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a tricky question these days in these times.
one might actually get an answer – a reliable answer …..do we want that?
Of course. Honest answers to pressing questions – kinda the cornerstone, no?

So, from the last post a few weeks ago, we are bringing you the following – 
this issue contains part of the most recent report by KGL.
Next issue will provide you with some astonishing, and frankly worrisome
staistics about the state of the publishing industry.

As writers at whatever level, it requires your attention –
if you want to be knowledgeable about – the practical world of writing

KGL is a  key beacon of the publishing industry, over the last 200 years
– Knowledge Works Global Ltd.

KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd. (KGL) is the leading provider of editorial, peer review,
production, consulting, online hosting, institutional sales, association management,
and transformative content services of all types. Powering the publishing industry
and other information providers for more than 200 years, we offer a full range of
technology, delivery, and business solutions that accelerate revenue growth,
streamline operations, and ensure editorial integrity.
Headquartered in Richmond, VA, we employ 2,750 personnel across six facilities
and six major remote employee hubs in the US, Europe, and India.

From KGL:
Publishing Predictions:   What to Expect from 2026

And Then There Were None,  was Agatha Christie’s best-selling novel, with more than
100 million copies sold as of 2007; it is also the world’s best-selling mystery
and one of the best selling books of all time.
Publications International lists the novel as the seventh best-selling title of all time

Wow! Written in 1939 it has become the standard for crime/mystery novels.

Christie’s own assessment:

“I had written the book Ten Little Niggers because it was so difficult to do that
the idea had fascinated me. Ten people had to die without it becoming ridiculous
or the murderer being obvious. I wrote the book after a tremendous amount of
planning, and I was pleased with what I had made of it. It was clear,
straightforward, baffling, and yet had a perfectly reasonable explanation;
in fact, it had to have an epilogue in order to explain it. It was well received
and reviewed, but the person who was really pleased with it was myself,
for I knew better than any critic how difficult it had been …
I don’t say it is the play or book of mine that I like best, or even that
I think it is my best, but I do think in some ways that it is a better piece of
craftsmanship than anything else I have written.”

Which brings us now, today to our focus piece: 

• The “Millennium” series by Stieg Larsson which includes
  “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (2005), had sold over
  100 million copies worldwide as of 2019. 
• As of 2009, mystery thriller novel “The Da Vinci Code” (2003)
  by Dan Brown had sold 80 million copies.. 
• Within fiction, 12.5% of adult books sold (print and ebooks)
  are in the thriller genre. 
• For the US, this makes an estimated 23.6 million in thriller print
  unit sales as of 2022. 
• As of 2022, crime/mystery titles ranked second in the most profitable
  book titles on Amazon for the US. 
• Mystery/thriller/suspense titles are ranked as the second
  best selling genres of audiobooks. 
• Agatha Christie is the best selling thriller/mystery author of all time,
  who has sold between 2 billion and 4 billion copies of her books. 
• Within the genres the second best selling author is Georges Simenon.

Now, check this out. Has anyone heard of Killer Nashville?
Probably not.What is Killer Nashville?

Killer Nashville is widely regarded as one of the best and most welcoming genre events in the U.S.
The organization, which includes an annual international writers’ conference, a magazine,
and literary awards, receives high praise for its focus on educating and empowering both
aspiring and established writers.

Here is something very new to be ‘tried on’-
for size, for fit and for
                                 s u i t a b i l i t y 

As an educator, as a creative writer, I have over the past year or two,
been exposed to the world – the new world, of AI.

AI – Artificial Intelligence. Artificial suggesting not really real?
Perhaps. Or intelligence born not of the human mind and thought
processes but via a synthetic incubator.

Arguably, it has also come to be villainized (rightfully so in many cases)
championed and seen as either the cure or the cause of the demise of
the human race.

Be that as it may – it is not, going away. At the rate of weekly furious
development, it is like a geometric progression.

It is however, in my opinion, mis-named.

