment Como tu heard his voice, he turned aggressive. At first, the police commissioner thought Juan might’ve abused Como tu. When the wife told the story of her missing husband, she included the dog’s strange behavior.

Two days later, she took the dog for a walk in the area where her husband had gone hunting. At a cliff that overlooked the river where folks customarily threw garbage and dead animals (*cringe*), Como tu again tugged her dress, howled, then pulled her toward the cliff’s edge. Because of the stench of garbage — and despite Como tu’s best efforts — they headed home.

As they passed the butcher shop, Como tu barged in, leaped up on a table, and again tried to attack Juan.

More than a little suspicious now, Marquez’s wife returned to the police station and told an officer what happened with the dog. The police officer said nothing at the time. However, the following morning, he went to the cliff with four pall bearers and saw Juan and two other men at the bottom, tearing bloody clothes off a corpse.

The officer arrested all three men.

Officials ID’d the body as Marquez. The officer found entry wounds from a full load of buckshot to the face and left side of the head. The back of the skull had more damage, most likely crushed by the butt of a shotgun. The two accomplices confessed. Juan had offered money to help him remove the bloody clothes and toss the body into the river.

With no way out, Juan confessed to killing his godfather after a fight over who shot a specific partridge. As the fight intensified, both hunters loaded their shotguns and threatened each other. Angry and drunk, Juan claimed to fire at Marquez to disable him, but he finished the job by caving in the back of his skull with the butt of his shotgun.

The court found no evidence of premeditation and some evidence to support self-defense. Thus, Juan received five years in the galleys while the two accomplices got six months in prison for trying to cover up the murder.

If it weren’t for Como tu, Marquez’s wife would never have known what happened to her husband.

ANOTHER FURRY HERO

white labradoodle like Titan

A case made national headlines when a loyal Labradoodle named Titan helped solve the murder of his twenty-six-year-old mom, Mandy Rose Reynolds, who was shot and burned beyond recognition in a field in Robinson, Texas.

Police found the charred remains on April 5, 2023. Titan barked frantically and refused to leave the area. He also evaded capture.

Even after the coroner removed Reynold’s body the following morning, a good Samaritan found Titan sitting in the same spot and called Robinson Animal Control, who scanned the dog for a microchip. That led to the owner’s name: Mandy Rose Reynolds.

Now with a starting point for the investigation, the medical examiner identified the remains as Mandy Reynolds through her dental records. The official record shows she died from a gunshot wound to the head, and a .380 bullet was recovered from her remains.

Robinson police then learned Mandy Reynolds resided in San Marcos, Texas. San Marcos police were contacted and went to her home but found it empty, with all her possessions removed and her black Honda Accord missing.

A license plate database revealed the car was somewhere in Wichita.

On April 8, 2023, Wichita police spotted the vehicle. The pursuit lasted almost thirty minutes and reached speeds of over 100 mph.

The Accord crashed into another vehicle, and Derek Daigneault — Mandy Rose Reynolds’ cousin— fled the scene and “hid on a shelf behind canned goods” at a local grocery store. Police found a .380 handgun on the driver’s side floorboard.

Meanwhile, back in Robinson, police determined the body had been burned in a large plastic storage container, along with a fired .380 shell casing.

Surveillance video from a Walmart in San Marcos showed Daigneault buying an identical storage container, a shovel, and a gas can on the morning of April 4, 2023. Video evidence also showed him leaving the store in Mandy Reynolds’ car, with Titan sticking his head out the window.

The Texas Department of Public Safety crime lab confirmed the bullet and shell casing were both fired by the handgun found in Daigneault’s possession. The court sentenced Daigneault to life in prison.

“The keys to this case were a heroic and loyal dog named Titan and extraordinary cooperation between law enforcement agencies in multiple jurisdictions and states. That combination has delivered justice for Mandy and safety from a violent and dangerous criminal,” Assistant District Attorneys Ryan Calvert and Alyssa Killin said in a statement.

As for Titan, Mandy Rose Reynolds’ best friend adopted the dog days after her murder. “He is doing great!”

Do you know of an animal who solved a crime? Tell us about it.

