I am an author. I write for a living. One of the tools I use is Microsoft Word. I have used Word for at least 30 years. I started using it back in the day when we purchase our software and it came on floppy disks we installed on our computer. Overtime, I started paying for a subscription to Microsoft Office and eventually moved from a PC to MAC.
How did Microsoft ruin my day? This morning, I opened a blank Word document and was stunned to see grey text banner across the page. Right where I wanted to type. I’ve included a screen shot of the page so you can see what I am talking about.
To left of the banner is a little floating icon that shows up every time I click “return.” Below is a screen shot of said icon.
After some Googling, I learned it is Copilot, some new Ai Microsoft feature that was installed during the last automatic update. I’ve wasted half the day trying to delete this thing from Word. But none of the how-to’s I’ve found work for Mac, and from what I’ve read online it looks like Microsoft is planning to charge me another three bucks a month for a feature I find distracting and I never asked for.
Tonight, I went on Microsoft Chat help and was told I was the next in line and the average wait was 12 minutes. I was hanging out for over an hour, occasionally typing messages that went through, letting them know I was still waiting. But then my last message failed to go through, and I realized they had ditched me. Nice job, Microsoft.
I would love to know what idiot at Microsoft thought it would be a good idea to roll out a new feature and slap annoying text across every blank document. While it disappears once I start typing, the annoying little icon follows me down the page like a creepy little stalker. When I get around to highlighting the text I just wrote to do some formatting, the annoying stalker jumps up and wants to rewrite what I just wrote.
Hell no! Go away Copilot. I do not want you rewriting my work. While I might use ProWritingAid to help me catch spelling errors and help with punctuation, I will not be having Ai write my stories.
Microsoft obviously did not design Copilot for writers. One common piece of writing advice to new authors, don’t edit while writing your first draft. While I can’t speak for all writers, when writing a book, each day I edit the chapter I wrote the previous day and then write a new chapter. I certainly don’t need Copilot inserting itself every time I hit RETURN.
Writing, like painting, is a creative process. Imagine if you were an artist and have your favorite set of paint brushes. One day you start to paint and discover the manufacturer of those paint brushes came into your studio and changed out all the handles of your paint brushes. The bristles are the same, but the manufacturer thought metal handles would clean up better than your old wooden brushes. Unfortunately, the metal handles just don’t feel the same in your hand and it becomes a distraction.
That’s how some writers are feeling right now after Copilot unexpectantly invaded their workspace. From some of the posts I read online, authors working on manuscripts were especially annoyed at the disruption.
As I was wrapping up this post, I got a little curious to see how Ai would rewrite my words. So, I highlighted what I had written and selected the “Auto Rewrite” option.
How did it do?
I received an error message that said, “We encountered a problem validating your Copilot license.” Followed by a “Learn more about the Copilot license” link.
This leads me to believe Microsoft didn’t activate Copilot, it just added the annoying text banner and stalking icon as a Copilot sales pitch. Or perhaps they will activate the license after they take my next automatic monthly payment (with an increase.)
This is a shady and intrusive way to do business, Microsoft. A good way to piss off someone who has been a customer for over 30 years.
In 2022, fifty years after I graduated from Lake Havasu High School, I was one of the recipients of its Distinguished Alumni awards. We had moved to Oregon from Lake Havasu City the previous fall, and I was still caring for my elderly mother, so I wasn’t able to return to Havasu and attend that year’s graduation ceremony where they handed out the awards.
However, I wrote a speech, which was delivered for me by someone who happened to be one of my teachers during my senior year of high school. I wanted to share one passage from my speech which I believe summarizes the topic of this post.
It read: Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.
We will come back to that passage in a minute. But first, I want to discuss social media.
With the possible TikTok ban looming and Meta’s decision to roll back any controls on hate speech in the name of free speech, social media has been a topic in many people’s minds.
I started regularly using the internet back in 1991. Seven years later Google Search came on the scene and five years later Google introduced AdSense ads which gave content providers a way to generate passive income on their websites. It’s something I did for a number of years.
There were other ways for content providers to earn passive income, such as eHow, established in 1999. There, you could write your own ‘how to’ articles and receive a share of the ad revenues each month. Other similar platforms popped up.
Four years after eHow made its debut came MySpace, followed by a social media explosion. While MySpace wasn’t the first social media platform, it’s what many of us older folks tend to remember.
