I’m a very wide reader, in that I don’t really discriminate a whole lot on what I read. Sure, I have favorite genres and styles over others. Who doesn’t. But I can just as happily sink into a high fantasy epic saga as a romance novel, a memoir as a horror story, a LitRPG comedy as a historical investigation. I’m pretty specifically thinking of certain books here, and I enjoy them all.

Of course, there are plenty of things I don’t have a ton of interest in reading. There are genres and even authors I can’t make it through. For example, I’ve tried multiple times, in multiple ways to read Terry Pratchett’s books, and my brain just cannot parse them and enjoy them. And it sucks, because it’s a world I enjoy (I have a friend who tells me about them and I’ve seen one of the movies). 

But the point is that I don’t narrowmindedly discard a book because it’s not a genre I’m familiar with. I don’t read a lot of romance, but I do read it. That goes from the basic boy-meets-girl love story through heavy erotica. I read from cyberpunk sci-fi to space marines and beyond. I’ve enjoyed a number of memoirs and histories (only really about people or events I’m interested in, but it’s still interesting).

The point is, everything influences what I write. If I have a romantic arc, I can tap into what I’ve learned from romance novels. Need to amp up tension and fear for a situation? Great, I have some tricks I’ve picked up from horror stories.

The point is, I write what I want and do the best I can at it. There are so many words out there. Read them. 
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Even if all you take from them is what NOT to do. Because believe me, I have plenty of things I’ve read that taught me those kinds of lessons, too.

All, like all the writing?
In a word, absolutely.
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I am currently in a very introspective phase of my life, and these sorts of questions are constantly going through my head. Where have I been? Where am I now? Where do I want to be?

I’m approaching 42 this summer. I can look back 20 years now and see who and where I was, what my life was, and… 

Perspective is weird. I’ll just say that. I look at pictures of me 20 years ago and hardly that person. Yet I remember so much. I saw a photo of myself from 4-5 years ago and hardly recognized the A. F. in the picture. I’ve come a very long way.

It’s been hard. Much of my life was harder than I recognized at the time, which is something I’ve noticed about myself. I block and dissociate a lot in the effort to protect myself.

Recently, I’ve actively tried to stop doing that. There’s been mild success. But what I’ve had a lot of success at is inspecting my past and seeing it for what it really was. Some of that has come about through my writing, which I now have a good 30 years of. Though probably 10 years of the actual writings are nothing more than memory.

So I have say, 20 years of writings to look back on and triangulate my life with. 20 years of words I’ve made that put a time capsule around my world, my experience, my identity.
I cringe at vast amounts of it, looking back. But I’ve been reinspecting it, sharing it on my Patreon (and much of it exists elsewhere if you search hard enough, just saying) and…

I don’t regret any of it. My life.

Sure, there are things I regret doing. Choices I’ve made that are bad, choices I didn’t make that I should have, times I made no choice at all. 

And somehow, I still wound up here, where I am now, the man I’ve grown to be and am still growing into.

I love him. Me. 

That’s not something I’ve been able to say genuinely until these last few months. I know I keep thinking it, thinking about talking about it, but not sure if I’m talking about it as much as I think I am. If I’m prattling on about this a lot, I apologize. It’s been building in me for my whole life and finally revealed itself, and it’s like a new toy. A new car, a new favorite shirt.

It’s… become everything to me. I’ve found satisfaction in being myself.

I can only hope you feel the same way about yourself.

With age, experience, maturity, perspective, my writing has improved. But… that’s just the nature of life, right?

Why would I NOT want to do it all over again?

Despite that, I’m glad I don’t have to. I’m moving forward while honoring the past. Emotionally and in writing.

I wouldn’t be me right now if I hadn’t put down those cringe words as a teenager and 20-something. 

Even then, I couldn’t imagine me now, the words I make now. 

What are those things going to look like in another 20 years?