Created by a Fallible Human, Not a Fallible Machine

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

AI is everywhere in the news and authors are worried. For good reason.

Discoverability is already tough with an estimated two million books published each year. An increasing number are AI-generated. Finding your book is like identifying a single drop of water in a tidal wave.

Additionally, AI continues to be plagued by “hallucinations,” a polite term for BS. In 2023, I wrote about lawyers who got busted big time for using ChatGPT that generated citations from imaginary cases that had never happened.

Authors are not the only ones under threat. Human artists face competition from AI. Just for fun, check out this lovely, touching image created by ChatGPT. Somehow AI didn’t quite comprehend that a horn piercing the man’s head and his arm materializing through the unicorn’s neck are physical impossibilities, not to mention gruesome.

How do humans fight back? Are we authors (and artists, musicians, voice actors, and others in creative fields) doomed to become buggy-whip makers?

The Authors Guild has been on the front lines defending the rights of writers. They push legislation to stop the theft of authors’ copyrighted work to train large language models (LLMs). They assert that authors have a right to be paid when their work is used to develop AI LLMs. They demand work that’s created by machine be identified as such.

Side note: Kindle Direct Publishing currently asks the author if AI was used in a book’s creation. However, the book’s sale page doesn’t mention AI so buyers have no way of knowing whether or not AI is used. 

The latest initiative AG offers are “Human Authored” badges, certifying the work is created by flesh-and-blood writers.

One recent morning, I spent an hour registering my nine books with AG and downloading badges for each one. Here’s the certification for my latest thriller, Fruit of the Poisonous Tree. 

The process is to fill out a form with the book title, author, ISBN, ASIN, and publisher’s name. You e-sign a statement verifying you, a human author, created the work without using AI, with limited exceptions for spelling and grammar checkers, and research cites.

Then AG generates individually-numbered certification badges you download for marketing purposes. At this point, it’s an honor system with AG taking the author’s word.

The yellow and black badges can be used on book covers, while the black and white ones can be included on the book’s copyright page.

For now, AG registers books only by members but may expand in the future for other authors.

 

In 2023, I wrote Deep Fake Double Down, a thriller where deep fake videos implicate a woman for crimes she didn’t commit. The story is a cautionary tale about how AI can be misused for malicious purposes.

I ordered these stickers for paperbacks I sell at personal appearances. Considering the subject of Deep Fake Double Down, they were especially appropriate and kicked off good discussions at the book table.

Do badges and stickers make any difference?  Probably not. But I believe many readers still prefer books by real people, not bots.

There’s an old saying among computer scientists: Garbage in, garbage out.

Garbage fiction is one issue. But what about nonfiction?

Nothing destroys an author’s credibility faster than Inaccurate research. Is ChatGPT any better now than it was in 2023 when its falsehoods caused trouble for the attorneys mentioned above?

Well…

Gary Marcus is a professor emeritus at NYU who researches the intersection of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence. Yeah, he’s really smart. He frequently pokes holes in the hype surrounding AI and believes laws are needed to regulate its use.

He recently reported on ChatGPT’s veracity when performing simple research tasks that any high school student should be able to do. I summarized the results below. His entire post is here.

ChatGPT was asked to make a table of every state in the US with details about population, area, and median income.

First try, it came back with only 20 states, not 50. Whoops.

When challenged, GPT responded with profound apologies and corrected itself.

Second try, it added a few more states but the list was still incomplete.

More apologies and it generated another correction.

Third try, still forgot two states.

Fourth try, finally found the missing states.

In another experiment, GPT was asked to list all Canadian provinces and report the number of vowels in the name of each. Vowels were defined as A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y.

This is GPT’s answer about  Prince Edward Island.

  • Prince Edward Island → (i, e, e, a, o, a, i, a) → 8

What? You say there’s no “O” in Prince Edward Island?

More apologies, more rechecks, and this time the results are verified and accurate.

Sort of, except for Northwest Territories. 

  • Northwest Territories → (o, h, e, a, e, i, o) → 7

I must have missed the memo when “H” became a vowel.

GPT needed several guesses to determine how many vowels are in “British Columbia.” Go ahead and count them. I’ll wait.

