I’ve been wanting to write this post for a while, and I suppose it’s finally time to do it. I’m sure I won’t express the complexities of my opinion well here, so I have to ask for some grace. Also, I want to point out that my opinions are my own, and I’m a flawed person just like everyone else. I cannot and do not think of everything, so I’m sure there are plenty of nuances of this subject that I am ignorant of.

That all said, here’s my thoughts on AI, especially with regards to writing/creativity in general.
It has a place, but generally speaking, I do not think it is art. That goes for AI-written words and AI images.

I don’t want to turn this into a bitter discourse about how so much energy and water are wasted stealing words and art made by actual people, though that is a major concern of mine. It’s cruelty spawned by capitalism and the self-destructive nature of humanity.

There are applications of AI that I am floored by. The possibility of it helping do things like identify cancer early.

Most of my problems with AI are really problems with capitalist applications. Maybe it can be attributed to my lifelong love of science-fiction. I’ve seen and read so many stories of it being used for altruist things: assisting people in everyday chores and even critical medical or scientific analysis.

My gripes are really those of any creative: our work is being stolen, and soulless derivatives are flooding the world instead. It’s not how we’re supposed to live.

What’s even worse is that people like myself are having our written words and artworks judged as being AI-generated when that’s completely untrue.

I know I’m really only repeating a lot of things that have already been said on the subject, by people much more eloquent than I am.
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More than anything, I want to make it clear that I do not use AI in my works in any capacity. Not for writing, plotting, editing, polishing, cover art, or any other part of my processes. And I never intend to.

Ah, the writing version of the chicken or the egg question, huh? Which one spouts in me first, the characters or the plot? I can answer this in one word:
Plot.
But if I left it there, it wouldn’t be much of a post, would it?
So let me delve into it a little. I kind of tangentially touched on this sort of thing a little when discussing my outlining process, but not in any significant way. I really only discussed coming up with significant story points for plot and characters, as a way to help mesh all the arcs and plot points into a cohesive whole.
I would say that 90% of the time, plot is what strikes me first. Ideas tend to be “what if THIS situation?” And that’s what spawns action from me. It’s usually one of two things that gets the idea into my head: either the initial plot hook or the crux of the conflict. For my current main project (working title Subscription Life), the plot is absolutely what sparked the idea. Had nothing to do with characters. That said, once I started creating the characters to go into the story, the plot ideas molded and reformed some to fit the people that would be in the world of the book.
That’s honestly pretty much how it goes for me. The little notebook I have where I jot down ideas is predominantly plot-hook type ideas. “World where,” type premises, or the basic description of a situation. Sometimes, it might even be something as simple as a line of dialogue or idea for a cool location. Sometimes, it’s elements of worldbuilding that strike me first. I guess in some ways, you could count that as a character, if the world is particularly central to the conflict of the story.
On those occasions that the character is the main inspiration for me, though, it’s pretty much never in a way that really makes the character a formed being, so to speak. It’s flighty, and more often a thought like, “the one person in the world who” kind of idea.
More often, though, the plot idea comes first, followed pretty quickly by the character idea. Like in Starsigns, the concept of a culture where your whole life’s path is determined at a fortune telling was immediately followed by the “what about the person who doesn’t have a fate?”
The whole book sprang from that.
Since it’s my current project, a little deeper insight on this subject as it pertains to that specific project. It might interest you to know that my main protagonist was the last main character for me to actually figure out the plot arc for. To be totally honest, that actually scared me a bit. Once I had the basics of the plot arc, I formed my main team of characters: the protagonist and a trio of friends. The three friends’ character arcs came about really easily for me. I won’t spoil things, but in short, I easily managed to basically flesh out the overarcing whole plot just from those three supporting characters’ story arcs.
Like, the whole story. The climax was set, some subplots and all had their place. But the protag was just… a shadow. A placeholder. How could that make sense? Was the spot I had for this Main Character (MC) really even necessary? If the whole plot made sense with just the three friends, shouldn’t one of them be the MC?
I almost went with that thought. Except for one thing that wouldn’t leave my mind: the trio’s stories lacked a real tie. The plot itself lacked its unifying factor:
The MC.
The story needed her. But if all the main conflicts were resolved with the characters I’d created, how did they need her?
They needed a spectator. But that’s boring. No one likes a protagonist who doesn’t take action. I’ve read books where the MC is reactive, even to the point of everything they do has the reasoning of “well, why not?” Those characters do nothing, offer nothing to the reader. There is no service they provide other than to be a vessel for the world to happen to them.
My protagonist couldn’t be this way. She needed more. She had to be at the center of things, actually taking action. She had to be the final piece of the final conflict, the bit that made all the difference and resolved everything. She had to be the ending.
Once I realized that and found out where she fit at the end, it was actually sort of easy to trace her path back to the beginning.
It was odd, honestly. I’ve never had an ending come together before everything else. But oddly enough, it’s the last half of this book that formed first. Normally, I get the first 2/3 easily and the last 1/3 is harder to plan.
I’m very eager to see how this project shakes out in the end. And I really hope this thought process persists to future projects. It’s actually made it really easy for me.