For a social media platform to be profitable, they need users. After all, who wants to advertise on a platform without users? One way to lure users to a site is to provide content. One way to provide content is to incentivize its users to provide content. You know, like those cute cat videos. One way is to allow users to monetize their content.
Of course, a platform can’t pay all its users. That rather defeats the purpose. That would be like paying all your customers to come eat at your restaurant. But you might pay some to eat at your restaurant if they also provide a service that attracts more customers. Maybe they play the piano or can sing.
On many social media programs, when accepted into their creator program, how much they pay depends on the number of your views—and the number of engagements. If one of your videos gets a couple million views and a thousand comments, you might get a nice paycheck that month.
On social media, many content creators have discovered an easy way to make money, providing they are careful and walk a fine line—because this might also get them banned from the platform. Yet, considering how much I see it on social media, I don’t think the line is all that fine.
What am I talking about? Simple. Rage baiting. Hate is profitable, it seems.
For example, over on TikTok some supposedly conservative white woman made a video accusing liberal women of threating to come to the south and beating conservative women for not voting blue. She phrased this like it was a big thing. Us liberal women were all plotting to take some road trip so we could kick some lady conservatives’ butts. Um…that was NOT a thing.
Maybe it was not a thing, but wow, did it blow up! Liberals commented about how no one was coming to attack them. Others pointed out it sounded a little too close to a racist white woman trying to stir up racial tension since liberal women in the south might more likely be black. And then we had the conservative men posting about protecting their women, or claiming their women could easily kick a lib chick’s butt. And so on.
People made stitches, and the entire trend went on for a while. Someone was making money. All on hate. All on fostering division. The videos got hundreds of comments from both sides.
That is just one example. But there are countless videos and posts where someone says something ignorant or insulting about another group, which ends up giving them views, comments, and a fat payday.
However, I wonder how much of the hate and triggering content stems from that creator’s true beliefs—or is he or she simply making content that brings in a monetary return? Profiting on hate.
While I am sure some of the ugly comments and videos reflect the creator’s true beliefs, I’m just as certain many come from an entirely different place—What can I say that will really rile up people and get them to comment?
Either way, I find it disturbing.
Now I’m going to return to that passage I shared from my acceptance speech. Whatever you choose to do in life, it is more fulfilling to enrich or bring something positive into another person’s life, as opposed to bringing them sadness or tears.
I am seventy now, and I continue to hold on to the belief I expressed in that passage. People whose prime focus is to build wealth, with no consideration to their fellow human, never achieve true happiness. Happy people tend to spread happiness. Just as miserable people tend to spread misery.
To say there is division in our country is a gross understatement. I think one thing I find so troubling with our current president elect is his propensity to call others nasty names. He’s normalized it, and if I was raising small children today, it is certainly not a trait I would want my children to pick up.
We have these devastating fires in California and some people are so quick to spread lies and hate, turning this into something political. My cousin lost his home in this fire. One of our close friends, their niece lost her home, and one of our longtime friends told our daughter several of her friends lost their homes. My point being—this thing touches close to home. And while some may not see this as ‘touching close to home’ from their perspective, and not warranting any of their empathy, I certainly don’t understand the hate, lies, and counterproductive rhetoric they choose to heap on the victims of these fires.
Aside from the profit motive of pushing hate speech in social media, I can’t wrap my head around the fact some people out there really get their jollies seeing someone else suffer emotionally or physically. It’s often someone they have never met before, but maybe the person differs from them, or they are jealous of what that person has. I am seeing more and more people in power and government fostering this type of behavior.
A number of years ago, I received a Facebook message from a girl I knew in junior high. I will confess, I didn’t remember the girl. It had nothing to do with the girl. I just have a crappy memory. Apparently, she had gone to one of my birthday parties I had when we still lived in Covina the year before moving to Havasu. Back then, we lived in what was considered one of the nicest areas of Covina, California, in Covina Hills. I didn’t live in a track home; it was a custom home my father had built and designed. She in turned lived in an apartment in a modest part of town.
The party was a boy-girl party, and when the boys went home, it was a slumber party for the girls. By the tone of the letter, I felt the girl believed we were in some way ‘wealthy’ and she expressed how much she appreciated how nice and welcoming we were to her, even mentioning my mother.
It was such a sweet letter, and I immediately shared it with Mom. I can’t adequately explain how it made us feel—knowing we had left this girl with what was obviously a lasting memory—a positive memory.
