I’m home from another C3 held in Columbia, MD. It was another great year of books, conversations, and food. I got in a day early in order to check in, relax, and do some writing. I went to the lobby and wrote. I got little done.

People wandered in. I ended up chatting and helping Austin and Denise, the organizers, unpack boxes from their van. The rest of the evening was spent with meeting and catching up with friends and new people at the bar. I had one beer, but bought a round.

The following morning was rough, since I woke up at 2AM after 4 hours of sleep. I went down and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant once it opened. I checked into the conference and dropped my books off at the bookstore stand the conference sets up. The conference didn’t start until noon, so I wandered around chatting with people.

Now, I’m an introvert. Being around more than one person is stressful and draining, and I was around 250. Luckily, I’ve learned to deal with it and project energy during my time as a corporate presenter and instructor. Sill, it’s exhausting. I went to bed and woke at 2AM and could not fall back asleep.

This year’s keynote speakers included Lee Goldberg who has written multiple books and TV series. The other keynote speaker was Jack Campbell, best known for hi SF books.

Each year, I buy the keynoters’ books and put them up for auction at the conference to help support the conference. All the attending authors sign the books, and I throw in a few other goodies to sweeten the pot. This year, the auction raised $250, which isn’t a huge amount in the grand scheme of things, but every bit helps.

The conference started, and the panels began. This year’s panels seemed a lot better than previous years. I was on one of the first panels. This one dealt with “writing funny”. It went well, and I didn’t make myself look like an idiot. The following panel on the schedule was one I was moderating. It was titled “SEX!”. I wasn’t sure about this one since I don’t write sex scenes. Luckily, this panel ran itself mostly. Even though I was moderating, I didn’t have to do much since there were more audience questions than I’d ever seen at any conference panel, writing or otherwise. I just had to watch the time and call on people.

The rest of the day, I was free, so I went to a few other panels as an audience member.

After all the panels were done for the day, it was time for the author signing. The hotel, great as it is, is off the beaten path, so most of the signing was authors signing for other authors. I sold and signed a few books. It’s a fun time since you get to mingle with the other authors and get the occasional signing request from a non-author.

Dinner at the Doubletree included a keynote address by Jack Campbell. He talked about how he approaches writing SF with a slant on actual physics.

Dinner on the first night of the conference is followed by Noir at the Bar, where some authors get up and read something they’ve written. They had 7 minutes this year. It’s always an interesting time. Usually, there are some humorous pieces, but many people agreed this year was very dark and grisly.

Despite having “Bar” in ‘Noir in the Bar’, the readings are done in the room where dinner was held. The true ‘bar’ occurs after ‘Noir in the Bar’. I dropped in for a short time and then, being totally drained, went up to my room. I woke up at 3AM and couldn’t get back to sleep. At least, I got one more hour than the previous night.

Saturday, I was exhausted from the prior day and all the people. Luckily, I had to moderate only one panel that day, “Genre Bending”. This was a topic I’d suggested, and we talked about writing more than a single genre within a single book, and how that affects publishing and promoting the book.

The Saturday dinner was followed by Lee Goldberg’s keynote, which was hilarious when presented a lot of anecdotes about how he got into the business and how luck had played a major role. His summation was you have to make your own luck and be open to the luck of others.

I crashed early—and slept through until about 7AM. I was energized and rested, but this was the last day of the conference, and a half-day. I packed up my stuff and went to the remaining sessions.

The conference is always a blast. All the authors are welcoming and glad to see me. I enjoy going and supporting the conference. Whether you’re a reader or author and have the chance to go, go. You’ll meet old friends and new.

Preregistration for 2025 is open.

This would have been my sixteenth straight year writing during NaNoWriMo.

Yesterday, I closed and deleted my NaNoWriMo account. Last night, I literally lost a lot of sleep tossing and turning as I considered what I wanted to say about the reason. Then, I concluded that few, if any, really care about what I do on NaNoWriMo. But I still want to explain.

The NaNoWriMo organization, issued a statement regarding the use of AI. What is NaNoWriMo's position on Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

First of all, I’m not against anyone using AI as part of the writing process. I am, however, against people using AI and taking ownership/authorship of what the AI wrote. That’s plagiarism.

Second, writing is a creative process that involves a lot of work. Using an AI to write bypasses both the creativity and the work. It’s laziness at its best, cheating at its worst.

But NaNoWriMo claims that people who want to ban AI for writing are ableist and classists Here is a quote, in case the site removes the page:

— Start quote

• Classism. Not all writers have the financial ability to hire humans to help at certain phases of their writing. For some writers, the decision to use AI is a practical, not an ideological, one. The financial ability to engage a human for feedback and review assumes a level of privilege that not all community members possess.
• Ableism. Not all brains have same abilities and not all writers function at the same level of education or proficiency in the language in which they are writing. Some brains and ability levels require outside help or accommodations to achieve certain goals. The notion that all writers “should“ be able to perform certain functions independently or is a position that we disagree with wholeheartedly. There is a wealth of reasons why individuals can't "see" the issues in their writing without help.
• General Access Issues. All of these considerations exist within a larger system in which writers don't always have equal access to resources along the chain. For example, underrepresented minorities are less likely to be offered traditional publishing contracts, which places some, by default, into the indie author space, which inequitably creates upfront cost burdens that authors who do not suffer from systemic discrimination may have to incur.