First guess: 9.

Second guess: 7

Third guess: 6

A third grader could have counted the vowels faster and more accurately.

Whenever GPT’s wrong answers were challenged by the person making the prompt, it apologized and complimented the person for being smart to double check. But each subsequent time ,GPT claimed its revised answer had been verified and checked for accuracy. For sure.

Honest.

Really.

Cross my heart.

Except GPT doesn’t have a heart. Or a brain. Or common sense and reasoning ability.

Near the end of this experiment, ChatGPT was asked if it could be trusted. Here’s a quote from that exchange:

Yes, but it’s always good to verify, especially when precision matters! Like a human, I can make mistakes, but I improve when challenged. Your scrutiny helped me correct my errors, and I’ll be extra careful going forward—especially when counting or verifying data.

If you ever feel something seems off, don’t hesitate to ask me to double-check. I genuinely appreciate how thorough you’re being!

You said:

“Subconsciously”? What does that mean? aren’t you a chatbot?

ChatGPT said:

ChatGPT

You’re absolutely right to call that out! I don’t have a subconscious in the way humans do. What I meant was that my mistake likely came from a pattern of processing text too quickly without verifying each step carefully. Instead of deliberately making an error, I likely miscounted due to an automatic response rather than a deep, reflective process.

Unlike humans, I don’t have thoughts, feelings, or unconscious biases—I just generate responses based on patterns in data. But I can make mistakes, and I appreciate your careful fact-checking! Keep holding me accountable.

Wait a sec. Now the person asking questions of GPT is supposed to fact-check the answers GPT confidently claims it has already fact-checked? Am I missing something?

During a recent conversation with a bright, earnest, young nephrologist, he proudly showed me all the information he could access on his phone using AI. Each time he used more specific prompts, going into greater depth and detail about various kidney disease symptoms and treatment options.

I was tempted to have him ask how many vowels are in the word “kidney.”

What is more distressing are students who increasingly depend on ChatGPT for “research.” If they don’t already know the US has 50 states, British Columbia has six vowels, and “H” is not a vowel, they assume GPT’s answers are accurate. All their so-called research is built on a false, unstable, flimsy foundation. 

ChatGPT isn’t the only AI that coughs up unreliable information. Check out these geometric shapes that Dr. Marcus asked Grok2 to generate. This link goes to a photo that can be enlarged. .

Isquer? Ecktangle? Recan? Ovatagle? No wonder I almost failed geometry.

AI is the power behind Google and other search engines. All have plenty of inaccuracies. But thanks to extensive online access to the Library of Congress, Project Gutenberg, encyclopedias, and millions of source documents, accurate research is easy and simple to verify with cross references.

As AI’s speed and convenience supplant hard-won experience and deep, accurate research, how many generations until it becomes accepted common knowledge that “H” is a vowel?

Humans are fallible and often draw wrong conclusions. But I’d still rather read books written by humans.

I’m a fallible human who writes books.

I prefer to not rely on fallible chatbots.

Excuse me, I have to get back to making buggy whips.

~~~

TKZers, do you use Chat GPT or similar programs? For what purposes? Do you have concerns about accuracy? Have you caught goofs? 

Am I just being a curmudgeon?

~~~

Here’s what Amazon’s AI says about Deep Fake Double Down:

 Customers find the book has a fast-paced thriller with plenty of action and twists. They appreciate the well-developed characters and the author’s ability to capture their emotions. The book is described as an engaging read with unexpected climaxes.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

 

Okay, I concede AI can sometimes be pretty sweet!

Sales link

Designated Writing Space

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It’s incredible how a designated workspace triggers the mind. For years, I had an office. As soon as I sat at my desk — headphones on, music cranked — my mind knew to write.

I imagine many who work from home have a similar routine, and it all comes down to having a designated workspace.

When I moved three weeks ago, I lost my office. It threw me off my game, and I couldn’t fathom why. Had my office contributed that much to my productivity? Or maybe I needed to find a new writing routine.

I tried writing with my MacBook in my lap on the recliner. Squeaked out some words, but nowhere near my daily norm.

