Ok. This is cool as heck.
It took a couple of tries with the prompt to get an image I was happy with for "The Dockenmacher."
I still wasn't happy because her hair was dark and the skin was too ruddy.
So I used the edit functions—again, as a free user—and managed to change both the color of her hair as well as the tone of her skin.
I know this isn't fantasy, but I think I just found a new toy.
Yeah, I'm definitely going to work with Canva. At least until it's time to consider actual cover artist.
I'm sympathetic to people who do art. However, I'm just needing working temp stuff, possibly for potential queries. I'm not going to pay for a placeholder.
The other day, I discovered Pixabay when started looking at alternatives to AI. Which led me to Canva.
Using that, I created this in a three prompts. One to add the car, one to add the cigarette.
I was then able to use filters to blacken the corners of the image.
All this is without using their Pro options.
I did a brief attempt for Connor, but since I don't know him well enough, this is what I got in my first try:
Do I really need an agent then? A proofreader/editor? Those things are expensive.
Yeah, this information has suddenly got me rethinking everything.
I think an editor/proofreader is a probably a good hire.
The rest? Unless you're wanting to be the next Rowling, Child, or McFadden, or Elsie Silver or Suzanne Redfearn…
(There's an in-joke hidden there somewhere.)
I dunno. Ask some of the people who've gone through the agent process, see if it was worth it?
We have one cat who sleeps in the bathroom closet behind the towels.
We have another who sleeps in the most recent Chewy box.
Occasionally they'll use two of the three cat beds we have, but only if the sun's on them and they're not allowed on our laps/shoulders/chests/heads at the time.
They never use the third, so we use it as a home base for the cat toys.
The Third Cat Bed
One upon a time, we had six cats. And all they started going insane, wanting to go through the floorboards of our single-story house. And eventually we figured out why, as we could hear a cat mewling from our crawlspace.
We had an animal trap (for TNR purposes) and so set it at the access door with a can of sardines. When we caught her, she was barely the size of my palm. She was too young to fix (and I think for shots, too; it's been years). So we tried to move her to the barn (that failed) and fed her regularly, and she'd keep me company when I went out to smoke. She would sleep in the huge flowerpot on our porch.
Over time, we called "Whining Bastard" (before we saw her), "Wittle Baby," and other sorts of nicknames using "W" and "B" words. Her name at the vet's office: "WB" pronounced "wub."
She was part longhair, part tuxedo, and probably part Maine Coon. Though we didn't know that part until later.
Eventually, we brought her inside with the others. She was one of the only cats we've ever had who preferred manufactured beds, and we ended up buying her one special for her because she wore the others out. We also bought some steps for her so that she could climb up onto beds and furniture when she wanted.
She passed in early '24, almost 15 years old. And since then, none of the others—not even the one who never met her—will touch that bed. So now we use it to keep cat toys so they can "find new ones" every so often.
You should ask it to assess "A Modest Proposal."
I'm also wondering if his irises should turn to yellow as the poison slowly takes over his body. But then I'll be bouncing between blue and yellow, which is rather weird.
Why yellow? Why not red?
No cost at all. KSP is run by Amazon. You "massage" your book using the software, then hit a button that uploads it to Amazon. In about an hour or less, it will show up as an eBook. 24 to 36 hours later, it can be bought as a paperback. Amazon even assigns a ISBN number at no cost.
Certainly better than the minimum $1000 I've seen advertised elsewhere.
I guess as long as you trust your editing process….
Since I self-publish using KSP (Kindle Self Publish) from Amazon
Sorry to tangent this, but how does that work? Costs, support, etc?
ok thanks. I can generate an epub file but I thought I'd ask.
I just tried with one of my books, just in case a short story was handled differently.
And it's not. Still an HTML file. Still a bunch of error characters.
Part of why I like using Reedsy Studio, because I have the choice of PDF or EPUB.
I pulled one of my short stories ("Miss Blythe").
All of the apostrophes, em dashes, and quotation marks were misconverted.
And it came out as an html file.
All in all: that's a big no from me, Bob.
Not just you. 
I'm also on the Blue Marble Storytellers discord channel (Deidra's group).
There are quite a few people that have already John-Galted, to one degree or another.
