NOVEMBER NIGHTS

Back in January of 2023, I had my head down thinking about what book I might work on next, and how to finish up writing a TV series that I had been working on. I was totally oblivious to the technological revolution taking place in Silicon Valley. To be honest, my enthusiasm for writing another book was at an all-time low. I was more wrapped up in the TV series than anything, seeing it as a perfect encapsulation of my brand of storytelling. A TV series that tells multiple stand-alone stories spanning decades that are intertwined with one another. To this day, I still think it might be one of my best stories. 

Then things started to get interesting. 

I have tried for decades to stay as true to my 25-year-old creative spirit as possible. Why? My concern has always been that one day the story-making machine  (my brain) would stop generating stories that my 25-year-old self would want to read or watch on a screen. Not that I had a desire to never grow up, but I wanted to remain true to myself and the vision and passion that I had at that age. Fearing that one day I would wake up and no longer have an interest or an ability to tell proper stories. There have been some major sacrifices along the way, but I have been able to remain true to myself. And in the end, that has meant the world to me. 

Have I missed out on some things along the way because of it? Yes. Do I regret it? No, but I have had doubts at times through the years. I've never wanted to live a conventional life; it has never appealed to me. I've worked for big corporations and felt as insignificant as a fly on a cow's backside. We are all cogs in the machine of humanity, gobbling up resources and defecating on the future, all in an effort to live our best lives. I am no exception in that regard. Sure, I may care more about the future than most, but I am still just a cog in the machine, grinding through the gears as I work to create stories and enable others to tell theirs. 

"Do no harm." It is part of an oath that doctors take in order to become licensed to practice medicine. I am not sure why I think about those three words so much. I have never desired to be a doctor, and yet I try and live my life by those three words in the Hippocratic oath. I wish more people did as well. We'd have fewer villains masquerading as heroes, pretending to be the good guy when in fact they are destroying more than they create. Maybe they all live by the belief that from destruction comes creation. These are tricky times and there are enough tricky dicks trying to deceive us just to enrich themselves these days. 

I digress. 

We are fast approaching the end of the year. While this is not my year-in-review post, which I normally do in late December, I am in need of taking an account of where I am on my goals for the year. Why? Because I need to focus and begin to pivot on what comes next. I have learned a lot this year. The 1st Draft App was always my main focus, but it wasn't the only thing, far from it. I had Plans for three apps. I thought for sure I could complete at least two before the end of the year. All the while, working on short AI films, graphic novels, video games, and podcasts. Little did I know that most of my attention would be focused on building the 1st Draft App. It was a sacrifice of time that I was willing to make, though. Why? 

That's complicated. I took a more arduous path, as I laid out in my last blog post. I did not think it would be that way when I started. But then I had never built an app before; I had only seen others build apps with AI tools, and they made it look so easy. In truth, it is not that difficult to create something with AI tools. To actually get it the way you want when you've never done so before is the hard part. And my willingness to sacrifice much of my other plans for the year to learn about each tool and the process of building was more important than keeping up with all the changes in AI, like I had been doing for 2 years. 

The AI image and video tools have improved a lot this year, but I did not obsess about them like I had in the past. Same with all the other tools; they have all improved this year. But you know what? That just means it will be easier for me to use them when I actually circle back around and continue where I left off in July. The month I realized that I had once again made bigger plans than I was capable of achieving for the year. 

I have been humbled countless times through the years after planning to do what, at the time of creating those plans, seemed completely realistic. It shows I have a ton of confidence in myself, and I am not afraid to make big plans. It also shows that I fall short, like a lot. I think back to the early 2000s when I routinely managed to write between 5-10 screenplays in a year. My brain was on fire. I think that, and the completion of Monarch, gave me the confidence to make such audacious plans. Creation has always been the most important thing for me. With 1st Draft, I wanted to take great care in making sure that I was building a tool that others could use to create with little friction. But then I am no longer just writing screenplays; I am building things I have never built before. My confidence to do so comes from my history of being able to write stories and being generally creative, yes. It also stems from the rapid advancements in technology and my having kept a close eye on things over the past few years. Having used many of the tools. 