Advanced Intelligence
is far more apt, more appropriate.
As a writer of original ideas, stories, plots, poems – whatever – a multitude
of tools are employed to assist in the transference of ideas, thoughts
– words, pages – onto the printed page.
Personally I work with Microsoft Word, Scrivener, Scapple, Freeform,
Ulysses, and many other robust writing aids.
I have also, since 1990, sought out other tools to help in the writing
process. Livescribe is just such a tool. One of the pioneers in the
design/development of a pen or stylus, that captured one’s
handwriting and transcribed it to editable text. I still have and still
use my Livescribe. Recently, the parent company of Livescribe
brought the inq pen to market.

That company is Anoto Group, of Sweden,  which specializes in digital writing solutions.
Their inq pen, which I also acquired a few months ago, is an astonishing digital
device that instantly – read that again – instantly displays what you write in
one otheir notebooks, on your iPad screen. And then, when triggered,
it transcribes that written text into digital text. Awesome. It has put the
‘power of the pen’ back into my hands – sortof.
It has taken 30+ years of dedicated development to arrive at this point.
A long, long journey but worth the wait.
And so now, in the emergence of the Sabi beanie, is that not just another
step along the path – another brick in the wall – of AI nurtured technology
that will be of huge benefit, not only to wriyters, but to psycho-therapists,
researchers.

I, believe it so.

That being said, read on. And as you do, be aware of apps like WhisprFlow,
Dictanote and many others that are now at the forefront of effortless
transcription of the spoken word to, printed matter.
———————————————————————-

Put on Your Thinking Cap.
This Startup’s Hat Converts Thoughts Into Text

Forget dictation. EEG sensors in Sabi’s beanie can reportedly type
out what you’re thinking.
Can it become a non-invasive alternative to Elon Musk’s Neuralink?

By Jon Martindale

April 20, 2026

At 130+ words per minute, I can type faster than most, but one
Silicon Valley startup called Sabi is looking to make that all moot.
Its engineers are working on non-invasive sensors that can detect
brain waves from outside your head, and convert them into typed text,
effectively allowing writers like me to write without typing at all, Wired reports. 

In reality, this technology’s benefits would extend far beyond providing mere
typing speed parity. For those with injuries or disabilities that make
communication difficult, a technology like this would be life-changing.
The fact that the sensors would be embedded in a beanie or baseball cap,
rather than in the brains of users, also gives Sabi a unique selling point
over contemporary competitors like Neuralink. 

“The biggest and baddest application of BCI [brain-computer
interface] is if you  can talk to your computer by thinking about it,
” Sabi investor Vinod Khosla tells Wired.
“If you’re going to have a billion people use BCI for access to their computers
every day, it can’t be invasive.”

The invasive nature of BCIs like Neuralink is one of their main drawbacks.
Sensor degradation, rejection, and the implant surgery make
mainstreaming such technologies difficult, even if they might represent
a more comprehensive solution to mobility issues for affected individuals.

Sabi’s sensors can detect electroencephalography (EEG) from outside
the head by massively scaling sensor density.
Whereas traditional EEG sensors use tens or hundreds of sensors,
Sabi uses tens of thousands, thereby improving the resolution of the data it records.

Translation is arguably the most complicated component in Sabi’s proposed device.
To convert brain patterns that can shift depending on mood, substance intake,
fatigue, and a range of other factors, Sabi is leveraging a foundational
AI model trained on a wide neural dataset to find common patterns in speech
that enable thought-to-text conversion.

Fortunately for my TypeRacer.com records, Sabi is targeting an initial conversion
speed of 30 words per minute, which is expected to improve over time, along
with the accuracy of the text conversion. Combining ease of use with the ability
to fit the sensors in beanies, caps, and other wearable headpieces could make
Sabi an exciting opportunity for those with speech impairments.
And eventually, perhaps, my slower-typing colleagues.

About Our Expert             Jon Martindale      Contributor

Experience

Jon Martindale is a tech journalist from the UK, with 20 years of experience
covering all manner of PC components and associated gadgets.
He’s written for a range of publications, including ExtremeTech, Digital Trends,
Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and Lifewire, among others.
When not writing, he’s a big board gamer and reader, with a particular habit
of speed-reading through long manga sagas. 

Jon covers the latest PC components, as well as how-to guides on
everything from how to take a screenshot to how to set up your
cryptocurrency wallet. He particularly enjoys the battles between
the top tech giants in CPUs and GPUs, and tries his best not to take sides.

writing about, writing…………..

m><m

Salut!