September has been a month of a lot of insanity in all realms: professional, personal, and beyond. I still got writing done, somehow.
Dungeons & Dragons: Bard Campaign - Session #7 fully planned. We haven’t played session 7 yet. In short, no update.
D&D Single Adventure - No progress, which hurts, but I said in July I was kind of waiting to see how modules run for me so I can get a better grip on what others would expect from a written adventure. I’m three sessions in with my first module one-shot coming at the end of October. I just need to get down to it and write.
Criminal from Birth sequel - Still with editor.
LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - Chugging along and still enjoying! Not a lot to say other than the outlining is progressing.
Current chapters in Draft Point Five: 18 (up 10 from last month)
New Short Story (My Stories) - Same as last month. I got some work done on it, but not enough.
I also did write a handful of future blog posts (trying to get and stay ahead) and started on the 10-minute writing exercises. I’ve done three of those already.

Well, this is another blog post subject from the list I got that’s pretty much a defunct question, but let’s go with it anyway.
Aside from the fact that FB is no longer really worth much of my time, I was never a huge participant in the “following pages” practice of social media. That said, I do have an official page: A.F. Grappin Fans that, to be totally honest, isn’t particularly active. I do post weekly updates about these very blog posts, but that’s about it.
In short, I don’t do much Facebook anymore.
Generally speaking, I’m a few years out of having a large writing community I’m involved with. Covid and my own burnout removed me from a lot of the writing podcasts I was a big listener to, and it’s possibly some of them aren’t even active anymore today.
But, when I was very into them, here are the writing podcasts and resources I was a big fan of:
Writing Excuses https://writingexcuses.com
The Drabblecast https://www.drabblecast.org
Podcastle/ Escape Pod / Pseudopod (Escape Artists) https://escapeartists.net
I Should Be Writing https://murverse.com/podcasts/isbw
And there’s always the backlog of the writing podcast that I did for five years with my other writerly friends, The Melting Potcast https://themeltingpotcast.podbean.com
There are plenty of other resources out there. Go see who and what you like, if that’s your jam!

Oh, you’re going for the interesting questions, huh? Well, fine.
I’ve talked before about how I was an odd child. I really was. When I was growing up, there were a bunch of books called something like the Great Illustrated Classics. They were exactly what they sounded like: abridged, illustrated versions of classic books. From Robin Hood to Treasure Island to The Three Musketeers. They came in two sizes: big hardcovers and tiny, fat paperbacks. I think we had maybe one or two hardcovers, but mostly I had the small fat ones. And when I say small, fat paperbacks, these weren’t even the size of trade paperbacks. They were as thick as fantasy paperbacks, but these were maybe half the height of a trade paperback. These were square and flimsy. They were 2 for $1.
I ate them up as a kid. As a result, I was the 10-year-old who knew the plots of a lot of Dickens and Dumas. I knew Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Heidi, and Jekyll & Hyde. That was just for starters. Being overly familiar with these books had me going into more advanced reading and English classes as a teen. I’d already read the 9th grade classics for the year— granted, I knew the abridged versions, and class was reading the unabridged— so when my teacher gave me a basic plot pop-quiz on the two books for that year, I had no problem answering. Great Expectations and The Count of Monte Cristo were favorites of mine. I knew the stories well. So my teacher, Mr. Dodd, had me read along with his 12th graders at the time: Les Miserables and Ivanhoe.
In short, as a child, the classics were my favorites. I discovered The Hobbit at age 10 or so and read the entire The Lord of the Rings trilogy by the time I was 12. I even tried The Silmarillion around that time… yeah. No. I’m 41 now and just tried that one again like last year and STILL no.
As a kid, I’d say Dickens and Dumas were my favorites. The Count of Monte Cristo remains one of my favorite stories to this day, and I just love Dickens anyway. I think David Copperfield was one of my favorites.
But I don’t know that I’d have called any of those classics “my favorite book as a child.”
No, that honor goes to a book I randomly picked up at a Scholastic book fair when I was around 11 or 12, maybe. It’s a book that was published in 1993, so I was 9 when it came out. I might have gotten it pretty quick on release, but I doubt it.
Anyway, the book was Gemini Game by Michael Scott. It was a middle-grade-aged sci-fi novel set in the early 21st century, centered around a pair of teenagers who created VR video games. One of their games started causing people to go into comas, and the police were after them. To prove their innocence, the two teens— twins named BJ and Liz— had to go into their own game and find out what the problem was.
Keep in mind, this again was in the early 90s. Mainstream video gaming was still in its early years, with the SNES and Sega Genesis ruling the roost. The N64 and PlayStation were still a few years away. I, however, had already become very video-game obsessed. That started young, when we got our first Nintendo Entertainment System. By the time Gemini Game appeared in my world, I was hungry for books about video games. And this one, where players went inside the game, was a dream book made real.
I want to say I reread it at some point in my 30s. It’s not long, but thing is, I read it so many times in my youth that I remember a great deal of it even now. I even still have my original copy of it. The cover has been taped back into place where it came off, but it holds a very special place on my bookshelf.
How fitting that I’m finally writing a LitRPG story of my own. Only took 3 decades.