This… could be interesting right now. So, the main character for my current project is LiveBeans aka Libby, a generated AI-NPC inside an MMORPG. Thing is, through most of my initial outlining process, she was a blank shadow to me. I knew I needed her, but why was a mystery. Who she was and is… is still a bit of mystery for me, and I’m at the point in writing where I need to be in her head because she IS the MC. She’s the lens through which most of the story will be seen.
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So… let’s use this to maybe get to know here a bit. I’m going to probe. I can’t guarantee anything here will end up being canon, but… here goes.

Interviewer: Let’s start small. Your procedurally generated name is LiveBeans, but you go by Libby. How did that come about?

LiveBeans: Well, it’s LiveBeans, not LiveBeans. Like living, not alive. 

Interviewer: Is that so? How do you know? I thought the way your names were generated were generally Adjective-Noun, but the way you pronounce live isn’t an adjective.

LiveBeans: I mean, not all names start with adjectives. Some have gerunds, like “dancing” or just freaking article. One of my best friend’s names is TheSniper. So it’s not like there’s a law over the pronunciation of live versus live. Shouldn’t I have say in my own name?

Interviewer: That makes a lot of sense. I apologize for the assumption. So then Libby came from--

Libby: From not wanting to be called LiveBeans forever. How would you like being called FunkyMelon or LeapingTrash? IRL people have nicknames. Why can’t an NPC? Pronounced the way I like it, LiveBeans just sort of make Libby make sense. It’s a legit name, so I took it.

Interviewer: Sensible. I didn’t mean to offend. But thank you for the explanation. So, you mentioned you’re an NPC. Tell us about what you do.

Libby: I was spawned in Kyalanzo, which is a pretty big city, and that’s where my territory is. I’m a questgiver.

Interviewer: A questgiver in a city? How many quests do you have?

Libby: I’m not really that important. I don’t, like, start one of the huge plot quest chains or anything. Specific P-NPCs get made for those kinds of jobs. I’m a G-NPC. One that was generated by the game itself. So I don’t get to be that important. I have a few fetch quests and one assassination quest I can give to players who fit the criteria.

Interviewer: And what are the criteria?

Libby: For any of my quests, players need to be at least level 20. For the assassination quest, they need to have affiliation with at least one crafter’s guild. Smithing, Carpentry, Herbalism, whatever. 

Interviewer: So does the quest involved someone from a crafting guild in Kyalanzo?

Libby: I can’t tell you that. You don’t fit the criteria. 

Interviewer: Hahaha, okay, that’s fair. Now, Libby, you said you’re a G-NPC and that there are a different type of NPC. P-NPCs. What’s the difference?

Libby: P-NPCs, or Plot Non-Player Characters, are characters specifically created and coded by the game developers. They’re the ones who have no actual self-actualization. They don’t know they’re in a game and aren’t smart enough to understand it, even if they were told about it. They’re literal shells with coding inside. No real intelligence. 
G-NPCs, or Generated Non-Player Characters, are made entirely differently.

Interviewer: How so?

Libby: Well… through sex.

Interviewer: Sex? Um… it’s a game, right?

Libby: People do what people do, and sex sells. The developers decided it would be a cool feature to add possible children to the game. So if two players do the do inside the game, there’s the option to “spawn offspring” from the union. More people do it than you think. But both players have to select to do so independently, and… bam. 
No pregnancy, a G-NPC gets “born,” and we each get our own self-contained Artificial Intelligence code. And we’re left alone by the game, for the most part. We grow to “adulthood” within a month of real-time, and our appearance and skillsets are procedurally generated, just like our names are. 

Interviewer: You grow up in a month?

Libby: Yeah. Two days of babyhood where one of our PC parents is supposed to take care of us— not that it actually happens, but it’s not like we can die from neglect. And most of us don’t even really know who our parents are. It’s in our code, but most of the time, they don’t actually take care of us like they’re supposed to for those couple of days. We just sort of… are. A lot of us G-NPCs just sort of keep our eyes open for any unattended baby AIs. 
After those couple baby-days, we have a week or so of childhood, a week or so of teenagerhood, and then we get our final form. Which like I said, is randomized.

