Silence Signs

Yep, when I’ve been quiet for a while, that means that a bunch is happening. And oh, my, there’s a lot. So, let’s get into it.

My New Book is Out Now!

I have so many projects in production that I wanted to do a short poetry book to break up the longer projects. More than that, I wanted to put all my “AI writing & creativity” learnings into a finished product. I collaborated with my AI co-author to build out a book of haiku about climate change. The haiku are written in collaboration with a Natural Language Generation (NLG) system.

But, I wanted more than poems. I wanted a picture book AND I wanted AI to make the pictures. Using the latest in Text-to-Image capabilities, I collaborated with my AI tools to design, what I think is, an interesting story.

Monsters Dance to Twilight

A haiku collection co-written & co-illustrated with Artificial Intelligence about the dance between humanity and nature towards the horrors of climate change.

Buy Now

Here’s the blurb:

We are living in a horror story and it is getting worse. Climate change is talked about in statistics and data, but what does it really mean for humans and nature?

In Monsters Dance to Twilight, Cy Borgmyn approaches climate change as a horror story. Through this lens, we are forced to confront the ways in which people and nature are monsters opposing each other. One monster reacts, lashes out, defends. The other, complacently marches along devouring. Which monster will survive?

Cy Borgmyn's Monsters Dance to Twilight is a book that will leave you thinking about our impact on the planet. Are we the monsters? Or are we simply dancing to the twilight of our own destruction?

NOTE: This book is written and illustrated by Artificial Intelligence (AI) algorithms collaborating with a human contributor. Using the latest in Natural Language Generation (NLG) and Text-to-Image (T2I) capabilities, this story and book were constructed to tell the story of climate change in a unique way. Cy Borgmyn is an AI + human collaboration that is experimenting with AI as storytelling tools.

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I hope you enjoy it! I’ll share more about how I built this in the future if y’all are interested.

Wait, who’s Cy Borgmyn?

After MANY MANY discussions with other writers and artists about using AI in the creative process, it became very clear to me that people are not ready to see AI tools in the same light as using Word or Scrivener. To that end, I am using a pen name whenever AI is involved in my writing process. This way, people can know when a story is 100% T. Kulp original and when a story is 100% T. Kulp + AI story original.

And, as you can guess…Cyborg man is the inspiration for the name. I was a little surprised that no one else already grabbed this pen name :)

So, in the future Cy will be my Tim + AI pen name to help build the branding around AI writing vs. stories that I typed EVERY SINGLE word letter by letter. Well, except when I use autocomplete…or grammar check…or Microsoft Editor…I think you get my point :)

And, if you’d like to see a Q&A with Cy Borgmyn, written mostly by the AI, check out this news article here.

And then…

I’ve talked about it for literally years now. Finally, the date is set…

[dis]connection launches on July 22nd.

You can pre-order now!

[dis]connection

A modern dark fantasy novel-in-verse that mixes high tech, magic, and mythology where secret societies battle big tech for control over reality.

Pre-order Now

Here’s the blurb:

Making friends is hard but, creating friends from stolen technology can be deadly.

After a bullying incident leaves new girl Erin isolated and alone, she finds an experimental 3d printer and creates herself a friend, just not a human friend. But, when her creation turns violent, Erin must connect with new friends and push her programming skills beyond anything she’s ever imagined: Hacking the AI mind of her creation.

 [dis]connection is book one of the Pandora Project. Magic, technology and mythology wrap together in this dark modern fantasy series where mystical societies and big tech companies collide for control over reality.

 What will be unleashed in the Pandora Project? Start to find out with [dis]connection.

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I cannot tell you how excited I am for this book to come out. This is a novel-in-verse that mixes adventure, the horrors of high school and mystical worlds of magic and technology to tell the story of finding your tribe. There are tons of great novels-in-verse on the market and I really wanted to provide a modern dark fantasy YA adventure. I hope you enjoy!

If you’d like an ARC, let me know.

But, that’s not all…

I’ve been busy with all the not posting.

There are 2 books for Cy Borgmyn in edit. My newsletter gets a sneak peak at some of this content. The project is a middle-grade adventure series inspired by books like Zork, Choose Your Own Adventure books, and the Dungeons & Dragons campaigns that filled my childhood. This is not a Choose Your Own Adventure series but is a series about kids adventuring into the mysteries of their strange world. My current plan is that these books will all be co-written with AI and will have a rapid release to be more like a Disney+ series than a bunch of movies.

And, for T. Kulp I have 7 books currently in production phases. 3 are in final draft, 1 is in proof reading, 1 is in almost final draft, 1 is in initial draft and one is in outline format.

I have a few books in idea phases but there’s just not enough time in the day :) One of these books is a comedy horror romance that I can’t wait to get into but first, I need to finish a few of those books above.

As a fun note, those 3 books in final draft are the next 3 books in the Pandora Project series (aka the follow up to [dis]connection).

Finally, I’ve been writing some short stories too and might be brewing another collection for next Halloween. Stay tuned on that one. I’m thinking something like BLOTS: stories designed to be shared. The theme emerging is Work Life Balance. Horrors that happen at work, horrors that happen at home, and the ghosts that wander in-between.

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For Poetry Friday I wanted to write about something I saw earlier this week.

Swings

A wooden swing
squeaks over laughter
as she swings higher
and higher.

She jumps from the swing
drifting weightless
flying for a moment
landing in a smiling stumble.

A metal swing
creeks into silence
as he sways slowly
side to side.

He brushes the chain rust
off his hands
wondering if anyone
would miss him.

A rope swing
quietly tightens the seat
as she twists
winding up.

She lifts her feet
spinning out of control
dizzying world whirling
even when she stops.

She sees him.

She spins him.
She pushes him.
He goes higher.
She laughs.
He jumps.
He laughs.

She laughs.
She jumps.

They fly

together.

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Thanks to Catherine over at Reading to the Core for hosting Poetry Friday this week.