This is a silly question for me. I am notorious about putting myself and my friends in stories. Sometimes, it’s just for the thrill of using their name, or a variation of it. More often than not, that’s it.
Second-most frequently, I’ll use their description as a basis for a character. I know a lot of people of wondrous variety, so why not put their visages in books? It keeps me from getting too lazy when it comes to describing characters, if I have a living reference to draw from. I’ve done that for ages, but it turns out I had a good reason why I couldn’t just imagine people on my own. Turns out I have aphantasia to a very high degree. If you’re not familiar with aphantasia, well, I wasn’t either. In short, it means I have no mental visualization. I legitimately cannot visualize things in my head. Ask me to picture a red apple, and I could absolutely describe one to you, but I’m not “seeing” it. For so long, I thought people were just being metaphorical about “picture this in your mind.” Or the concept of “the mind’s eye.” I don’t have those. It was kind of a blow to find out people actually CAN see things in their heads.
So I’ve always needed to think a little differently, which is fine. I can describe things well. Call it a coping mechanism.
But I absolutely do fully base characters in books off people I know. As I said, I’m the most common inserted one, but it’s been getting less and less as time goes on. Most likely, you’ll find the me-character in a supporting or even cameo role. Sometimes the name might be reminiscent of mine, like my character in The Deadly Studies. Oh yeah, I’m there. And I die. It’s great.
I’ve also stuffed my best friends into a few stories. It helps to be able to lay out a situation to my friends and say, “How would you react?” or even to possibly play out some dialogue. My best friend is a pro at that. They’ve helped me far more times than I can count. I’d be lost without my best friend.
Anyway, the short answer is yes, I do this A LOT.
If you’re not careful around me, you might end up in a book. 

Oh, geez. You’re really going to make me talk about this, aren’t you?
Okay. Well, it was in middle school (~ages 11-13 for those not familiar with US public school in the 90s) that I really started writing, and it was in maybe 7th or 8th grade when I wrote my first novel.
It was a weird parody/homage to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was trying to emulate farce movies I was fond of as a kid, movies like Hot Shots! and Robin Hood: Men In Tights. But it was a TMNT homage in that the main characters were four guys who knew martial arts.
The Kung-Fu Cockroaches.
I honestly don’t remember a whole ton of the plot. None of it, actually. I don’t even remember the Cockroaches’ names, even though I know I finished one book about them and started the sequel. Then again, this was all handwritten, and I have no idea what the word count was.
I do vaguely remember one of their weapons. At the time, since I was obviously finding my voice, learning techniques and storytelling and all, I was very hell-bent on the “subvert expectations at the end” lists of things. So I want to say the first three had somewhat expected weapons. Maybe not actual nunchucks, more like… a single throwing star. But I very strongly remember the last Kung-Fu Cockroach’s weapon was “a seed wrapped in a band-aid.”
It’s pretty obvious I was a weird kid.
The only other thing I really recall about it was that I was changing narrative POV every chapter, cycling through the four protagonists.
As for where the book is now, I’m sure it’s long been incinerated. I can’t say I’m upset about it. There’s probably a great case to be made that reading it will show the roots and foundation of the writer I’ve become now, around 30 years later, but… no. I honestly don’t want to be cringing at that mess. It feels embarrassing enough admitting to that silly-ass weapon.
I had a lot to learn about humor.
But, while on the topic, I’ll briefly discuss a few other projects I recall from around that time:
My Best Friend Exploded Last Week - This was a “book” I wrote that was probably around novelette length, and it was definitely all about the title. I did the narrative technique of starting the book with the KABOOM of the friend exploding, then explaining the whole store until it repeated the explosion with all context at the end. Again, I don’t remember much of plot, characters, or anything, but I do remember there was a whole thing with a mad scientist who was making human-animal hybrids, a la Dr. Moreau (I saw that movie way too young). And I do recall one of the characters being told their DNA would be merged with that of an amoeba.
Weird kid.
The Dough That Ate New York City - This was a short narrative poem, and I actually do wish I still had this one. It was maybe 15-20 stanzas long, simple rhyming quatrains, talking about a lump of dough— like bread or pizza dough— that grew so out of control it… well, it ate New York City.
In those days, I was fairly prolific, but it’s very true you need to get a good million words under your belt before you really start getting a good feel for the craft. I’m glad I started that young, but holy crap does it make me cringe!