I can’t say I was always such a nice kid. In fact, I cringe at many things I’ve done over my lifetime. I only hope when engaging in those cringe worthy behaviors I didn’t leave behind some unpleasant memory for other people to deal with.
Today, with each email or post I receive from one of my readers, telling me how my books helped them during a difficult time, or simply how much they enjoy them, or how my characters seem like old friends, it reaffirms my belief I am doing what I am supposed to be doing. Providing comfort, company, entertainment, and laughter is far more fulfilling than making someone feel ugly.
When our son and daughter were little, I assumed that when they became adults Christmases wouldn’t be the same. It would lose the magic children bring to the holiday. I’d miss the excitement they had each year when we brought out the ornaments or sat up the Lionel train that had belonged to Don’s dad. We would no longer leave cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeers. Oh, I understood that if I someday had grandchildren, I could recapture that special excitement children bring to Christmas.
My mother passed away exactly two months before Christmas Eve of this year, which is four days from now. While I am grieving the loss of my mother, I had actually lost her about five years ago to dementia.
Friends have offered their condolences at the loss, some acknowledging the fact it will probably be a difficult Christmas for me. But the truth of the matter, it’s not Mom I am necessarily grieving for this Christmas. As I mentioned, I lost her over the past five years…little by little.
It is something else.
You might say the loss of Mom was an epiphany. A realization that it’s not the children who have grown into adults I mourn this Christmas, it’s the elders in my life whom I’ve shared decades of Christmas memories with, who are no longer here. Mom was the last one. Well, not exactly. There is Florence, my sister’s mother-in-law, who was like a second grandmother to my children, a constant in my adult life, and now at 102 years old, on Hospice in a memory care home not far from where Lynn lives in Morro Bay.
All of the elders from my Christmases—except for Florence are gone now. I miss them.
It’s not just the family members I miss. There is Oma Head, one of the tenants from Havasu Palms. She was like a second grandma. She and her husband built a house in Lake Havasu City, and I’d often stay with her when I couldn’t make it home from school over the lake in bad weather. Every year at Christmas she would give us a tin of her homemade divinity. It was the best divinity in the world, and I have never been able to replicate it. It was the inspiration for Marie’s divinity in Haunting Danielle. Now that I think about it, Oma was the inspiration for Marie.
I miss Oma.
I miss my Aunt Margaret and Uncle George, who could sometimes be annoying, but they were always good to me, and good to my kids. They were a constant at our Christmases, joining us for Christmas Eve at my sister’s, and our house for Christmas dinner.
I miss my Dad, who like Mom, slipped away a few Christmases before he finally moved on. With him it wasn’t a memory issue, more that he was so tired and sick that the magic he brought to Christmas each year was gone. In Dad’s healthier years, after Grandma Hilda stopped hosting Christmas dinner, Dad was in the kitchen—and loving it.
On TikTok I’ve watch videos where women complain about never having support from their husbands during Christmas, where the responsibility of bringing any magic to Christmas falls on the wife. That wasn’t true in my family. My dad threw himself into Christmas. He’d paint Christmas murals on our windows, make fudge, and cook most of Christmas dinner.
While Mom did a majority of the Christmas shopping and gift wrapping, each year Dad would buy something special for Lynn and me, just from him, and he was notorious for waiting until the last minute (often Christmas Eve) to buy Mom’s gift, but it was always spectacular.
I miss both sets of my grandparents, who would spend Christmas with us most years. They’d find a comfortable place to sit and always seemed to enjoy watching the festivities and visiting with whomever stopped by to chat. I remember suggesting the grandparents open their gifts first one year, and my Grandma Madeline immediately put down that idea, telling me they enjoyed watching the grandchildren open their gifts. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.
I miss my in-laws and I miss my sister’s in-laws. Unlike other families, who drag their kids from “his” parent’s house then to “her” parent’s house over the holidays, when my parents’ grandchildren were little, we all spent Christmas and Christmas eve together—all the grandparents, all the children.
But all those elders, except for Florence, have moved on. My sister and I no longer spend Christmases together. She is down in California, spending Christmas this year with her husband, sons, daughter-in-law, and grandsons.
Last year Don and I were able to spend Christmas with both our kids and grandchildren. (when I say ‘our kids’ that includes Joe and SeAnne.) We were able to arrange a ride for Mom to be with us on Christmas Eve, and we visited her on Christmas day at the home.
This year Don and I will be spending Christmas with Scott and SeAnne at the Holmestead.
I miss the elders this Christmas. But we are the elders now.
