AuntNorma

Godspeed.

Gm.

i’ll always respect you for the great maple syrup caper of 2012.

No, I’ve got 36 chapters to go. I’m doing one chapter a week with commentary for now.

I’m not gonna lie, I’m a bit worried that if I use AI to write, it will turn me into a lousy writer. You might think you could use it just to make a quick buck on pulp hackery, and save your true writing genius for novels that actually matter. But good prosody is a skill that needs constant exercise to keep limber, and if you’re always offloading your sentence construction to a machine, you’re going to lose that skill eventually. It’s like using a forklift to move stones into place for a wall you’re building. Sure, it’s a lot more efficient and less stressful, but you do pay a price in the atrophying of your native strength and skill. Not that that consideration has ever stopped anyone from using labor-saving devices the instant they could. In short, great writing is doomed, so you might as well read my new chapter of AI slop.

@GolfCartLady@nicecrew.digital Hmm? Oh, sure. Nigger.

A few people have asked me if I plan to self-publish “50 Tints of ICE” eventually. The answer is I don’t know. I don’t trust Amazon, for two reasons. One, they might decide to ban the book from their site and not pay me any revenue, like they tried to do with Camp of the Saints a few days ago. Two, they might connect this pen name with the other pen names I may or may not have on their platform and shadowban the lot of them. Perhaps this is all just paranoia run amok, though. We writers do have fertile imaginations. Anyway, if I do publish, I’ll send you all a free book, whether you want one or not. Here’s chapter 5.

Chapter 5 cont. He stood. His shadow stretched across the hardwood floor, swallowed her. "I've got nowhere else to be tonight. You hungry? Thirsty?" The shift in subject threw her. "I'm not—" "When's the last time you ate?" Diana couldn't remember. Coffee and toast at dawn, maybe? The day had shattered into fragments the moment those black vans had appeared. "I'll bring you something." he paused at the threshold. "Think about what you're protecting, Diana. Think about whether Herman would do the same for you." He left before she could answer. *** Zane slapped together a ham and cheese sandwich with more force than necessary, the knife scraping against the plate. His mind kept circling back to the woman chained in his bedroom—the way her blue eyes had gone wide when he'd mentioned trafficking, genuine shock written across her face. Either she was the best actress he'd ever met, or Luis had kept her in the dark. He wanted to believe the latter. Wanted it more than was professional. The bread tore under his knife. He cursed, started over with a fresh slice. This was procedure. Standard leverage play—grab someone close to the target, apply pressure until they cracked. He'd done it a dozen times before without losing sleep. But those other times, the people in his custody had been hardened, complicit. Their eyes had held knowledge of their crimes. Diana's eyes held fear. And something else that made his chest tight. He grabbed the plate and a bottle of water from the fridge. Walked back down the hallway toward his bedroom, each step feeling heavier than the last. She'd shifted position on the bed, curled on her side with her cuffed wrists pulled toward her chest, clutching at the tatters of her shirt. The defensive posture of someone who'd learned to make herself small. Strands of brown hair had escaped from behind her ear, falling across her face in soft waves that caught the afternoon light filtering through his bedroom blinds. Even restrained like this, even with terror flickering in those impossible blue eyes, she was beautiful in a way that hit him like a physical blow to the solar plexus. The kind of beauty that made smart men do stupid things. The kind that had probably been both her protection and her curse growing up in Luis Guerrero's world. He found himself cataloging details he had no business noticing—the delicate arch of her eyebrows, the way her full lips pressed together when she was thinking, the pulse visible at the base of her throat where her skin looked soft as silk. She was twenty-one, he reminded himself. Young enough to be genuinely innocent, old enough to destroy his career if he kept thinking about her like this. Christ. He was in trouble. "Here, eat," he said roughly. He set the plate on the nightstand, within her reach. Diana pushed herself upright, chains clinking. Her hair tumbled over one shoulder, exposing the curve of her neck. His eyes tracked the movement before he could stop them. "Drug-free?" Her voice carried an edge of defiance that shouldn't have been attractive. "Disappointingly so." The corner of her mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Then she caught herself, face shuttering closed again. Zane dragged his chair closer, watched her pick up the sandwich, the cuffs forcing her movements into an awkward coordination. She seemed too eager, like she hadn't seen food in days, and he filed that detail away with all the others accumulating in his head. Protected stepdaughter. Sheltered. Kept separate from the family business. Or bait. The perfect lure to draw in someone exactly like him—someone who'd see innocence that needed saving. He didn't know which option scared him more.

Thanks, this is great. It gets better every time you work on it. I do appreciate your efforts. But don’t feel any obligation.

My theory about this is that Australians were the criminals who got caught and deported, but Americans were the criminals who grabbed the loot and took off before they got caught.

