(I hope you like my clickbait title. Read on. More on that topic below…)

     Hey all you wonderful Charley Paxos fans out there,

     Again, I’m compelled to apologize. I set the modest goal to blog every month, and still I failed. I’ve been dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which destroyed my camp. Fortunately I was able to move to higher ground before the flooding reached me, and my tarp shelter was relatively easy to rebuild. I was also able to save my laptop, which is my livelihood. Many were not as lucky. Additionally, the flooding seems to have culled the feral dog population in these mountains, making life considerably less challenging, at least for now, until they repopulate.

     For these reasons and more, as we approach the holiday known as Thanksgiving, I give thanks. How about you? We should all make time to give thanks, everyday, no need to wait for a government designated holiday. Truly we all have so much to give thanks for, even if sometimes it’s hard to see. But, often, just sitting in quiet contemplation can help. Recently, after a brief moment of silent gratitude, I came away with a new item to add to my list of the things I give thanks for daily: my ability to acquire new skills.

     Skill acquisition might seem like a trivial thing to give thanks for, but let me give you an example. I had paid multiple inexpensive artists (found on Fiverr) to create cover for my upcoming novel. Everything I got back was total crap. Finally, I decided to take a crack at it myself, and to simply learn the skills I needed to create the cover I wanted. And if I can do it, so can you.

       It came together quickly. First I learned the basics of GIMP, a free and open-source image editor, comparable to Photoshop. Using GIMP, I was able to bring together all the bits and pieces of other images I created using ChatGPT’s image generator, none of which on their own would have made a good cover.

     I’m sure I’ll tool around with it more; it needs to somehow reflect the absurdist humor of the novel, so readers have a sense of what they’re in for. I don’t want anyone accusing me of false advertising.

     Also interesting to note, ChatGPT will not create an image of a man that looks like he has a penis in his pants. I don’t know why, but it’s certainly true. This is a problem if your protagonist is supposed to be a hyper-masculine professional wrestler. But it was taking me too long to acquire the delicate skill of adding bulge in GIMP, so I decided to “compensate” for this guy’s deficiency by placing something in the front of his crotch.