I chose this photo because it amuses me to think a photo of a light bulb lying on a desk with writing supplies would ever be the right photo. The mind boggles.

I'd like to start getting in the habit of writing something daily about writing and life and, you know, the world. Although I would call it "this weird and crumbling dimension." How do we get out of here alive? And not just alive, but whole and happy and well and together? Because getting out alone or with a few friends would be a pretty crappy solution.

This seems like sci fi. As someone who writes sci fi told me a decade ago, it's really hard to write sci fi now because hey, look out your window. In the past, when I imagined I could write sci fi, I had a house with no windows for security and privacy reasons. In the place of windows there were computerized and coordinated faux windows around the house. They played different versions of the same reality. There was no actual window, just a wall-mounted flat screen set into the wall with all the trappings of a window, like curtains and perhaps some automated lights that came on when "the sun" was bright and a small fan that made the curtains move when "the wind" blew. I recall that the bedroom window looked out on a grassy field with a black and white milk cow grazing in it. Mountains in the background.

They came in sets, these faux windows. A program you could buy that would put you anywhere you wanted to be. You gave it the place, time and number of windows plus their orientation. Downtown London, for example. Even downtown London in the past. You could "time travel" and place travel. I suppose you could have had a set that would put you on Mars or inside a fantasy world from a novel.

As cool as I still think this would be, in a way I already have one of these. And so do you. It's called imagination and I believe it's the only way we're getting out of here. I don't mean we just have to pretend we're somewhere else. I mean, we have to imagine what the possibilities are then act on them. This is where genre writers have an advantage over a lot of scientists and politicians and those who are part of, well, normality. As Albert Einstein said, "Imagination is more important than knowledge."

They say, "That's not possible," and we say?

"Here. Hold this."

So get busy, y'all.

This year, I plan to take this blog to Substack, and see what happens.

I've been advised both ways - do it and don't do it.

On the basis of the fact that I've had the blog away from Substack for a long time, I'm going to do it and see if I can commit to a blogging schedule. I'm still deciding on what I'll write though, so it  might take a little while longer.

Other things I hope will happen this year:
My novel will ... do something. I don't think it will be pubbed this year because publishing works at glacial speed. But hopefully I'll at least have a pub date.

Tim and I will visit Paris. Not just because my novel is set there.

I will get nourished.

Some other cool stuff.

I have finally written a novel of my own.

I'm letting people read it for me now. Friends and writers and Tim -- oh my!

As an editor I'm aware of how much work goes into writing a novel and I don't think knowing that means I'll get off with any less work. In fact, it probably means I'm more of a perfectionist. Or something. I know perfection is impossible, but as Tim, my writer/editor husband says, "You just keep working on it until there's nothing left to do that's worth the effort." and also "We'll know when it's ready."

What is it about? You'll find out, I hope.

At the beginning of September, I wrote here about how Twitter was secretly marking my account as potentially sensitive. I say "secretly" because never told me. they never gave me a chance to appeal. And there was no sensitive content  ever. The only thing I could figure out was that they didn't like it that I made my own content warning for a link to a Kicckstarter campaign for a graphic novel that included shibari, a form of rope bondage based pm a Japanese style.
 
There was nothing sensitive in that tweet either. You had to click a link to get to anything remotely sensitive. I just wanted people to know what they were going to see, which I should add had all the naked bits blurred out anyway.
 
So today for the first time I can actually see that all my images and videos from YouTube! Have this at the bottom.

  From the other side, where viewers are, it looks like this, a friend informed me.

Every single thing I've posted today with an image or even a linked YouTube video (of a song for a friend) has been flagged like this.

It's starting to feel very personal, since I've never posted nude or violent content. I don't even retweet it. Twitter has long been my most used social media platform. I need it to work.

It's done by AI, right? As soon as they realize, they'll fix it, right?

Twitter is easily my most used social media platform. I have in the past often referred to it as ' my beloved Twitter". Lately though, I've discovered that if someone without a twitter account would try to go directly to my profile, they would get a content warning about potentially sensitive content and they would be asked if they were sure they wanted to go to my page.

I know this because someone reported it to me and when I logged out and went there, that's what I saw. I also saw that if I changed my settings to get a warning about sensitive content, i.e. photos or videos that contain nudity, sexual stuff or violence, every single one of my photos and videos are marked as potentially sensitive and hidden. (They are mostly cats and AI art. There is never violence or nudity. Except cats or other animals not wearing clothes.)

When I tried to get this fixed, (my own option to change it is greyed out), I discovered that this is not something Twitter allows you to appeal with them. They never warned me. I can see it happened when I tweeted a link to a Kickstarter for a friend's graphic novel. They claim you will lose your ability to unlock the sensitive warning if you repeatedly post sensitive photos or videos without marking them. I never did that and even this post there was no photo or video and I wrote in the tweet that it contained consensual kink. I suspect that's why they did this to my account, even though no one else got this for just posting it. I'm baffled and bemused.

Anyway, if you're new to my Twitter and it tries to keep you back for sensitive content, just uncheck your sensitivity box. (The worst you'll find on my account is retweeted news updates, which to me are often the stuff of nightmares. I try to keep it to a minimum._) And typos. Sadly, I make a fair few typos. Where is the edit button, Twitter?

Chilly, Athena and Floof. Floof is a toy I bought for baby Hermes. They've all adopted him now.

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