As I reflect, I realize now that I was too confident, thinking that with the help of AI, I would be able to achieve all my goals in a super short period of time. In truth, my strength is my capability to write stories and be creative, not just first drafts of screenplays but also polished final drafts ready for audiences. Yes, I have gained some knowledge about AI over the past three years, but my goal is to do more than I alone have the capacity to do without AI. I have learned a lot this year and made strides towards my goals, but I have fallen short of achieving all that I wanted to achieve this year. And I own that. 

Even with my plans for three apps, I didn't think all three would be ready to go by the end of the year. I thought maybe two of them would be ready, and the third would get more attention by the beginning of 2026. In theory, I could still get the 2nd app ready by the end of the year and finish the short AI film I began work on in 2024. However, things have changed. I care more about getting 1st Draft into the app stores. 

I've had second thoughts about the 2nd and 3rd apps. I still plan on creating them, but I am not as much of an authority on them as I am with the 1st Draft App. With 1st Draft, I am a writer who created a tool that can help me as a writer, and therefore, I know for a fact it will help others create their stories. The other two apps are still focused on storytelling, but they are not necessarily tools that I would use. I will use them, don't get me wrong, but not like 1st Draft. I expect I will use 1st Draft from here on out, as it is a tool that helps me at the pain points I have had as a writer. I don't need to use it to write my stories, but it is a great tool to have. Especially when I am out for a walk or out hiking, and I want to either flesh out a story I have been thinking of, or if a new idea comes to mind while out and about. It is perfect for that. 

The other two apps are still storytelling tools. Just different. Not necessarily made for an active storyteller desperate to tell their stories while on the go. This is why I have been reluctant to make a widescreen version of 1st Draft. Because I have always seen it as an app for people to use on their phones. Most writing apps are geared for the Microsoft Word crowd who are going to sit in front of their computers and grind through the writing process that way. I wanted a tool for those on the go who may not even own a computer and live their lives on their phones, who don't want to spend hour after hour typing their ideas. I wanted people to be able to speak their stories to life. This is how storytelling began. It is in our DNA. Sure, we eventually began putting our stories onto cave walls and then paper, but storytelling is a word that shows our roots of telling our stories, our history to others. So, for me, it seemed only natural to take it back to those roots, taking us away from the chair and computer and putting us back on our feet and sharing our stories with an assistant that can take what we say and reshape it the way we like without having to have our butts in a chair.  

These other two apps are geared toward a different part of the storytelling crowd. The second app is more about sharing in the storytelling process with others, while the third app is geared more for those who are less mobile than those who 1st Draft is geared towards. I'm sorry I can't share more, and I have to be so cryptic, but I do not like sharing my ideas before making them available upon their completion.

Beyond the first three apps that I began thinking about a few years ago is another app. I am not sure if this one will become public or if I will just create it for my own personal use cases. It will be my own creative everything app. I don't think I will be ready to make this until I have finished the other two apps, but I could be wrong about that. Just like I have been wrong about what I may be able to complete within 365 days. 

Something I also need to talk about is the hate towards AI. It is real and widespread. Some people who use AI to create images and videos have actually begun to lean into it just to increase engagement and therefore make more money off of the hatred. I thought this was clever at first, but it has changed these people who I thought were creative and worth following, and I was actually glad for them to be able to turn things in their favor. Now it just seems like this is all they do. Create something cool and then have a poke at the raging bear engagement farming kerfuffle just to keep their numbers up. Where once I was glad to see them push back, now it seems just as equally juvenile and asinine as those hating on AI art. 

I have received plenty of criticism through the years regarding the stories I wrote before AI. I'd like to tell everyone to just turn the other cheek and ignore the haters, but that is not easy, and most of the time it is damn near impossible. Especially when you are younger and desperately seeking validation. 

I pay attention to what people say on social media about AI, and a lot of it is so negative. There are a lot of people who hate AI. I think much of this is based on fear. And I totally get it. We were all raised by watching movies where AI or technology was an evil that we had to fight against.

