Do You See What I’m Saying?

My inbox and social media posts draw a daily crowd ready to transform my book sales with a professionally designed trailer. I’m a Boomer and proud of it. So, if you want to be cutting edge, fashion forward, or whatever the word of the day may be, you might want to jump off my train of thought right here.

Somewhere hidden in why I write, there is a personal desire to produce mental images in others by using words. I think I have a good imagination. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine a writer who wants to do otherwise. He may wish to inform, inspire, or incite readers rather than entertain them it doesn’t matter. He wants the reader to “see” what he’s saying with the mind’s eye. A writer wants the reader to see the story and the characters, not as he does, but in the reader’s own way.

And as a reader, that’s exactly how I want it to be. I want to get lost in the writer’s world, the way I see it. If I want to see it exactly as some producer or director sees it, I’ll wait for the movie. Yeah, like that’s going to happen. If a reader has to “see” my writing through a video created by someone else, I really don’t want them to buy my book.

You read that right. It’s not because I don’t value readers. On the contrary, if they need a video to see what I’m saying, they probably are not going to enjoy the story. I don’t use a lot of descriptions, and when I do, they are sparse. That’s intentional. I know what Ed Landry looks like, but I’d be willing to bet no reader would agree with me or with anyone else who has read the Moon books. Moreover, if AI generated an image of Ed, it would look nothing like what I see.

AI generated trailers may become the wave of the future. I like it here on the banks of the bayou that I see in my imagination, and talking with the imaginary friends that I know.