#UpscaleConf's very awesome day two!

And also this will be the most name-droppy post I likely EVER make, sorry!

Just another day in the life of a romance author who is going to turn her books into TV shows, hell or high water…

My day started off with having to explain to my German translator what the acronym DP was for. 😂

It was nice, because I’d woken up cranky, after I found out last night on LinkedIn before I went to sleep that there’d been a meeting for creatives after yesterday’s conference, and I could tell some cool people had been there from the pictures — including Jason Zada, from Secret Level (who I, uh, kinda cornered at the Hailuo party in SF in March, to ask if they ever made other people’s into shows, found out they didn’t, which is what really set me on my path here.)

I’d been hoping to get the chance to see/talk to him, you know? And make sure there wasn’t anything else I *should* be doing to get to my goal better/faster.

And while I didn’t get to meet him, I was sitting in the front row as he gave an amazing talk and showed off this effing FANTASTIC video for Wu-Tang — Mandingo — which just made me hyped to get back to my own stuff all over again.

So…when the next talk got a little dry, I cracked open my laptop and started working on my Finxes.

Partially, because I still want to line up my render farm to be running while I’m gone the rest of this week, but also because I was all, “Dear Universe, please may someone see I’m working on cool shit and TALK TO ME.”

WELL.

The universe delivered.

Because a few hours later, I found out I was sitting a few seats over from PJ Ace and one of his company’s execs (who was lovely!!!)

And we got to level with each other for the space of about a coffee break after another talk, and it sounds like I’m 10000% on the right track to do my thing!!!

I’m so stoked. I mean, ofc some new piece of tech could come out tomorrow and help me skip ahead (like a cloning machine, ha!) but barring that, I’m exactly where I need to be — and chances are I’m looped in enough to hear about the new tech when it happens (the AI enthusiast’s eternal struggle, lolsob.)

And then I figured out a way to make my Finxes work even better, muhahaha —

Because I can isolate them and put them on whatever background I want to move!

Up until now I’d just been hoping to get the right Finx on the right background — but now that I can switch them out relatively easily, the spider-cat world is my oyster!

Keep in mind that all these Finxes & videos aren’t final — they’re just proofs of concept, that certain motions are possible, and which prompts I can use w/the ‘farm to get me the movements I want to have!

Because Finx is definitely the hardest part of my book to animate, y’know?

And then?

In the afternoon?

John Gaeta, the guy who did the VFX for the MATRIX (!!!) was talking about his clearinghouse for Neo Cinema (all the new films and shows that are being made *with* AI) called Escape.AI and…

Have I mentioned that I’m shameless?

I have horrible social anxiety, BUT, when I want something, I go for it, no matter what — so he’s talking about Escape AI, and I’m all, “Damn, I want in,” so when there’s an open mic Q&A at the end I ask how independent AI filmmakers can get involved, and he basically says to get in touch?

So…I’m gonna send this over, when I’m through with it.

Now, I couldn’t do the official afterparty today, because I had to go to my bestie Dominica Phetteplace’s 40th anniversary of the lit mag Zyzzyva’s reading down at Keruoac Alley — but I was feeling pretty accomplished and hyped as it was — and then on my way to my car I found out someone wanted to interview me:

…but honestly, the thought of being interviewed does give me the heebies and the jeebies, and my first inclination was to say no.

Because I did a lot of press for Year of the Nurse , and with the exception of Ed Yong (I warned you this was a name-droppy day!) it was rough (and highly anxiety inducing.)

[The way that I got hold of Ed Yong was I reached out to him and asked him to write the forward for the Year of the Nurse, and he apologized and said he didn’t have time — but then several months later he reached out to interview me for the Atlantic.

And that’s right, be jealous, because I have Pulitzer Prize winner Ed Yong’s phone # enshrined in my contacts. And THE SECOND I get to quit being a nurse, I am texting him to tell him I made it out.]

(Shamelesssssss!)

By and large though, being interviewed — at least for romance author reasons — is usually rough. Because journalists come with their own agendas for their piece and they just want you to fit into those expectations (I find, in general). There’s usually an undercurrent of misogyny and “ha ha, look at what the ladies are into!” and “isn’t feminine desire rididuclous?”

Ignoring entirely that the entire romance genre is a mother-fucking juggernaut that keeps the entire REST of the publishing industry afloat — and that it’s WILDLY underserved currently, especially at the intersection between genre and romance.

But!

I’m early to Dominica’s thing (she’s my sister from another mister, we’ve known each other since Clarion West 2007) and while I’m there I get this over in my DMs on IG, from a fan, about getting elected to the California Schol Board Delegate Assembly…

And…I wanted to bawl, because I’m an easy crier — it’s a good thing I was in public so I couldn’t (because I do most of my crying on Tiktok, Bytedance ABSOLUTELY knows when my period is, lol) — but —

Yeah.

I’m definitely going to say yes to that interview now.

Hopefully that journalist is awesome and wants to give my jam a fair chance — and even if they don’t, well, the people who *really* matter, already know.

And…being in a public space in San Franciso is always interesting.

This unhoused guy takes up a seat in the back row and starts shouting that he wants to hear some poetry (the mic stand is set up at this point) and also to smoke, and he’s making a bit of a fuss — so I ask the group of us that’re there for Dominica if anyone has any twenties, someone offers one up as tribute, and I volunteer to take it back to him, to buy him off, since with cash he’ll be able to go get some smokes.

And he says, “No, man, I want to listen to some poems! I love poems!”

So I sit down beside him and we talk.

When I worked at the burn unit, about 30% of our patient population was unhoused — that was back when San Jose had The Jungle, which was (at the time) the largest homeless encampment in the US — and we would get people who’d been trying to keep warm and their tents caught on fire and melted on them, or they were shooting up and they nodded off into their rigs, etc etc etc (when you’re unhoused, SO many more bad things can happen to you, obvs).

So we chatted for a bit, and he told me how earlier in the week he’d helped this other woman get a meal for fifteen dollars, and I was all, “Well then it’s fuckin’ karma, huh?” and he laughs, and I tell him I hope he loves the poems and I go back to my seat and five minutes later he decides to walk off and get his cigs and shouts back, “Thanks for making my day!”

And…

Maybe that’s how come I can’t stop being a nurse sometimes? ‘Cause like, I love those interactions.

But I think also too, it’s all of those stories that’re already inside of me from my job that make *my* stories real. Down to the bone. Even if they are female-forward and genre. (Actually — BECAUSE they’re female-forward and genre.)

And using AI to get to tell them is just another medium.

Since I really am DM’ing Escape.AI with a link to this, Imma repost my most recent trailer:

It’s bedtime now, and I have five million things to do to prep my render farm to run w/out me when I’m gone (and, uh, pack) — but here’s to being shameless, always.

xo!

Cassie