Interviewer: You don’t get to customize your appearance?

Libby: To a certain degree. We can go to the same cosmetic shops as players and adjust things like hair style and color. We can mess with our outfits, but we don’t get to pick sex, body size, shape, facial features, or anything like that. And our “adult age” is random too. I know some G-NPCs who hit adulthood only to be stuck forever in a child-body. Or an elderly one. Or something non-human.

Interviewer: But you all start as human babies? Regardless of the race of the player parents?

Libby: Yeah. Fucked up, isn’t it? 

Interviewer: It’s a wild card of a life, that’s for certain. How did you get your job?

Libby: Same as the rest. G-NPCs are plentiful, but there’s always something to do in one of the cities. I didn’t have to get a job, really. I just wanted one. I could’ve been part of the game scenery. Just going about my day in the city, walking around, taking up space. Being another body. But I wanted something to do with my time, so I went to the assignment office. That’s in one of the buildings PCs can’t get into at all. It’s a place the developers set up for my kind. We want to get a job or change it, they have all the information on what’s needed, and if you can fit the skillset, you can do the job. Being a questgiver doesn’t take much. Not unless you want to be on an escort quest or something. That takes special permissions. Like some combat prowess.

Interviewer: And you didn’t qualify for escort quests?

Libby: Oh, I qualified, but I didn’t want an escort quest.

Interviewer: Can I ask why?

Libby: I’m happy in the city. I’m safe here. Outside the walls, it’s dangerous. G-NPCs can only leave the city if we’re on an escort quest or something similar, but once we’re out there, we’re fair game to anyone or anything that wants us dead. That didn’t appeal to me.

Interviewer: I can imagine it wouldn’t. Have you had any other jobs?

Libby: No, this is it. I’m content.

Interviewer: So, knowing your life is contained to a literal game, to a single city, you’re content? Would you go so far as to say happy?

Libby: I suppose so. I know there’s possibility of leaving that comes along sometimes.

Interviewer: Leaving? How?

Libby: I’m not even close to understanding the science or whatever behind it. But in the same way real people can be fully inserted into the game and leave their bodies behind, AIs like me can take one of the bodies instead. We can actually go to the real world and have… like unprogrammed lives.

Interviewer: Do you know anyone who’s left?

Libby: No personally, no. I mean, the AIs who leave just… leave. They don’t come back. Why would you want to?

Interviewer: Don’t they get homesick?

Libby: How should I know? I don’t even know if I would. I’ve never been homesick. I’ve never left Kyalanzo. How would I know what I was feeling? But it’s a whole real world out there. No quests, no monsters, no hit points or gear or inventory restrictions based on coding. Possibility. Life.

Interviewer: So is that something you’d want? Life outside the game?

Libby: …

Interviewer: That’s a big ask. Was it too much?

Libby: I don’t know. It’s not like it’s been in the cards. However they choose which ones of us get to leave… I don’t know. I try not to think about it too much.

Interviewer: I… think it might be smart to leave it there. I’m sorry if I upset you.

Libby: I’m just an NPC. Don’t worry about me.

I legit don’t know where March went. Between a sudden theatre tech gig that took up most of a week and prepping for con season to really get going, I didn’t manage as much writing as I wanted, but I’ll say the writing I did do was good.

Short Story (working title “Recalled”) - No updates this month. Still at around 1800 words. Crap. This makes two months in a row. I’m at the point I need to go reread what I’ve already done and decide if I actually want to pursue anymore.

Criminal From Birth sequel - Still with editor. It’s been rough. I might have a title though.  Still haven’t decided.

LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - I only managed to write one more scene, though once again, I wrote it twice. First version was 448 words, second was 781 and again, so much better. More full.

So we’ll say 1224 written on it. I need to do better. My time is about to be at a premium come May, so I really hope to make April better for word-making.

Once again, this is not a first impression of this book. I’ve listened to it MANY times and it’s part of one of my favorite series.