As a creative person, I have seen the hate directed at AI since the Writers Guild Strike back in 2023. We are all beginning to feel the effects of AI beyond just the creative world, though. AI is entering the workforce. In some cases, too quickly. Why do I say that? Because some of these big companies have begun mass layoffs and replacing humans with different versions of AI. Having worked in customer service before, it made sense how AI would step in and take most of those jobs. But a lot of that was implemented too quickly. So many of the AI interfaces are garbage. They waste more of people's time than they save. And then people try and get hold of a human, and there is no one there. This creates frustration and wastes way too much time. Gradually, things are improving, but many of these companies are still using the outdated versions of AI interfaces. It would be laughable if it weren't wasting my time. 

Anyway, back to what really matters to me—storytelling. I created this amazing writing tool using AI, but I have spent very little time actually writing stories. So much of my testing of the app has been talking about several stories that I have been thinking about, but I have spent so much time trying to make sure that the app works well that actually completing a story was not as important. My focus has been on how others would use it and not on me trying to complete multiple stories in that time. I never would have been able to properly complete the app if I had spent all my time trying to complete the stories I have developed this year while testing the app.

However, in the New Year, I expect to get a lot of work done on those stories with the help of 1st Draft. There are two stories in particular that I really want to focus on. There is a third that I had plotted before the app that I hope to also write as well. One is a YA TV series. Another is an amalgamate of several stories I had been thinking about for a while, as well as my reflection on this year. The third is a psycho-sexual thriller/ horror film that I began work on over a year ago. A story I have had in the back of my mind for some time. It has notes of MIDSOMMAR and WICKER MAN meets ROSEMARY'S BABY.

The thought of getting back into the writing frame of mind is very exciting, and the fact that I have created a tool that myself and others can use to write our stories more quickly has me thrilled to jump back in with focused intent. 

If you haven't checked out the 1st Draft Web App yet, please do. I've been making adjustments to make it even better these past two weeks. Even if you are not a writer, but have a story you've always wanted to tell, 1st Draft was made for you. Sure, I also made it for myself, but I wouldn't have built it without thinking of others. Especially those who don't want to sit in front of a computer tapping at a keyboard for hours on end just to get their thoughts onto a page. The app is designed to be your assistant and work with you throughout the brainstorming and writing process. Give it a whirl for free. If you find it is helpful, then it is only $5 a month to have access to a tool that will help you go from idea to 1st Draft in a fraction of the time it would take just sitting down at a computer and typing it all up yourself. 

The 1st Draft App by STORiCORE

I thought when I set out to create my first app that it would take a few months. If I had just stuck with Cursor, this might have been the case. For some reason, I felt the need to do things differently. Oh, I began by using all of the apps, testing each of them for a few days to see what each created, essentially starting from scratch with each. I wanted to see what each of them created and to find out which worked best for me. I tried VO, Bolt, Lovable, Replit, Cursor, and Windsurf. They each did things a little differently from the others. 

I settled on Replit, not because what it was designing was any better than the others, but because I liked their interface, and I had a discount. However, I quickly learned that the AI running it was not the greatest and would create boring styles. Despite that, by the end of March, I abandoned the others and focused on Replit. Shortly thereafter, I created the company.

It was around this time that I realized that while I liked the style of what I was creating, I did not love it. It felt like it wasn't what I really wanted. So, I began creating images for the pages of the app that I actually liked. This is why some parts of the app will not have a hover effect or change colors when you click a button, because some of the pages are background images with invisible buttons laid over the background images. This made the process more tedious as I had to spend time getting those invisible links in the right place. This also meant I was doing work away from Replit to create the images, something that would become a pattern. What do I mean?

By the end of April, I had exceeded my allotted usage for the month because the agent would often send me in a loop where it may or may not fix one thing, but it seemed to always break four other things that I then had to fix. This worked out well for me, not because I like wasting my time and money, but because I had a ChatGPT account and o3 had come out in December, Deep Research came out in February, and o4-mini-high released mid-April. So, it made sense to run my code through those two models and Deep Research until my Replit account reset, so I did not get stuck paying more to Replit. In hindsight, I probably should have shifted to Cursor or Windsurf at the time, but I was liking the results I was getting from taking my code from Replit and running it through the OpenAI models before pasting the results back into Replit to test them. 

