Hiatus, Thoughts and Plans

This is a rant. You've been warned. ;)

Some of you might have noticed I'm writing a lot less these days. A few things have changed in my life, mostly for the better. I finished a long campaign — I definitely have to make a post about that. But I'm rethinking the usefulness of some of the stuff I do, and I think a bit less about RPGs these days (probably because I'm not playing as much either).

Many of the things I write are things I'd like to use myself, or have used. But I still want everything I write to be useful to someone else (or I wouldn't publish it).

I've been through a brief period of AI disillusionment, feeling that now AI can write faster, longer, and sometimes better than me. Well, from what I've seen, it is not quite there yet, but it might be in 2-3 years. So I was asking myself what is the point of taking the effort if AI will do it better in a couple of years.

And I'm still not 100% sure. But I'm seeing something. AI works with an ocean of trash. It can make a quick or detailed review of The Diamond Throne but it will not tell you it is terrible or why it is terrible (if you liked this book, I hope you don't mind my example).

AI is great at writing the easier, most obvious, most popular answer to your question. But it is not really trained to be contrarian, inquisitive, politically incorrect, etc. It can give you what you want but it is not really good at giving you what you didn't know you wanted.

So I guess I still have something to offer. It is a bit niche, but I've always been a bit niche (well, except for some 5e campaigns back in 2016 when everyone liked it).

BTW, the anti-AI sentiment has not been very helpful either. I got some flak for mentioning AI in my latest book, and I barely used it — it was more experimentation, dice-rolling and some brainstorming. But now that I know how to use it, I feel that NOT using it at all would be masochistic luddism at best. The time it saves when it corrects my typing errors is worth it by itself.

OTOH, I will NOT use AI art in my books. Not because of some moral high ground, but because I think it looks UGLY. The thing is, I'm a WRITER and not an ARTIST. So I feel that I can revise anything that AI gives me to ensure I'm not giving you AI slop. If I were an artist, I could maybe work with an AI somehow, but I'm not, so I prefer working with real artists that have real TASTE, even if I have to use stock art.

Which by itself is probably a contrarian view, as it is pro-AI and anti-AI at the same time.

Anyway, here are some future plans.

I'm going to continue working on Prismatic Planet and posting here. I might make the whole book available for free before I publish it. These posts do not get many views but that's probably the seed of my next campaign, and what I want to write.

I might write about a few books I've read: Norwegian Wood (weak and overhyped), The Stranger (not great), Amber (good but not great), etc. I was a bit discouraged for not having many nice things to say about them, but again, the contrarian view might be useful.

BTW, I have another blog called Inspiring Ideas. I haven't been using it but since I've been reading lots of self-help and self-improvement stuff, maybe it becomes more active this year.

Also, Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is some of the best fantasy TV ever, and I have to write about that — at very least to discuss the realistic medieval battles.

So, that's what I've got for now. As I mentioned, I write for myself first, and this has been my attempt to convince myself to continue writing. It brought me lots of joy over the years.

And, as always, I'm immensely grateful for everyone reading this.