For those who have ben following our posts recently, although they
have beenmore frequent, they have not as yet become, regular.
That will change, hopefully soon.

You will note, the new tab, ‘Open Mike’ has its first entry –
by a student from last semester’s Creative Writing II class.
Intriguing, clever – compact and lean. Well done.

Stay tuned – there will be additional works posted soon.

As to other business – the business of writing…or of writing tools.
In my teaching experience I am always surprised to learn how
little attention beginning writers pay to the range of availability of
writing platforms. Most default to Microsoft Word.
Always a great choice. But in most cases it seems it be used
like a writing pad.  Little, if any, attention is paid to the amazing
depth and scope – the robust tools within Word – that are 
available as a part of the package.

And, still and all – I have yet to find a better tool than Word
for commenting, critiquing. 

Nonetheless, as I myself developed my writing efforts
from poetry to  flash fiction – to short storiees and then to
novels (have written three thus far, each one being in excess
of 100,000 words) – at a certain point I was finding that Word
just wasn’t muscular enough. The efforts required to maintain
order and easy accessibility of research materials became tiresome.
So Scrivener became my tool of choice. And then Scapple. It is really 
important to understand exactly how committed Literature & Latte
(creators/publishers of both apps) is to the research, design and
development of  outstanding writing tools. And, all cross-platform.
For those unfamiliar, Scapple is a Godsend for those writers
who shift and shuffle time sequences around and about.
Almost completely intuitive, it isjust the very best app for what it does.

And, of course, Scrivener – what’s to say about it?
Without peer, really.

And so, you might want to subscribe to their newsletter.

newsletter@literatureandlatte.com

and their site is at: www.literatureandlatte.com

As an example, one of their regular podcasts is:

https://podcast.scrivenerapp.com/61

So – we will endeavour to refresh our messaging here –
hopefully you might discover some interesting things from
the world of writing.

1918

that was when Robert Ripley first birthed the idea.

Was it exactly the same, initially? No – originally titled, ‘Champs and Chumps’,
it focused on the world of sports. But it did not take long for the fire to catch –
ultimately it came to have 200 plus physical locations in many countries.

Why this? Why now?

It pertains to a fundamental principle of creative writing:

• a willing suspension of disbelief •

Do all stories contain such? No – but many do. Superman, Frankenstein,
Groundhog Day. Hundreds do.

Even a little-known, but charming story called ‘The Last Bookshop’
that tells about Mr Adler’s London establishment  that has a dragon as
a resident in the basement.

And we have also, today.

One Battle After Another

Project Hail Mary

Hamnet

Hamnet? Really?

Indeed. I won’t tell you of the various instances that embrace

• willing suspension of disbelief •

…. rather that it is one of the finest films I’ve seen in  a long time.

Jessie Buckley, as Agnes, is wonderfully powerful – mysterious, tantalizing,
sure of herself and her place in the world. Chloe Zhao, director – delivers
a masterpiece.

Not to many, or not to most – for it is far outside the brackets of car chases,
gratuitous violence. But Steven Speilberg, as a co-producer, makeshis values
and his presence known.

And so – Project Hail Mary – with Ryan Gosling, who, IMHO – is the only
actor who could have played the role as deliciously as he did. 

But, albeit couched in the legitimacy of proven star science,
it asks, almost from the outset, that one places their trust in only what they see –
what they are shown. The evidence on hand.  And, we do.
Won’t tell you if you haven’t yet seen it. But do yourselves a favour – see it in a theatre 
with as large a screen as possible.

I guarantee you one thing – if you do not exit the movie house,
somewhat floating on a cloud – somewhat suspended somewhere between faith 
and trust – you and I did not see the same movie.

And, yes – ‘One Battle After Another’. Hate to rain on people’s parades –
but this parade never really got out of the gate, never started.
Disconnected rambling, insensible silly actions and distorted personalities
of principal players – does not a movie make.

For any aspiring writers out there – do some research – do some reading…..

Google ‘willing suspension of disbelief’- enjoy, and learn.

always timely questions, no?

IMHO, yes-always.

