Welcome. My regular job involves writing, but with professional expectations and constraints that make this kind of platform feel freeing.
One of the many things I like about the Bear platform is stumbling across people’s writings non-algorithmically. That’s what I’d like to happen with mine, book or blog. Just put them out there and hope they find people, as organically as our current tech infrastructure allows. The book:
A Hawaiʻi library worker combs 1980s hard drives for a late novelist’s lost manuscript, and navigates the intertwined stories of the people portrayed within it and his own lost memories to decide whether to reveal it to the world.
There’s surfing, libraries, eighties technology, and the distance between reality and memory. It’s set in the Honolulu most tourists never see, the San Fernando Valley, Zuma Beach, and the SF Bay Area. The best comp title I’ve found isn’t even a book: it’s the “Eulogy” episode of Black Mirror, where a lonely man uses old photographs and new technology to reconstruct memories of his lost love.
No AI was used in its creation, but plenty of pre-Internet technology was. If it sounds interesting, here's the first chapter.
Why zuma9pt5? I grew up in the San Fernando Valley, and Zuma Beach, specifically midway between lifeguard stations 9 and 10, was a confluence of fun. The blog was originally called Across the Ocean, since most of my life that's where I've been, or wanted to be.