— End quote

To summarize, this comes down to “leveling the playing field” so everyone can have the same opportunity to “write”. The thing is, you aren’t writing if you use an AI to do it for you. Yes, an AI is a tool, but it is more than a tool such as a keyboard, or pen and paper. It’s an active participant, even in its still-formative stage.

NaNoWriMo’s approach seems to be one of: Not everyone can be a professional mountain climber, so we should level the playing field by leveling the mountain so everyone can climb the mountain. This neither makes you professional nor a mountain climber.

NaNoWriMo’s logic is like saying, if you’re in a race and you can’t run as fast as some of the other runners, you can hop on a bus and cross the finish line to be declared the winner. There’s a reason races ban such tactics. There are also reasons for banning AI in creative endeavors.

Writing is a creative process of work.

Using AI reduces or eliminates both the need for personal growth, creativity and personal work, not to mention eliminating the personal responsibility for what is written.

The NaNoWriMo group has lost its focus. Originally, it was a site to encourage writing. That focus has now shifted to encouraging writing by using AIs to do the work.

And I won’t go into how such encouragement bypasses the ethics of how such AIs are trained.

Feel free to use NaNoWriMo with or without an AI. If you use an AI to create art, that doesn’t make you an artist. Likewise, if you use an AI to write, that doesn’t make you a writer.

The AI is the artist/writer.

I will no longer support or use NaNoWriMo. I can’t support diminishing the effort, creativity, and work of writers and authors.

Flame on!

Write on!

I’ve finished the editing pass through “To Preserve Health”, the first book in the trilogy. There are a few story structure issues I need to resolve and a few minor rewrites. Before I do that, however, I’m going to switch gears and work on the short story for this year’s Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity anthology.

I’ve had a story in the anthology for the past four years. I can’t believe it’s been five years since I decided to contribute, and it’s been longer since I started attending. Time has a way of slipping by when you’re busy with other things. This year, I wanted to try writing a pulp story, a genre I haven’t attempted, but have skirted around in my other writings. I thought I’d dive all the way in this time. It should be fun, since pulp is all action and dialog. I enjoy writing both and feel I should be able to do the genre some justice.

I have two scenes written and I have a core story in mind. Now, I just have to make sure I can tell it in about 7500 words. It should take me about a month to write and edit the story to a point where I can submit it.

Then, I’ll return to my trilogy and fix all the issues before starting a tense and grammar pass. I’m aiming for a release around September.

Word up!

There is a class of books across a lot of genres that follow an interesting structure. These are series by authors who seem to churn out books monthly. These books don’t follow a normal character arc, and in fact, the protagonist never grows. Yes, they can get stronger, but they don’t grow in character, they don’t change. The books can have a three act structure, or not. But what they have in common is what I’m calling a “game loop”. If you’re familiar with game development, you’ll understand the reference. In these books, each book in the series follows the following structural formula:

— Drop the protagonist into a “situation”. Often, there is no character introduction.

— The protagonist goes about their daily schedule, which includes eating, sleeping, talking to friends and allies.

— The protagonist gets an idea about how to resolve the situation.

— The protagonist again goes about their daily schedule, while the parts of his plan fall into place.

— The protagonist resolves the situation, either personally or with the help of anything from friends, to robots, to “gods”.

— End book.

The character doesn’t grow as he solves the problem. Often, he’s not even in any real danger.

It’s an interesting formula. Some authors have 30+ books in a single series where each book is like this. Read that again. Thirty-plus books in a single series! There is no personal growth in the protagonist between the first and last books.

So, why would anyone read these books? After all, people like reading about people overcoming problems and growing. Or so authors have been told.

Here are my thoughts.

— The books are formulaic. So, is the typical character arc. This is just a different formula. Being formulaic, people know what to expect when they pick up a book. It makes them feel comfortable.

— The books, despite being predictable, are fun. They are like chewing gum for the mind. Reading them gives your brain something to do without having to deal with problems. They do have some interesting situations and ideas.

— The books tend to be pulp-like in that they are action driven. They are not pulp, because even in pulp, characters change and evolve. Humans hate change, especially nowadays.

— Something other than the protagonist controls and resolves the problem, but the protagonist is what the books are about. I’m not sure what this says about the readers. Maybe they want a God/AI to solve their problems but want to feel like they play an important part? I don’t know.

—The books are easy to write. Going back to being formulaic, an author can churn a book out every month if the characters don’t have to change, and the structure and genre remain fixed.

Yes, I’ve read some of these. As I’ve said, they are fun. But I wouldn’t want to write them. If you’ve read one, you’ve read them all. If you’ve written one, you’ve written them all.

Word up!

Besides editing my next book, Coins of Destiny I - AL, I’ve started posting my play through of Colostle, a solo RPG.

Now, I’ve started writing a pulp fiction short story. No, not a story based on the movie, but an actual pulp story. The primary characteristics of pulp are fast-paced (action-driven), no real exposition or introspection, and characterization is done mostly through dialog. Finally, pulp writing elicits an emotional response. Pulp has no deep messages. It is all story.

I guess, some of my novels might be considered “pulp”, but I never set out to write them as such. Now, I’m trying to write pulp intentionally. I’m thinking I’ll submit it to this year’s Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity anthology.

I am also planning book three of Coins of Destiny. I’m busy, but it doesn’t seem like I’m being productive, although I’m accomplishing a lot.

Anyway, I’m having fun.

Word up!