I quickly grew to like it better than just trusting Replit's overly expensive and flawed agent. This way, I actually felt more in control, and most importantly, I was learning about the app-building process. Not that I would ever attempt to build an App without AI, but I began to understand how the app actually worked. This agreed with me in a deeper way because I have always enjoyed deconstructing things (toys, household items, anything mechanical) and then putting them back together. So, by May, I was essentially just using Replit as a code viewer to test what I had done over on ChatGPT. Believe me, o3 and o4-mini-high also made tons of mistakes and took me down rabbit holes that wasted loads of time, but I trusted the outputs more than Replit, whose agent would break more than it would fix. I still used the Replit agent on occasion, but I stopped relying upon it as my daily driver for building the app. So, that became my process, and weeks turned to months, and my hopes of releasing the app by the end of May faded. 

A lot has been learned since April. It was my choice to go this route, and there is no way I would have as much understanding of the process as I have now had I either just let Replit or Cursor make the app for me without my hands-on involvement. That said, I won't put myself through all of that again with my next app. I'll be able to use what I have learned to let Cursor or one of the countless other vibe coding tools do most of the driving on the next app. I no longer want or need as much control over every step in the process. And I can't afford to take the time to do it again the way that I have. I am grateful for what I have learned, but I need things to go much faster from here on out.

There were personal issues that arose during the past 6 months that cost me time, so I can't blame my languid building pace just on my own process. I won't detail those here, as I prefer this space to discuss my work and not my life, but these personal issues affected me at a deep level that I have never had to deal with before. How much time was lost in my attempts to deal with them in one way or another? That's tough to say, as my peace of mind was rocked by one, and my heart was broken by the other. I was definitely thrown off my game by both. Could I chalk up a month or more of delays to them? Maybe, but I kept working through it all, so it is hard to tell. When I do an autobiography, I can talk more about those issues.

Anyway, the Beta version of the app was finally ready in late September. This is the Replit-hosted version. Back in July, I began trying to get the app off of Replit and focused on moving it to Vercel. Then, after a few weeks of work, I realized that I could do it on Cloudflare, which meant I then had to do things differently. Fortunately, GPT-5 Thinking was released and has been much better than o3 and o4, who were good but not great. Even GPT-5 Thinking has had issues, but not as many as its predecessors. I have also incorporated CODEX into my workflow this month, and it is even better at times than GPT-5 Thinking and integrates into Github. Yes, thank you. 

My goal for the Web App Paid release was initially May. I can't believe it has taken so much longer. The initial funding I raised to get the company started has all but dried up, as I had to keep pushing the release date. All the other plans I had made at the beginning of the year had to be put on hold after July, as I missed my second target for the release of the app. I heard people saying that you should not voice how long or how difficult it was to release something, but rather how quickly you were able to do so.  

The frustrating part has been watching people whip up apps in a matter of minutes as all the tools for building apps have continued to improve, while I have been tediously fixing every little bug and not being able to focus on all the other projects I had in mind for the year. 

Cry me a river, right? Well, no longer. By this time next week, the paid version of the web app for 1st Draft will be available, and every person with a story idea and a desire to tell it can use my app to their heart's content. Then I can begin to shift my focus to include other projects... finally. 

The purpose of the 1st Draft App has never been to replace the amazing writing tools that are out there. It has been to provide a very simple way for anyone to tell their story that doesn't involve sitting at a keyboard. I could have cloned one of the many writing apps out there that offer people dozens of options for writing their stories, but with so many buttons that it becomes confusing. What I wanted to create was something that you can log into and just begin talking to your assistant about the stories you want to tell. We all have them, but we don't all have the time, training, or patience to sit in front of a computer to tell it properly. No longer. 

1st Draft is a true voice-first writing app that allows anyone to start telling their stories from the first minute. No ads, no distractions; just you and the helpful and friendly assistant. Something that I love using because I too do not like being a slave to a keyboard and can finally be out for a walk or hiking, and simultaneously be working on developing a story while touching grass. With the 1st Draft App, you don't have to be stuck inside staring at a screen. You can be lounging around or out and about, and comfortably discuss your story ideas with the assistant, who will help you shape your story with you. It really is liberating. 

