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Why I Left the Pop Culture Cult

  “People hate …. Everyone hates” is the mantra of the new, Godless world man has invented for itself from years of prosperity. The hard work of many millions only gets wasted on the empty goods that spoil every subsequent generation. I once belonged to that generation, firmly following the cancerous way of life that Generation Z and the Millennials before them and Generation Alpha are being poisoned by. For one thing, what we call “art” is never so—Bland art that follows the tritest cookie-cutter formula to make the most money possible. This is where the “franchise” comes in—a borrowing from the fast-food world that our movies, television, and books are now forceto conform to. Instead of enjoying a story by itself, it now has to be part of some big sprawling universe that is meant to sell product. It is called “art” because the masses of loyal consumers these days have never understood what true human passion is like. To them, only the big entertainment oligopolies and the famous ...
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Just Speak, Don't Stop: Speech Enables Success

  This article was originally written on November 8, 2025, so it will certainly be dated only in regards to when it was written. Otherwise, it's not dated. At the Hanover Book Expo on today November 8, 2025, I sold things for the first time. My trove of Legos, with some pieces dating back over 16 years, was a secluded and largely underutilized sideshow for the authors selling books. I shared the same spot in the VFW where Linda Lyles ran a face painting table. Initially, I had intended to run a Lego building contest for children ages 6 to 12, only to realize that not many of them who had come were interested in building along what sparse rules I had set, or were too young to safely play with Legos (choking hazard, you know). Their parents were also uninterested in whatever I had planned. They were more interested in taking a look at all the shiny, highly varied pieces and whatever miscellaneous knickknacks could be found.          ...
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Scribner's Evaluation: "Conversing With AI: A Handbook for Writers" by ML Brei

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https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7832263052           A decent guide for those who want to know how Generative AI works, but many caveats abound.      I've never read how generative AI works in depth beyond web articles and YouTube videos, but I do understand the basics of how it works. The part I did not know is how someone could enter a prompt decent enough for the AI to not vomit out weird-looking mongrels made from all the data it sifts through.  Conversing With AI  by ML Brei does show a remarkable amount of research to elaborate on how those programs work.      Yet, I still have very mixed feelings, bordering on negative, over using those programs. It is not that writers using them (even carefully) is a sign of laziness, but it is rather that it could be used to potentially bypass the need to spot and correct grammatical errors manually. I do wonder if it could help a writer with planning a longer book, as ...
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The Participation that Writing Allows

  The funny thing that the summaries on the back of some DVDs and VHSs have is how they always invite the viewers into partaking in the events of the movie: “Join Shrek as you help him retake his swamp” on the back of the oldest Shrek DVDs is funny given that the movie’s plot has already been set in stone, even before it got released.             The assumptions that those summaries unconsciously make that the audience can change such events is funny. The plots of movies are always “set in stone” because it is basically the act of someone writing a history (fictional, nonetheless), which a history cannot be rewritten since we common folk lack the wherewithal to alter such events, but it is history in that it is something a person had written and is available for reading.             Furthermore, this means that the kinds of stories that people can write based on exist...
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About the Scribner's Hovel

 Welcome to the Scribner's Hovel! This is a site where I will post my thoughts on life, reviews, and essays I have written on the art of writing. That said, this is not intended as a political blog, or merely a review blog. This is a test on how I could manage a simple site as I work towards being a published author. So far, I am not published, but I have a science-fantasy book that is in the editing stages, and a religious fantasy novel set in the real world I have not finished yet. Otherwise, most of my writing projects are school-related, or short introspective essays I do on my free time. I do many other kinds of writing, but it is mostly notetaking for college or compiling lists of the things I need to do, or the books I read in a single year. To know a little more about me, I am Michael Bourret. I am high on the spectrum, which is why I take a deep interest in history and literature. My life can be hectic when I need to figure out what to do with my life in the long term, but...
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