I wasn’t wrong about August being a huge change. With the full-time job again and all, time is a crunch, but the great thing is that I do get some time to write there if the shop’s dead and I’ve gotten my inventory projects done for the day. So there has been progress!
Dungeons & Dragons: Bard Campaign - Session #7 fully planned. No new update. We haven’t played session 7 yet. In short, no update.
D&D Single Adventure - No progress, which hurts, but I said last month I was kind of waiting to see how modules run for me so I can get a better grip on what others would expect from a written adventure. My first session is behind me now and the second comes up tomorrow, so I’m getting that exposure I’ve been wanting.
Criminal from Birth sequel - Guess what! I finished the second draft pretty quickly into August! It’s currently with my editor!
LitRPG book (working title Subscription Life) - I am getting SO FREAKING EXCITED about this project. I’ve been through a main overarcing outline, as well as 7-pointed the character arcs of 4 main characters (1 protagonist and 3 supporting characters including a secondary antagonist), and I’m into my full outline now, which is my Draft Point Five that I’ve mentioned before in my outlining series of blog posts. I have a long way to go, but I have a strong sense of the ending of this book, which is a first for me. Not just the actual end, but the climax. That’s not normally something I have figured well. But right now, it’s the details of the first half of the book that are sparse. I have an easy time building up, so I’m really hoping this will all go smoothly!
Current chapters in Draft Point Five: 8
New Short Story (My Stories) - Same as last month. I got some work done on it, but not enough. I kinda got obsessed with Subscription Life.
I did get one writing prompt done in August. Not as much as I wanted, but I also did pick another I plan to write, so there’s that. I need to do more exercises, like I said last month. In fact, I've done one already for today's Patron post!

For those of you who don’t know, my formal education is in music. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Music Composition and Theory that I’m not using. But music has been a very prominent force in my life since I was a preteen, if not sooner. It’s around age 10-11 that I really remember just how hugely important it became, but I have older memories of it permeating my life as well. 

Anyway, I mostly listen to instrumental music while writing. Songs with lyrics impede my ability to create words of my own. I can’t help singing. But I do very much prefer some sort of background sound while making words. 

While I do have a strong love for classical music (I’m a huge fan of a lot of Russian and Slavic composers, such as Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich (Dvorak is my favorite)), I don’t often turn to classical for my writing music. Not anymore, anyway. Back in college and right after, I regularly turned to modern concert music, particularly the works of Robert W. Smith and David Holsinger. Then again, I performed a lot of their music in high school and college.

No, what’s always been a fallback for me is video game music. Some movie soundtracks hit that itch, like the soundtrack from The Last of the Mohicans. But video game music (VGM) ties together two of my great loves: music and video games. I mean… seriously. 

What’s great about it is that VGM is made to invoke atmosphere and feeling. It’s supportive in nature, contributing to the ambiance of the situation. It can be catchy, emotional, tense, relaxing, cheery, ominous, all sorts of things. And there is a massive library, going back decades. It’s frequently remixed, covered, medleyed, and mashed up. Some pieces tell stories, like boss music or some from cutscenes.

I’ve been building a couple playlists for a while now, but they’re not specifically for writing, nor do I tend to make playlists specifically for any projects. Same playlists for everything. But I have two main ones: one that is shorter instrumentals and one for extended versions. 

Sometimes I want to active mental trigger of mood changes, especially since I put my short instrumental playlist on shuffle. I believe the longest piece on that playlist is around 8 minutes (yeah, that’s a boss fight theme.) So the songs are familiar, but the order is not. It keeps the mind active and the creative juices flowing and reactive. 