Well, for one thing, the Winter ’26 semester is now officially finito.
Done – and as we head into the spring semester, it is with relief that I am able
to relish in the knowledge that I have decided to offer no courses –
only a lecture scheduled for June 5th on AI. Yup. AI. Really, it is intended to
provide a comprehensive overview and update of the state of AI – at that moment.

We are talking 9, 10 weeks into the future.

I can assure you, it will have changed dramatically again, in that brief window.

Over the course of this past 10 week semester, in working with both
Creative Writing Study Groups/courses, I encouraged the students to actively
undertake the writing assignments and submit same to me in advance of the following
class. Upon receipt of their submissions, in a Word document,  I copied all to the end of   
their work, and then proceeded to identify, mark-up and comment – and then return
their work to them.

In the following class, those who wished to, could read aloud via a ZOOM share screen,
so the class could see, firstly, their submitted work, then following that, we displayed
the next version with markups, changes, comments.

This turned out to be an extremely valuable teaching model……for all students. 
Moreover, as those who chose to do so, read their piece, it served to alleviate or
eliminate what is generally the normal, numbing paralysis that tends to make them
‘freeze up’ when they expose their work to others.

It is, after all, perfectly in keeping with a large part of the teaching mission I set for myself:

• to allow one to seek, to find, and to speak, their voice……

However, you can probably imagine the kind of time it takes to undertake such an effort.

But – you also need to know, how hugely appreciative they all were to such an exercise.

And for me – that made it all worthwhile.

In that process there was some remarkably good writing…… to the extent that I am now
exploring how I might create a ‘Writers Corner’ on this site wherein, with permission of course,
selected pieces will be displayed. 

And that, is a good thing, no? 

So – for now, that’s whussup and wutzNew

BTW – I write a couple of columns on substack. Currently I publish an episode of an ongoing fictional piece, The Thinn Man
which can be founf here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelxmoore/p/the-thinn-man-5ad?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

This car, is featured in this month’s issue, Chapter 12:

Thanks for listening

m><m

Yeah

                        AI
I believe, we all have come to know AI as standing for ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.
Begs the question then, why would anyone want to place all their faith in something, a r t i f i c i a l ?
Beats me.

I think, a more apt meaning might be AdvancedIntelligence. That at least, implies something is moving

forward, is ahead of us.

Let’s all stop for a minute or two – ’cause really, for myself (I actually worked with, harnessed,  deployed AI
in my design work 30 years ago – ‘nuther story, but fact) And now, these days, there isn’t solely a bandwagon,
there’s this whole runaway cavalcade of bandwagons. On Monday ChatGPT5 was the cat’s pyjamas –
then on Tuesday it was (Google) Gemini – but, wait….Claude is the flavour of choice for many users – and today
….just today, there is a review in the internet press, about the most recent iteration of Microsoft Co-Pilot.
And, yet, of course there is Elephas, Anthropic, PRISM – and others.

So, surely – if anyone is reading this they must also be asking the question,

‘What is this BS? Who is this jack? He ain’t no computer scientist. BullPuckies!!!’

True ….true, dat.

I’m not. But you know in the pursuit of my Master’s degree (M.A.- Creative & Critical Writing), those of us in
the program at the University of Gloucestershire. became acutely aware of the supplementary benefits we
were receiving as a result of our studies. To learn how to become adept at critical writing, it required that we
become familiar with critical thinking.

Thus, it is that ability that allows me, now, to stand back sometimes, and realize that the box isn’t actually a box, perhaps –
it may well be a rectangle, rather than a cube.

Such determination is affected via perspective. Depending upon one’s POV, a rectangle, viewed at a certain angle,
may well present itself as a cube – and vice versa.

Okay – so let’s catch a breath here…..before I go any further I want to – no, I need to, tell you all about a thing
you should do – I’d like to say, must do – but each to their own, right?

What you should do, right now, today or tomorrow, is sign up at Acadia University for their certificate in

‘Introduction to AI Literacy’.

It is a free, non-credit course – takes about 3 hours – will result in a certificate. But what is really, really important
is that it will clear the clutter that today is flooding society – and it will give one, perspective.

Then, after that, borrow, buy – whatever – Michael Connolly’s most recent book, The Proving Ground.
And once read, come back to me – tell me how you then feel about AI.