I just hit my final frustration between knowing what was being long-listed, vs what wasn't, and the disaster that last week's winners were.
Points are fairly easy to accumulate, made even easier with a recent change to the points system. Generally, for every 1000 words you want to post, you need to review 3000 words (or 3 x 1000, if you prefer) to get enough points to post your work.
For the record, most of my short stories—which includes the chapters of Before Dark—are in the 2500–3000 word range. So most of my stories are worth almost 3 points. So if you review my stories, you'll get points faster.
evil rubbing together of hands
How about Spot?
This is actually a very very traditional name for a pet.
The Greek translation for Spotted One: Cerberus
Gandalf playing gently with his toys:
https://photos.app.goo.gl/QzTrgvgZqehazCuZ9
These were two wonderful videos to wake up to this morning. Thank you. 
Ajax, our orange, carries his mice all around the house, showing off his hunting skills.
For the rest, the supply of cardboard from Chewy every other week is enough to sate their metabolisms.
I'd give this a thumbs up or a like, but…
Hey. In the spirit of the new "new group" "policy" (or whatever you want to call it):
I'm wondering: if there were a group explicitly for "Outside Assistance," that was set to be private to group members only, would that count as "unpublished" for the purposes of submitting to contests elsewhere, like Elegant+, which have explicit requests for "original"? Since we're writing it for those contests, just sharing it for proofing and such?
Having readers for my potential book stuff is great. And having it for my previous short stories is educational.
But having it for stuff I'm actually trying to submit now would be most helpful.
In the past (ok, almost entirely on Booksie, which I'm on the verge of withdrawing my work from as well, just to get my "public archive" in one place), I've ignored spammers. Heck, a couple of times I taunted them by saying that they probably were spammers, and that I had no money to spend, but they were welcome to try.
However, one recent attempt (and I'm pretty sure we all know who I'm talking about) has annoyed the hell out of me. It's one thing to use dummy names with a bunch of numbers. But the gall.
Anyway, if I notice anything else i'll bring it up. Thanks for the quick resolution, Dirk, and I like your message on there.
There's some new "groups" that seem to be a bit… non-writer-ish.
I've grown frustrated with Reedsy's weekly contests, so am pulling all of my work off of it.
Which means that I'm going to put them on here, since the whole point of doing this was getting feedback to help me improve.
In addition to the Joan Dark stories that I've been putting into "Before Dark," I'm adding a bunch of short stories that have nothing to do with anything else.
Some of these are particularly rough, I fully admit. I've been getting better.
Anyway, feel free to review them. I'm not intent on publishing them any time soon, but I probably will go through—as things to fiddle with—and re-edit them as they go. So feel free to inline if you prefer. Or let me know what works and what doesn't, in a general review.
Danke.
We finally had to draw the line
We try to feed ours on a schedule. Wet food at the 5s, dental treats at noon, and kibble when we go to bed.
One of our black toms would come into the room at night and sit on heads when he decided that it was time—usually around 2 or so.
That was the first banishment.
After we got the orange, since he was a kitten we tried to let him stay.
But he can't stop biting the blanket mice (aka human toes) within the first ten minutes, so now they're all banished.
When we open up in the morning, they're less concerned with the scents and more concerned with the food bowls.
So they meet us at the door, and then try to kill us repeatedly on the way to the kitchen.
Oh, I've gotten it out of my system for now.
Like I said, it was just a little rant, to get it out of my system.
Sometimes things just need to be communicated. 
And the ones I'm talking about are new.
I wouldn't have bothered for something ancient.
Gandalf does.
Yes, you didn't get told the most important thing about being a cat owner:
The things inside the boxes aren't the cat toys;
The boxes themselves are the cat toys.
Save yourself a lot of money and get your cat toys from recycling centers or the back of the shoe store or wherever free package supplies may be found.
Fair enough. In which case, my answer still stands.
If you want to call something "Prologue," then set it as the prologue.
If you want to set something as chapter 1, then don't call it "Prologue," because it's not.
Heck, if you want to name your chapter 1 "Prologue," then fine, but don't name chapter 2 "chapter 1."
I'm done with my soapbox. Anyone else want it?
