In Today’s Journal
* A New Short Story
* I Hope You’re Getting Something
* The Bradbury Challenge Report
* Can You Copyright a Generative AI…?
* Of Interest
* The Numbers
A New Short Story
“How It Feels to Be Water” went live on Saturday at 10 a.m. on my Stanbrough Writes Substack. Go check it out. It’s free.
This story is a psychological romp through SF horror.
If you enjoy it, please click Like. Comments are welcome too. Both help with my Substack algorithms. Then tell Everyone else. Gracias.
I Hope You’re Getting Something
out of the Stages of a Fiction Writer series.
I’m probably biased, but it seems to me there are a lot of gems in the series, and that it’s more expansive than the series I posted back in July of 2024.
You can read the current series from the beginning by reading this post first, then reading the successive posts.
I said earlier that I probably won’t be turning this series into a nonfiction book, but as the posts grow longer and more information comes to light, I’m thinking about doing just that.
If I do turn the series into a nonfiction book, I’ll be looking for readers to give me feedback on things I’ve inadvertently left out, unnecessary repetition, and so on.
If you’d be interested in providing that feedback, either leave a comment on this post or email me for more information.
The Bradbury Challenge Report
Participating in any challenge is a great way to have fun and grow as a writer.
There is no cost. Feel free to jump in at any time. To do so, email me at harveystanbrough@gmail.com with your results anytime before TNDJ goes live on any given Monday. Try to stay to the structure below.
The requirement is to write at least one short story or short-short story per week. During the past week, the following writers wrote these new stories:
- Erin Donoho “After Seminary” 693 historical flash fiction
- Loyd Jenkins “Fire and Silver Below the City” 5260 Urban Fantasy Horror
- Vanessa V. Kilmer “Tattoo Festival” 3003 SyFy Fantasy
- Christopher Ridge “Murder Is Harder Than It Looks” 2842 crime
- KC Riggs “The Girl Who Wrote on Bones” 2007 Pre-historical fiction
- Dave Taylor “One More Time!” 2752 Paranormal
Congratulations to all of these writers.
As always, if you have an idea for a challenge you’d like me to monitor for you, email me and let’s talk about it.
Can You Copyright a Generative AI-Produced Literary Work?
To round out today’s post, here’s a purloined guest post from Dan Baldwin.
Welcome to a Legal Minefield.
Can a book produced by AI, such as ChatGPT, be granted copyright protection? Lawsuits are flying, so the answer is most than relevant to writers, ghostwriters, co-authors or anyone considering using AI for literary purposes.
The answer depends on the meaning of “authorship” as defined by the Intellectual Property Clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8), which grants protection to “original works of authorship.”
To date the courts have refused to grant copyright protection to non-human authors.
The U.S. Copyright Office has also long maintained that copyrighted works must be “created by a human being” and therefore have refused to register works that are “produced by a machine or mere mechanical process that operates randomly or automatically without any creative input or intervention from a human author.”
Get that? Copyright protection requires a human author. But…
What if the author uses an AI-generated product in combination with his own input?
In 2023 the Copyright Office released the Copyright Registration Guidance for works containing material generated by AI.
Obviously, authors may use AI to produce a literary work. It’s fast and easy, but copyright protection depends on “the extent to which the human had control over the work’s expression.” This is key: The guidelines state authors may claim copyright protection only for “their own contributions.”
Additionally, they must identify and disclaim AI-generated parts of the work when applying for copyright protection.
Again, lawsuits are flying and I believe the flights are just beginning to take off. Is the balance of fast and easy vs. not owning a copyright in your favor? Is using AI to produce a literary work worth the effort to prove your (human) part of that work? Considering those law suits and their potential outcomes, is it worth the risk?
A literary work produced by AI may be fast and easy, but the producers who put their names or the names of their ghostwriting/co-author clients should be aware of the copyright landmine they are entering. Watch your step.
(Source) Congressional Research Service (https://crsreports.congress.gov) LSB10922
Thanks, Dan.
Next up the traits and attributes of Stage 2 fiction writers.
Of Interest
Super Bowl commercials: Top 25 all time, ranked
The New Yorker offered him a deal
The Numbers
The Journal………………….. 450
Mentorship Words…………….. 0
Total Nonfiction…………………. 450
Writing of
Day 1…… XXXX words. To date………… XXXXX
Fiction for February………………………. XXXX
Fiction for 2026…………………………… XXXX
Nonfiction for February.…………………. 8030
Nonfiction for 2026………………..……… 27620
2026 consumable words………………… 27620
2026 Novels to Date……………………… 0
2026 Novellas to Date…………………… 0
2026 Short Stories to Date……………… 0
Novels (since Oct 19, 2014)…………….. 123
Novellas (since Nov 1, 2015)…………… 10
Short stories (since Apr 15, 2014)……… 310
Short story collections……………………. 29