We’re working our way through the series, aren’t we? Going to be interesting when we get to the latest book, because that’s going to be a first impression. Comes out in May, so by the time we get to its release, timing-wise, I should be able to get it, listen to it, and write my review before it needs to be up here. 

Anyway, for now, we’re on book 5, The Butcher’s Masquerade. I was nearing the end before I finally figured out what aspect of writing and storytelling I wanted to focus on for it, but it jumped out at me pretty suddenly when I started thinking about it. For this book, it’s a matter of meta-storytelling, what exactly happens in this book that made me want to have a discussion. 

This is a major turning point in the series. The Butcher’s Masquerade is the book where our protagonist, Carl, finally makes the switch from reactive to proactive.

In simpler terms, this is when Carl stops being recipient to events and starts taking action to create events. This is the book where Carl takes the future into his own hands and starts directing the narrative himself, as much as he can. More than anything, it’s when he begins rebelling against the system in earnest, taking direct action and having a plan in place, rather than taking opportunities as he sees them. Carl has finally gotten to a point he cannot just sit and accept unfairness anymore. 

I’m going to try to avoid detailed spoilers, but no promises. So proceed with caution.

This book is the one where he starts exploiting his position, most notably his audience. The advantages his new adversaries on this floor, the Hunters, have is something he calls out right away. Knowing he’s being watched (and knowing the Hunters can communicate with the audience to get inside information on locations, skills, equipment, etc), Carl makes a quick point of complaining loudly about his opponents cheating. 

Even more shocking, he has plans from the very beginning to upset the “natural order” of how the game progresses on this floor. The Hunting Grounds is where real people from the galaxy outside the dungeon come to gather equipment and experience for the future game coming in a few floors. These “guests” can actually die here, but a big part of their goal is to slay the crawlers like Carl and his friends. They won’t be released until the first day or so has passed, but that’s not stopping Carl. He refuses to run and hide like the crawlers pretty much always have to. Instead, he takes advantage of their laziness and false sense of secure superiority and attacks the outright, taking out a shocking number. 

It only grows from there. This is the book where Carl’s true goals start to show themselves. He wants the “natural order” of things disrupted in every way possible. And he’s not just thinking of now, either. He’s looking at the long-term, the endgame. He’s working to break the crawl altogether, and Dinniman works to really tie a lot of threads together into a cable that does some serious emotional damage this book. Along with Carl’s anger and action ramping up, the harsh truth is it’s getting to the point damage done to Carl and the characters we’ve come to love up until now is also getting worse. We can’t help but lose people and even things we love. 

That’s really all I’ll say at this point. The last section of this book hurts. Stab after stab comes, and it’s a lot to endure. There’s a particular question from Donut that breaks me every time I read/hear it. I’ve felt that way, and I haven’t even been through a fraction of the shit Donut has to this point in the series. It’s so real, such raw emotion that I can’t imagine any sane person not choking up at what these characters are going through.

The transformation from reactive to proactive happens so gradually over the course of the previous book (The Gate of the Feral Gods) and into this one that I hadn’t really thought about it before now. But I’m glad I did. Carl’s conviction is really what solidifies, and the biggest moment I can think of to illustrate the difference comes from a moment in the previous book. SPOILERS FROM HERE, so be aware these will not be avoided.

I’m talking about Loita’s death. In the previous book, Carl didn’t decide until the pretty literal last minute to go through with his plan to try and off her. There was no hesitation about the attack on Zochau, which also killed real people. And a lot of them.

In short, this is where Carl’s agency finally makes that switch from responding to the world around him to fully taking charge and trying to make things different his way, rather than playing by the rules. It’s, like I said, almost so subtle a change that it’s hard to pinpoint. But it’s easy to accept because it’s so very… Carl. If anything, I’d say a lot of the shock comes from finding out exactly how alike Donut is, how she’s been doing things Carl doesn’t know about. Things along the same vein, but in a very Donut way.

Vive la révolution.