Thiel would enjoy that tho.

Sometimes I buy a bag of roasted pine nuts from Trader Joe’s and I pretend I am the richest woman in the world and empty it upon my bowl of pasta salad. It is an amazing 15 minutes of eating, I tell you.

The Offing Submission Manager Thanks so much for your interest, and we look forward to reading your work. Please be familiar with the magazine and our mission before you submit.For 2026, there will be no submission fees thanks to ...

Context: we are open to essay submissions at The Offing! Send us your absolutely best work. Make it melt my mushy heart (that is encased within insulated titanium).

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This is truth. Plus give us your aching, enlightening, courageous, weird, heartbreaking, heart-healing, mine challenging work.

Oh hello? :)

Wow this is comprehensive. Wow Org-novelist.

<spits out coffee>

You’re the 3rd (or 4th) to mention Proton. At this point it’s between Pages, Proton, and…emacs.

I would never use that feature for my literary and personal writing, tho I have for work (“corporate”) purposes for non-byline work.

Evergreen. May we all. Looks like I’ll be going back to 1992 when I wrote on a local disc or wrote using emacs at a command prompt.

If you shit in my sink (and expect me to clean it) I will be TELLING the WHOLE WORLD and attributing it to your real ass name, middle name and all. Omg. Lol.

(I did used to use emacs in the 1990s for literary writing). But I’d have to learn git. I guess this would be the absolutely safest option bc Richard Stallman would NEVER let ai into emacs.

AI and creative writing Academic integrity and authorship are the core principles at stake

So. Just for context…here is why I asked about alternatives to Google Docs /cloud based platforms on which to continue writing my novel.

My dealings with AI. YMMV and many of you might disagree with me. But they are my experiences and thoughts about AI.

christinehlee.substack.com/p/ai-and-cre...

lol. I do know emacs. But not necessarily friendly to novel writing.

Yep.

The opposite. My fantasy is to be able to continue to write and access via the cloud. But I know anything in the cloud is vulnerable to AI. (My denial my denial my denial keeps me hoping otherwise).

I like the tabs and indexing for chapters. And being able to access from anywhere and share.

Then again, I may have to give up the access from anywhere, bc the cloud makes it vulnerable for AI training in the future?

lol. Not necessarily accessible to this can-only-program-hello-world-in-C novelist/memoirist. :) I can barely handle jira!

Oh? My writing has been stolen in order to train AI models and I’m just not up for any more theft. So maybe I’ll play on the safe side and just avoid the cloud altogether. Anything there is vulnerable, no?

Is it like text edit? (Or whatever that thing Microsoft had as Word minus minus for a time)? Or way better? I’ll check it out.

iPhone/mac

Watching Hamnet. I don’t know if I can keep watching. Is Hamnet grief porn? Bc. I have historically not been able absorb large doses of grief.

Is there an alternative to Google Docs that can sustain novel writing and IS NOT used to train AI? And also…uses the cloud? (Aka I can access my writing across devices). I suspect this is impossible? And all our writing will be used to train AI?

I had Scrivener. But it is so particular.

Re: the plane colliding into the fire truck at LGA, resulting in the tragic deaths of the airplane pilots…so many heartbreaking thoughts. But also what was that truck made out of? I wouldn’t have bet on the truck in that scenario.

It truly was the Dances With Wolves Oscars Option.

Unpopular opinion: One Battle After Another was mid. I tried but stopped watching halfway through. But also maybe movies suck now.

Alysia Liu going for pure joy in complete DGAF mode is an inspiration. Also if she’s this DGAF at 20 (remember being 20?)…what will she be like at FIFTY? Watch out world.

And same to you. Art sees us through.

Years ago when I was married to a man I loved dearly and deeply, I would post pictures of him and of us on Valentine’s Day. And then that ended horribly. I’m so sorry for “flexing” on Valentine’s.

(I am happily partnered and have been for over 10 years now but will no longer “flex”).

bearded man with owl. Photo (c) S. Avdeyuk

owl that looks like a bowling pin. Photo (c) S. Gafitsky

it's #SuperbOwl Sunday! Best day of the year. For your consideration, the Blakiston's fish owl. Largest owls in the world (six-foot wingspans, weigh close to a bald eagle), salmon eaters, live year-round in remote forests of northeast Asia. 🦉