The Rise of Ai

The first thing that comes to mind is the age old question asked to every ai in story, meant to undermine its ability to compare itself to Earth’s apex predator, humanity. “Can a robot make art? Can it write a beautiful symphony?” Well, it has now been proven that it can absolutely fucking make art. It can make art that most humans are and will always be incapable of making. I’ve been delving into this realm of late and am amazed, appalled, in awe, of what ai is capable of. With a few simple prompts and prods, computers can now make art that challenge human imagination. Some have been quick to capitalize on this, claiming the title of artist by stating “in colaboration with” or “with assistance from” ai.

I call bullshit. Even if they have to do finishing touches on photoshop, the computer is doing all the heavy lifting.

And yet is that not the plight of our society? One CEO has a conversation over dinner with another CEO, both making 3000 times the wage of their lowest earning worker (while eating a company paid meal), and while never putting hammer to nail, claim the lion’s share of another’s labor?

Now ai has granted artists and would-be artists the opportunity to be CEOs in their own right, by making an enslaved algorithm do all the heavy lifting while they reap the praise and rewards. What a time to be alive.

All that aside, I cannot claim to be above the fascinating possibilities this grants. I can make my own art now, of characters, places, events, and scenes from my stories that I would have otherwise had to pay professional artists THOUSANDS of dollars for hundreds of hours to create for me.

I don’t claim to be an artist in this sense. Never will, but that I can enhance the exposure of my beloved stories with visual expressions this detailed and captivating is an opportunity I would be foolish to overlook.

So this is me, on the wagon, for my own reasons and with my own reservations, but truth be told, the future is here, like it or not. I’m certain the conversation will become a powderkeg soon. There is a lot to say about the morality and human identity wrapped around visual art. There is a storm brewing, but in the meantime I am going to strive to bring Darbretora and the stories written of it to visual life. It is a little selfish dream I’ve always had and now get to enjoy.

Case and point, the very picture that now introduces this blog was made with ai. Instead of having a random stock photo I tweaked with photoshop, I get to display what I actually mean by “Lost Ship of Lanterns.”

What a fucking time to be alive.

Obscuria Rises

The Psion’s Curio and Obscuria’s Lure was first written as a weekly episodic story. A dark tale of obsession, perseverance, and the bonds of family. I’m proud of how it came out and have gotten some great feedback on it. My intention is to finish up a few final edits and get it ready for publication as it’s own novella. (She’s only 7k words shy of the 50K mark) Even though a handful of minor details have changed in the story’s conversion from episodic tale to book-form, the story remains relatively the same throughout.

It is not a sequel to The Horn of Dawn but it does tie into the Symphony of the Sephira saga, so its worth a look. I write this so anyone interested in reading the story who might have put it off for a while can do so now. I expect the publishing side should take about a month or so but once the book hits, I’ll be removing Obscuria’s Lure from my webpage. By all means, enjoy it now while it’s free and I will let everyone know when the book is up and ready.

If you can't fucking beat them.... #hashtagpocolips

It has been recently proven to me that I am being stubborn. (who knew) I’ve always had a sour place in my heart for hashtags. I’ve not been silent on the matter. People placing 29 irrelevant hashtags on a photo of their spaghetti lunch makes my eyes do cartwheels.

And yet here I am, realizing the power of the tool I’ve denied myself for sticking hard to a misguided principle. I fell into the trap of judgement, and as judgement tends to, it came back to bite me in the ass. Who am I to say what posts are worth a hashtagpocolips.

#hashtagpocolips.

So putting my former reservations and stubborn quandary aside, I will be tagging….everything, from now on. Not redundantly, I still can’t make myself do that, but considering how much content I have posted, I have my work cut out for me.

Community

This is a first in my lifetime. An event reaching such a stage that it affects the entire world and completely changes the status quo and practically shuts down the social and economic order? That’s one for the books. An interesting thing to see, nevertheless, how it brings out the best and worst in us. The full spectrum of human emotion and reaction to danger can be observed in real time.

The information gathered during this event will change the course of history. People in power will use it, both for good and ill. Some countries will see an opportunity to further improve their people’s lives and create fail-safes, so that next time, they are even better prepared. Others will manipulate their people, understanding a new depth of fear, and how much they can get away with by employing it. Others will learn nothing at all. That’s who we are. We run the gamut all the way through.

Aaaanyway! New episode of Psion’s Curio is up with the next Obscuria’s Lure just about ready. Should be posted by Sunday at the latest.

Take care all, and just because you use an entire roll of TP on a single shit, does not mean you don’t have to wash your damn hands, you filthy animals.

