Just Another Pretty Unfamiliar Face

Meet Clarisse
created with the AI program thispersondoesnotexist.com

One of my favorite things is in coming up with new characters for my stories. Or just coming up with characters in general, that I then offer to my fellow writers because someone out there might be able to give them life. But I found a really cool tool that has helped me in my character quest. It's called This Person Does Not Exist and it's an Artificial Intelligence program that creates faces of people who don't exist.

I was led to this site by a gentleman by the name of J.A. Taylor. He is one of the creators of a little pub called Centina Pentina on the Medium.com platform. They publish stories of 50 and/or 100 words each. I've been a huge fan of the publication for several months now and have had several pieces published through them. 

One of their prompts was to go through this site and find a picture of someone and create a story around them. It was a blast. I was lost on the site for 3 full hours before I remembered what I was supposed to be doing. I also noticed something a bit...odd. In some of the pictures, the computer hadn't gotten it quite right and there are weird abnormalities. For example, I found a picture of a guy with the partial face of someone sitting beside him. The thing is, she had an eyeball looking out of her MOUTH! It was odd...to say the least.

This creeped me out
Made with AI program thispersondoesnotexist.com

However, in that 3 hours, I met a whole new community of potential characters. And the thing is because they're not actual people, I can let them be whoever I want, or should I say, whoever they want to be. A lot of the pictures just seemed to have a name when I'd look into their eyes. 

One of the other places that Mr. Taylor turned me onto is the sister site of this one, called This Word Does Not Exist. Yep, you guessed it. It's an AI program that creates words that don't exist in a dictionary-esque way. The program will create new words, along with their meanings, as though in a dictionary. Or, you can invent your own words and upload them to have the program create the definitions behind them. It's a blast. 

I invented this word and this is the definition given by
the AI program thisworddoesnotexist.com

I love making up new words, but don't always have an idea of what they mean. Or I have an idea but not sure it works. This program is a blast if you like to invent words. I came to realize that most of the words I invent sound like either language dialects, ancient cultures, or medical conditions/treatments. I found that rather interesting. The one posted above was the only one I created that was defined as a game. A strange game, but a game nonetheless. 

So, hey, check them out and see if you can't get lost in a world of imagination. If you do check out This Person Does Not Exist, watch the little box that comes up at the bottom of the pages. It will lead you to another program that creates works of modern art. I loved that one.

Have fun and Happy writing!!!

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Hey, check out my new Patreon Page. It offers a free monthly newsletter, as well as 5 tiers of writing prompts each month. 

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Where the Hell Have I Been???

Image by cosmix from Pixabay

Hey Kids,

Miss me? Did you even notice that I was gone? No? Oh well. 

So, it seems I last posted here about 8 months ago. I'm proud of myself for not making it a full year, but I still have some splaining to do. So, just where the hell have I been since last July? I've been creating an empire. 

Okay, so not an actual empire, but I have been working myself silly putting together some rather awesome blogs. As of this posting, I have built like 5 blogs from the ground up. And I've had a ball. Not blogger blogs like this one, but actual Wordpress blogs. 

Now, that being said, I have NOTHING against Blogger. This was my first blogging platform almost 20 years ago and I will always have a special place in my heart for it. I love Blogger. But I wanted something more. I already owned the domain name GRAVESPUBLICATIONS.COM so I used it and went with it. 

I put together that blog, then started 2 more sub-sites from there. I also own the domain name COLLECTEDKEEPSAKES.COM and put that one together as well. I have another one, but it's not doing much at the moment. I'm not sure how to go about using that one, but I'm going to keep it just in case. 

As of right now, I have:

GravesPublications.com
CollectedKeepsakes.com
ParaMythic.gravespublcations.com
GodBlog.gravespublications.com
MultiVerse.gravespublications.com
OnlineDealsandSales.com

I've also put together a free wordpress blog:

MedbsLibrary.wordpress.com

I've had a blast putting these sites together, but I find myself getting bored...again. I kept thinking that I needed to make myself a site where I could just post my own poems and stories, and not care whether anyone stopped by to read them or not. Then it dawned on me. I already had a place I could do that. Right here.

I've had Priestess of Words for about 10 years now. It's been a place where I could post anything I wanted and not feel guilty about it not being in the right "category". This site has never had a real "category" about it. It was just a place I could be me. And here I am again.

As usual, I have no idea where I'm going to go from here, but I'm going anyway. I will always have a place where I can put my thoughts down and get them out of my head. It helps me think clearer, get my ideas in order, and even helps me come up with new ideas. 

What about you? Do you have a place where you can just be you? If not, I urge you to do so. It doesn't matter if anyone comes by to read it, it only matters that you give yourself a space to free your mind. Go ahead. Be free.

The Grand by Evelyn Chartres--A Review

Have you ever read one of those books that just kind of leaves you hanging at the end? Well, this is one of those books. 

I found the author, Evelyn Chartres, through the AllAuthor.com site. The book that caught my attention of hers is called The Van Helsing Paradox. I'm a huge "Van Helsing" fan and am always looking for places where mentions of these monster hunters can be found. So, this title grabbed my attention immediately. 

Once I found Miss Chartres' Amazon page, I found she's written not 1, but 4 books and at the moment, they are all free. In my brain, that means, "Download Immediately. Do not pass this up, you need them all". So I did. What caused me to read The Grand first is beyond even my comprehension, but I found it intriguing. 

The Grand is the story of an opulent hotel built into the side of a mountain, overlooking a small podunk town in the valley. The residence and guests of The Grand are, shall we say, beyond the scope of your normal person. No, these individuals are supernatural.

I have to admit that I had a hard time finishing this book as I was very confused at times. The Grand is a compilation of several smaller stories packed in as a complete novel. It's a killer idea, but because it's so back and forth, I had a hard time keeping up. The chapters jump around from one era to another, causing the reader to wonder if they'd missed something. Some of the stories are set in the 1920s while others are set some 20 years later. Though they're all individual stories, they all tie in together. However, you've really got to be paying attention from one chapter to another.

Now, with that said, I will also say that the story as a whole is actually very good. Once I got the gist of the book, I very much enjoyed it. There were still a few questions I felt were unanswered at the end of the book, but it was done well enough that I'd be more than willing to read Part 2.

I did enjoy the way Miss Chartres portrayed her characters, even if a few of them are extremely vague. There are a few key characters that help tie everything together, but it gets confusing quickly. It's a lot like putting together a puzzle in order to hear the story. 

On a whole, I'd give The Grand by Evelyn Chartres a 3.5 out of 5 stars. It was hard to get into, but once I started to understand it, I couldn't put it down. 

I will be reading The Van Helsing Paradox next. It was the reason I found Miss Chartres' page in the first place. It's about a young "otherworldly" hunter named Clara Grey. I'm kind of excited about this book, more now than I was before. Miss Clara Grey takes a peek inside The Grand, so she and I have met. 

I do recommend that you go check in at The Grand. Just beware. There are a lot more twists and turns than expected.

***As of the time of this writing, all four of Evelyn Chartres' books are free to download to your Amazon Kindle. This may change in the future.***

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This post contains affiliate links. However, all opinions in this review are mine and mine alone. I was not asked to write a review, nor did I receive any compensation for any type of review. I downloaded this book free of charge from Amazon.com. 

© Christine Graves 2020