The extended versions playlist has fewer pieces on it, but they’re longer. The shortest one on that list is a 16-minute version of background ambiance that just loops. Many of the pieces there are. I have an hour-long repeated loop of a Legend of Zelda piece that I just sink into. That playlist does have longer songs that are say, an album of instrumental pieces from one video game, but a lot of it is just extended repeat loops. That playlist is great for sinking into and letting the mind flow. It’s honestly good for things like blog posts or exercises where I can stream-of-consciousness write. Much better for longer writing sessions.

Both of my playlists are on YouTube, but I keep them private mostly to keep them from being displayed in my actual content.

So that’s about it. Mostly video game music, and it’s the same for all my writing. Call it one of the particulars of my writing practice. I’m not the tortured artist who needs certain locations or a routine to get the words flowing. I don’t even really need the music. It’s just a bonus that makes me happy, activating a different part of the brain.
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Find what works for you!

Okay, to start out, I’m not particularly feeling great about this post topic in general. It feels a little baity to me, mostly in a sort of “anything you don’t list here isn’t really important” kind of way. But I said I want to at least attempt all 52 of these blog post topics, so here’s this one.

So let’s just disclaimer that right away and say that:
1. These opinions are my own.
2. They are not my ONLY values.
3. This is really personal and generally speaking, I like to try and separate my art and my personal beliefs separate. My characters think, do, and say things I never would. That kind of thing should be a basic understanding as far as I’m concerned, but whatever.
4. This is not open to debate in general. At least not online. If you have a problem with me, talk to me like an adult. I’m not attacking anyone in stating what I value, and I expect to be treated with the same courtesy.

So what are my values? Honestly, it’s pretty simple.
Everyone has value and deserves the best life available. 

That puts in about as simplistic a term as I can put it. No one person has more or less value than any other. No one belief is greater than any other. Your rights end where anyone else’s body begins, and the same goes for me. As long as no one is being harmed by your words, actions, or beliefs, that’s all that matters. Want to have gay BDSM orgies? Great. Keep it away from unwilling eyes, go have fun. Want to flog yourself and pinch your nipples thinking about the pedophiles currently in US political power? Enjoy. But the second you start forcing your wants and beliefs on someone else is the moment I lose patience and write you off. You don’t get to preach to me about how I’m going to Hell if you won’t listen to me tell you why my “sin” is no greater or worse than yours. I have no desire to try and “turn you gay,” so why do I have to endure your judgmental rant about my haircut not being something you like? It’s not your hair.

Okay, let’s put that rant aside.

If I had to pick one thing above all else to value, it would be kindness. Not niceness, not love, not tolerance or acceptance or conviction or faith. 

Kindness.

I’ve heard it said before that the difference between kindness and niceness is apparent in culture on the US east and west coast. That people on the west coast are nice but not kind, and on the east coast, they’re kind but not nice. He example I’ve heard: your car is broken down on the side of the road.

Kind but not nice: You dumbass, how could you let your tires get that bad? Here, I have a carjack, idiot. Let me just change this tire. Oh hang on, my girlfriend’s calling. Hey Baby. Yeah, I’m on the side of the road helping some moron change a tire. I’ll be home late. 

They’ll call you names, belittle you even, but they’ll help fix the problem. Now the other side.

Nice but not kind: Oh no, you poor sweet baby, are you okay? Flat tire? That sucks. But you’re okay? You have water and a cell phone to call for help? Great. Hope you get home safe. Bye!
They’ll express worry, make sure you’re okay, but not lift a finger to help.

That’s why I prefer kindness. Insult me all you want, but if you are able and able to help, do it. There’s a whole lot of this world and its greater human culture that would be improved if we’d just make kindness more common. I simply don’t understand how people can be so horrible to one another. Sure, I understand the psychology of it. Hurt people hurt people. Sure. But dammit, we should be better than this. 

Be gentle with yourself first. It’s hard. It is SO hard. I’m 41 and still working on it. I’m getting better. From there, practice kindness. Something as simple as a genuine compliment can go a long way towards brightening not only the recipient’s day, but your own. Such a thing feels awkward at first; it did for me when I started a few years ago. Passing by a stranger in the grocery store and thinking, “Wow, that dress looks great on her,” is fine, but dammit, SAY IT. There’s no reason not to! I have no problem now telling people what great smiles they have, that the color they’re wearing really works for them, their hair is awesome, or that they just look happy.

Spread love recklessly. Maybe that should be a value.
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Do it. I dare you.