Yes, back in the Pleistocene when I was in school, teachers were occasionally right about a few things.

it worked great! Thank you so much!

Same bat time, same bat channel.

Chapter 4 cont. Zane studied his prisoner. Her torn shirt from the struggle at the bar. Her scuffed shoes. The way she held herself—shoulders back despite the handcuffs, chin raised despite the fear. She jerked her gaze away and tested the handcuffs for the third time since he'd secured her to the headboard. Metal scraped against metal—a futile sound that echoed through the sparse bedroom. "You'll bruise your wrists." Her chin lifted. "Worried about damaging merchandise?" The question landed like a punch. She thought he was like Luis. Like the men who'd circled her stepfather's bar with predator eyes, measuring her worth in dollars and depravity. He ignored it. "Where's Luis moving his product?" "I don't know what you're talking about." Zane shifted his weight. The chair creaked. "Your stepbrother runs cocaine through that bar. Venezuelan supply chain, local distribution. You expect me to believe you never noticed?" "My stepfather protected me from—" "Protected you?" The words tasted bitter. "Is that what you call it when a drug dealer keeps his stepdaughter close while trafficking narcotics?" Fire flashed in those blue eyes. "He gave me a home when my mother was too high to remember my name. He made sure I went to school. He kept me safe." "Safe." Zane leaned forward. "Until he died and left you to Luis." She flinched. Direct hit. "Where is Herman hiding?" "I don't know." "You helped him escape an active ICE operation. You know exactly where he'd run." "He's my brother." "Stepbrother. And he'd sell you out the moment Luis asked him to." "You don't know anything about my family." Her voice cracked, but she steadied it. "You're just some—some government thug who breaks into people's businesses and drags women out in handcuffs." Zane studied her face. Defiance carved into every feature, but underneath—fear. Real fear, the kind that made people desperate. She'd grown up around gang members, learned to hide vulnerability the way most girls learned makeup. Yet here she sat, wrists bound, clothes half-torn off, alone with a strange man, and still she protected the people who'd failed her. Fascinating. Infuriating. "How often does Luis meet with his suppliers?" "I don't know." "What routes do they use?" "I don't know." "Who else is involved in the organization?" "I. Don't. Know." Each word delivered like a stone. Through the window behind her, the Phoenix desert stretched endlessly—burnt orange and unforgiving. Appropriate. He'd brought her out here to break her down, extract information, use her to dismantle Luis's operation. Standard tactical approach. So why did her continued resistance feel less like obstruction and more like self-preservation? Diana's gaze traveled across his tactical vest, the badge clipped to his belt, the weapon holstered at his hip. Calculating. Searching for something he couldn't identify. "You're afraid of me," he said. "I'd be stupid not to be." "But you're more afraid of Luis finding you in a holding cell." Her fingers curled against the headboard. "You don't understand what he's capable of." "Then tell me." "So you can use it against my family? Against Herman?" She shook her head. "I've seen how men like you operate. You'll promise anything to get what you want, then disappear the moment you're finished." "Men like me." "Government. Authority. It doesn't matter." Her voice dropped. "My father was a cop. He promised he'd always come home too." Zane absorbed that. The dead cop father explained the distrust, the automatic assumption that everyone with a badge eventually abandoned ship. He should press the advantage, dig into that wound, make her vulnerable enough to crack. Instead he found himself saying, "I'm not going to hurt you." "Why should I believe you?" "Because if I wanted to hurt you, I would've left you for Luis." Silence stretched between them. Diana's breathing had steadied, her initial panic transforming into wary assessment. She was reading him the way he read suspects—looking for inconsistencies, weaknesses, truth. "What's your name?" she asked suddenly. "That's not relevant." "You know mine. You know where I live, who my family is, probably my entire history." Her jaw set. "I deserve to know who's holding me prisoner." The word stung. Prisoner. Technically accurate, legally defensible, morally—complicated. "And the mask," she continued. "Take it off." "No." "Afraid I'll recognize you?" "Operational security." "Or you're hiding." Those blue eyes pinned him. "If you're not going to hurt me, if you're so different from Luis and his friends, then show me your face."

Gm.

Guys, I’m at a Derby party. With hats. Because I’m just that classy.

My ancestors were some of ‘em.

Latest ePub version of 50 Tints of ICE is out, courtesy of James_Dixon!

RT: https://poa.st/objects/7058bcd3-acd0-4510-8b06-bd2b759dbf66

That might be a good exercise, but it’s …too late for me. I already AI-wrote the whole thing.

“You can have good, you can have cheap, you can have fast. Pick two.”

Gm.

Yep. I’m descended from discontented younger sons who got involved in the Jacobite uprisings in the 17th and 18th centuries, and religious weirdos.