A Bump in My Road//Meet Midas B. Willoughby//What About AI-Art?

This "Retired Journeyman Writer" (a.k.a.:"me") has become used to bumps along his onward-path of physical health.

Participating in cutting-edge medical trials to stem the advance of a progressing life-threatening disease comes with built-in expectations that replace "surprises" along the way.

I embrace expectations, but I am not a big fan of surprises. There is a difference-- at least that's what I tell myself.

So, without getting into all the details, I'll just say that I had an expected opportunity to shift gears in my writing endeavors last week in the quiet thumb-twiddling thinking-rich environment of our local hospital.

Pausing my work on 'DACLAXVIA, The Audiobook' [see my earlier blog posts on that and have a free listen!] I moved from thinking about the high-tech hard sci-fi apocalyptic story of 'the end of the world' to the pleasant cozy meanderings of the world of primary children's stories. No doubt this changing of lanes in my brain was a product of 'inner emotions and hospital potions' multiplied by no sleep.

This Summer I had been doing some early conceptualizing about starting a new children's book series slated for a more formal 'give-it-a-go' in the Spring of '26-- but, Midas B. Willoughy wouldn't leave my hospital bedside last week and I gave into his interloping upon my heart and mind.

The over-all concept-arc of this series is to reach back into the moral-fables of classic poetry, history and literature with a mind to anthropomorphize a blend of the 'moral-of-the-story + the characters' in those stories into a cadre of individual kids living in a neighborhood, each of them embodying those fabled attributes and corresponding lessons.

I began to formulate a list of such characters and Midas B. Willoughby, of 'King Midas and his golden touch' fame, came alive in my thoughts, climbing to the top.

The audience and age range was already set in my thinking. This will be a set of "early readers" fit for kids in the primary grades to read for themselves, but also serving as lap-books that caregivers can use in cuddling up with their even younger kiddos.

With that in place, my heart was set on the motif, the emotional texture and the linguistic mechanism(s) of the text itself. I desired to hit kind of a Seussical/Golden Book of the 1950-60's melding so that the brush strokes of all of those considerations would create a whimsical, retro-rhyming, bouncy cadence to warm the heart and to illuminate the mind with uplifting and soul-anchoring feelings and ideals.

All that said, I am using this blog to introduce Midas to you today. So far, I have written the rhymes and I am nearing completion of art-directing the two-page layouts. Over the next week or two I want to share with you how I am navigating the learning curve as I seek to harness the power of AI resources in today's world of writing.

I used the term "art-directing" specifically because this is a very new concept that allows artistically-challenged writers (like yours truly) to design and produce their own artwork for their picture books via AI.

I will share with you in coming blog posts what I am finding out about the ethics, legalities, advantages/disadvantages and emerging tech and changing of attitudes of AI-art in the world of book publishing.

I won't get into those weeds today. I just wanted to invite you further into my 'retired journeyman writer' trek as I bring forth the books that are in my heart and mind... and to share how I am learning to produce and distribute them as far and wide as I can.

I'm feeling better today; very thankful for that!