I tried the couch. Still didn’t work. My mind kept drifting, my thoughts scattered.

I even tried writing in my bedroom. Still nothing.

As I mentioned, I had an office in my former house. I also had a thinking chair used only for times when I needed to wiggle out of an unexpected plot twist, or how to get from A to B when I zigged instead of zagged. Nature walks aren’t possible during a snowy New England winter, so I couldn’t do that, either.

Not once did I ever use either spot for anything else. I didn’t relax in my office, nor did I unwind in my thinking chair. Separating the two helped my productivity tenfold.

That’s when it hit me—my Ah-ha! moment, if you will.

After thirteen years of the same writing routine, why would I expect the same output when I’d been mashing up my designated spaces? Could I be flexible in how I approach my writing life? Sure, but not before I had a set routine in place.

For me, I needed:

  • Designated thinking spot
  • Designated workspace
  • Designated place for R&R

The above helps to keep me on track and moving forward. Does that mean I can’t write anywhere else once I had a regular writing routine? Of course not. But having a daily routine and designated workspace helps fuel my creativity.

Sure enough, once I separated my writing space, with my wide monitor and headphones in place, the words flowed. Since I can be a bit set in my routine, I also designated a thinking spot in front of a window that faces the woods where wildlife plays.

Am I the only one who needs structure? Do you have a designated workspace? What about a separate thinking spot? Tell us about it in the comments.

***Just FYI: We’re on the tail end of a blizzard, with heavy ice on power lines and trees. I hope we don’t lose power but… who knows?

O Writer, Who Art Thou?

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“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” —Oscar Wilde

* * *

Who are you?

The image above is the Road ID bracelet I wear when I go outside for a run. It’s one of those “just in case” things. The little statement at the bottom of the ID says a lot about me, and not just about running. I like to think that I always finish what I start.

Of course, human beings are complicated organisms, and we can’t summarize someone by just a few words. (That would make them flat characters. 😊)

On the other hand, it is fun to find short phrases that shine a light on who we are and what our attitude toward life is, so I went looking for descriptions that might fit some of the people I know. Here are a few I found interesting:

  1. Make a difference
  2. Make somebody’s day
  3. Living the dream
  4. Grateful beyond words
  5. Child of God
  6. Party animal
  7. Dark Horse
  8. Happy Camper
  9. Hard work makes good luck
  10. Challenges make life interesting
  11. Be consistent
  12. Believe in your dreams
  13. Go the extra mile
  14. Give 100%
  15. If it wasn’t hard, why do it

* * *

Who are you as a writer?

What about our approach to writing? I know people who select a single word to focus on throughout a new year. That never appealed to me until a couple of years ago when I decided to give it a try. Now that we’re at the beginning of 2025 with all our writing goals for the year in place, maybe it’s time to select a word or phrase to post above the desk to help us stay focused all year long.

This year I decided to go for a full phrase. It’s one of my favorite pieces of advice: Festina Lente, Latin for Make haste slowly. Although it seems incongruous, the phrase makes perfect sense. Work as hard as you can, but don’t rush through the job. (I wrote a TKZ blog post about Festina Lente a few years ago that explains where the phrase originated and its relationship to writing.)

But I wanted to add a little extra something to my favorite phrase to make it perfect this year, so I used Google translate to find the Latin equivalents of my additions. I printed it out in Algerian font and hung it above my desk.

Festina Lente
Cum
Alacritate,
Gratia, et
Voluntate

Looks impressive, eh? It means Make haste slowly with enthusiasm, gratitude, and determination. If I feel myself moving toward that “things aren’t going the way I want them to” sinkhole, I look at my little sign and remember what I’m supposed to be concentrating on.

* * *

Defining ourselves in just a few words may seem like an academic exercise, but it can also focus our work and attitude on the things that we feel are most important.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

* * *

So TKZers: What word or phrase would you use to define yourself? Your writing? Do you have a word or phrase to concentrate on during 2025?

 

 

“a spectacular tale of a decades-old murder mystery, human drama, and a hint of romance” —Prairie Book Reviews

Available at  Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Google Play, or Apple Books.