The Psion's Curio and Obscuria's Lure

Obscuria’s Lure is the story of a team of Copperhawk mercenaries who become hopelessly lost in a strange, labyrinth realm called Datura. The only person who has any chance of finding them is Archivist Psion Valikarn Onyxsea, who has the power to read the aura of any object and experience visions of its past.

This is a communal project I have been working on with my closest friends. We are planning it as a 10 mini-episode event. Every time Valikarn gets a hold of a clue to the team’s fate, it will be posted here, not only as a legible script, but as an audible experience.

In between those episodes I will also be posting The Psion’s Curio, which is about the other items in Valikarn’s collection. While not linked to the fate of the missing Copperhawks (and it will not be an audio story), these tales provide insight into the lives of Darbretora’s people, cultures, and faiths.

The fist episode of The Psion’s Curio is in the main menu now, with the first episode of Obscuria’s Lure coming out tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy.

A Tribute to Inspiration

Inspiration floats around in many forms. Sometimes it’s a little thing — a feeling you get in the least expected of moments. Sometimes it’s life slapping you dead in the face, filling you with so much emotion you cannot help but write it down, draw it, snap it, or dance it into life.

But to find perpetual inspiration, one has but to look around, at the people in your life striving for their own goals, doing the things they love, neck deep in the heart-breaking grind that is the creative process. I have been fortunate to meet many such people over the years.

I’ve compiled a few of them and given them their own corner on my site, as a small thank you and tribute. Sometimes watching someone actually do the thing, really go for it, teeth and butt clenched tight, is spark enough to slap yourself out of complacency and go do the thing yourself.

Click on Portals of Interest above to see the list.

If you read this and your name is on my page, thanks for doing what you do. If you rather I use a different link for you or not have you on the page at all, just shoot me a message, no worries.

If you have something going on that I don’t know about, and would like to be added to the page, by all means let me know. My page is in no way a social hub, mind you. I don’t get much traffic, but it’s a little something I can do, and I do it gladly.

Riding the Tsunami

One of the first lessons I learned is that this published author thing is a feeding frenzy. There are so many of us out there, trying to have our work seen, our voices heard, that we drown each other out. It’s like being at a concert trying to sing louder than everyone else in the crowd (while some people are straight up screaming) in hopes the band hears you and asks you on stage, all the while sounding like a hoarse horse.

Luckily we live in the age of information and knowing is just a matter of time, patience, and perseverance. A special shout out to Dean Klinkenberg for giving me a few pro-tips to the trade. In the next few weeks I will be opening more options to keep you awesome people informed about of what I’m doing. I’ve set up a mailing list for anyone who wants to be in the loop about the promotions and giveaways I’ll be doing later on — not just about my book, but everything Darbretora related.

Like I said, it’s a massive endeavor, but now that I’ve bitten down I won’t let up until it’s done.

If you’re interested, you can sign up at the bottom of the page.

And as always, thanks for coming along on the ride, and happy Valentine’s day, and all that jazz.

A little backstory

When I realized the scope of my dream, it freaked me out. However, one small step at a time, I'm getting closer than ever to achieving this far-off goal.
When I was 13 I started writing about this far away land in a school notebook. Like anything at first, it was fairly vague and borrowing heavily from the books I was reading at the time. (Mostly Stephen King horror and TSR fantasy)
I wrote about strange places and the people who dared explore them. I wrote about the towns they would return home to, although not everyone would make it back. As the stories piled up, the world grew.
Then Dungeons and Dragons came into my life. I want to take a moment to blame/thank my good friend Carlos Londono for introducing me to this fantastic game. Check him out at http://theemeraldforge.com .He’s going to be a famous actor/writer/director one day, mark my words.

Anyway, I played a few sessions with friends and was immediately hooked. Before long I was the group DM and of course, I placed my campaign in the very world I had been building since I was a kid. Needless to say, Darbretora, the world I knew only from my own stories, took on a life of its own. The campaign lasted 10 years.
In that time I taught myself how to write stories properly, and began what I considered to be my first step in sharing my world with a larger audience.
I have recently published my first novel. The Horn of Dawn. Book 1, which takes place in this enigmatic world of mine. I am very proud of my work, and hope it does well. I bled on those pages, but as I said before, that was only the first step.
The second book is already in the works, but aside from that, I am building this website which contains everything referenced in the novels. The ancient history, current nations, pantheons, and important Ordos (pertaining to the story as it progresses) are all there. I will be adding to this site periodically, and posting all updates here, for anyone interested in reading.

If you do want to have a look around, I suggest reading the Introduction first.