Above is a piece of art from my new NFT collection Small Gods of Time Travel. It was generated by artificial intelligence from the words 'the mycelium key,' the 22nd chapter of the book. The NFT can be found here on objkt for 5xtz.
It's pretty cool that this is the image the computer came up with. The art is eerily psychedelic. Few professional illustrators could have done a better job with the concept. I certainly couldn't have done a better job if I sat down and tried to paint a mycelium key.
This afternoon was perfect for sitting outside the coffee shop. One friend shared a comic book that I've been hearing about for months, which had finally been printed. Another shared a container of homemade scones with the crowd on the sidewalk. As usual, I talked about my books and NFTs. And, for the first time in several days, no one brought up the crypto crash.
There was a major NFT conference here in Minneapolis this weekend. While this would've been the perfect place to promote Small Gods of Time Travel, I didn't hear that it was happening until a couple of weeks ago. By that time, the event's NFT tickets had sold out, and were only available from resellers on the secondary market. The cheapest ticket was 0.2 ETH, or about $400.
After recently losing six months' earnings in the crash, I wasn't about to fork over $400 for conference programming that would largely take place in the morning, when I'm sleeping. Ideally, I'd have secured a free ticket as press and wrote about the event for one of my clients. That's what I would have done if I'd heard about the conference in a more timely manner. But by the time I knew it was happening, it was already happening.
Having just released the novel and NFT collection, I've been doing a bunch of extra messaging to try to promote the work. It's a crucial moment, when the people in my networks first decide whether to support the project or ignore it. Their choices will become evident in the next week or so. Right now, I'm optimistic.
I'd go so far as to say that I'm unusually optimistic about Small Gods of Time Travel. The reason for this optimism involves the responses I've received from others when I tell them what the story is about. More than any other book I've written, in conversation, this novel's plot seems to interest people. Instead of shutting down when I outline the story, a surprising number of people have brightened right up.
Still, I've learned not to take any actual or prospective fans for granted. Every one of them is important. They don't exactly motivate the work. My inspirations and motivations are my own. But the audience justifies the work, allowing me to do the stuff I love to do while also constructively contributing to culture. Many of my creative projects simply wouldn't have happened if they didn't have this social dimension.
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