See?

This website is all about writing – and AI can be a formidable and high value research tool, in any form of writing.
And remember this:  Chatbots – any Chatbot – cannot fact check their output, nor struggle with reasoning –
of any kind, which means they make many, many mistakes.

Additionally, large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT are AI that produce text in response, to text.

Not sure? Do a Google search for incidents wherein law firms used AI to perform research regarding case
law or legal rulings. See what you think when you review the facts of error.

Thanks, for listening

m><m

25

25 years ago, in the dusty town of Roanoke, Texas – I signed up with GoDaddy and registered michaelXmoore.com.
Why the ‘X’?

Simply because, only the week before, THE Michael Moore had registered his domain, in his name….

Can you imagine if I’d been about 8 days earlier? Life is strange, is it not? So, not to be (too) outdone, the ‘X’ was born – way before Elon Musk…..

….and in the mid-90’s, as I wrestled with AI in its infancy, I registered another domain name : : www.AIxyztems.com – (pronounced as EXISTems…)
maintained it for over 30 years and then recently modified it to be:  www.AIxyztemsDesign.online.

Go figure……

And so, again, apologies.

A dear old friend, now departed, had a wonderful expression about one’s everyday life, existence….he’d often say:

‘I’ve been going 150 km/hour, but I’m tied to the dock!’

Ever feel that way? I do – all too frequently.
It’s about , the simplest thing really – p r i o r i t i e s. Priorities and our ability to establish them, but more importantly, our ability to respect them.

Yet, have I not been busy? Oh yeah…..so busy. But is that an excuse? Nope – nor is it a reason, right?

So – tell ya what – gonna, more regular, share my bizzyness here with you……for example, for the last few years I have maintained three different substack columns…..
one is predominantly dedicated to writing short fiction stories in monthly instalments. The first one, Snow Job, was completed about a year ago….you can find it here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/michaelxmoorewriter/p/a-somewhat-new-year?r=8vuso&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

It is followed by a work-in-progress, ‘The Thinn Man’ .

And ‘HEY!’ – you don’t got to pay anything to access my substack columns…..free to sign up, free to access – www.substack.com.

Some of my followers have chosen to be paid subscribers (bless ’em) but not promoted or necessary……

So – moving forward I hereby vow, to

move forward.

And I’m happy to hear from anyone worth an interest in writing……michael@michaelXmoore.com

quite approachable, I am.

Oh, by the way – I teach Creative writing – have done for some years –  so if you have questions about anything related thereto – don’t be shy

michael

In December, just past, Stu Liedtke, my brother-in-law – and my sitedesign guru for this site – and others, passed away suddenly.

As a result many changes are now occurring in respect to the management and structure of this site, and others.

Albeit I have been irresponsibly remiss in maintaining a regular posting here, I  promise I will
be more vigilant and will update the site on a monthly basis.

Thank you for your understanding

Time for a change – time to pay attention.

no excuses

At the very least, henceforth, there will be at least one update per month. As developments occur within my work and professional pursuits.

In that I lead Creative Writing lectures and programmes, significant time is devoted to my own writing pursuits.
To date I have completed three novels (Jim Steiner – Book 1, Jim Steiner – Book 2 / Princess and the Jake) and I am about 40% through my current
novel.

Moreover, as noted elsewhere, in May 2024 I released ‘Poetix & Prose’-  a collection of poetry and short stories.

These activities are noted here because, in my research activities, in courseware development – in personal/professional writing, I participate in a number of online platforms, forums, writing sites.

Some are:

• Open Arts Forum
• Deadlines For Writers
• Writing Matters Online
• PenPee

None of these require a paid membership but one must register to gain access.

Anyone seriously interested in writing, must – must, write.
There are two other really good writing apps for those who do not want to feel confined or constrained byusing Word or Scrivener.

Ulysses (MAC only). https://indieauthormagazine.com/ulysses-a-just-write-app-for-authors/

Day One – an excellent journaling app – allows you to set an ‘alarm’ popup to provoke you to write at the time set.
For a really good overview go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTfUrXCF3ZA

In future postings I will endeavour to showcase other sites, apps, programs, utilities.