I tried to make the app as simple as possible. Press Start and begin chatting with your assistant, who can be a sounding board, guide you into shaping the story, or even take what you talk about and begin writing a version of the story for you. Not sure what to say next and need time to think? Press Pause, collect your thoughts, and continue when you are ready. Don't want to listen to all that your Assistant has to say, or want to stop the conversation, just press the Stop button. You'll be sent to the Chat Workspace Page where you will see the readout of your conversation. You can browse through your Chats or switch over to the Documents Workspace Page and start typing. Or jump back into the conversation with your assistant. 

For me, it changes my process. I used to scratch down ideas on a sheet of paper while out and about or out for a walk.  Now, I can flesh out an idea and start building it before I get home. It speeds things up and ensures that I'll be able to read what we were talking about. This is a big deal because I have some chicken scratch for handwriting, especially while trying to walk. 

If you are like me, there will be times you want a snappy back and forth with your assistant, and there will be other times that you want to try and flesh things out a bit more. The Settings Page provides options that control how your assistant behaves. Whether you want to have a quick back and forth, or if you want to get deep into the details, or have your assistant create longer sections, you can do that too. There is a guide that explains it all in the Help section . But if you just stick with the defaults, you can't go wrong either.

Another thing that was important to me was keeping the price low while also providing a tool that everyone can use and benefit from. You will have the choice of using the free tier, which will help you get a feel for how things work, but the Starter Plan is the way to go for most people. And it only costs $5 a month or $50 a year. Some people will never reach the monthly limits with the Starter plan, but if you are like me and you have a ton of stories you want to tell, then the Pro plan is the way to go. And if you ever reach your limits before the end of the month for either plan, you can always purchase a boost that provides extra time to work with the assistant. Even if you exceed your limits and don't want to pay more, you will continue to have access to your chats and continue to be able to work on your documents, if you don't mind typing. 

1st Draft is easy to use and will keep you focused on storytelling. Whether you are young or old, have never written before or have written several books or screenplays like myself, the 1st Draft App is the place to start when you have a story you want to tell but don't want to have to sit and stare at a computer screen to tell it. Just press the Start button and speak it into existence. Just like our ancestors used to do around the campfire at night. It really is that simple and I can't wait to help you tell your stories.

Head on over to 1stDraftApp.com and get started for free, and by this time next week you'll be able to dig even deeper with even more access for a very low price. Cheers! And happy storytelling. 

🍂 First Day of Fall 🍂

Happy Autumnal Equinox. The time of pumpkin spice and of changing colors. Whenever it arrives, I always declare it as my favorite season. That is, until Spring arrives and says Hello. Then I flush and declare my love for the emergence of nature from her slumber.   

I have to announce a moment of synchronicity. I released the book Michaelmas years ago, and this will be the first time I have talked about the novella in relation to the day celebrating the archangel Michael casting Satan out of heaven since its release. By pure coincidence, I was thinking about Michaelmas, the book, because a few years back, I added several AI-generated images that I generated with Dall-e 3 and re-released the book. It was my first project where I merged AI with a story that I had previously written. That project marked my entry into a new era, so I often drift back to it when thinking about AI. Then I realized that the day I had planned to release the 1st Draft App just so happens to be the day Michaelmas is celebrated. What are the odds?

Anyway, I think it is a great way to draw parallels and also give people a unique chance to celebrate the day. Michaelmas is often thought of in relation to the end of the harvest season, a quarter day. The novella is part of a larger novel series I wrote years ago and never released. Michaelmas is at the heart of the novel series. It is a flashback story told to characters in the middle of the novel series. I felt it was a strong enough story that it could stand on its own. So, instead of focusing on completing the novel series, I focused on the novella. I'll release the novel series at some point. For the moment, I am focused on building AI infrastructure for a media company that will build some cool tools for others to use, but I will also focus more time on creating my own content once I complete the full release of the 1st Draft App.   

Those who were watching the AI space last year knew this would be the year of the (rise of the) agent. So, the idea of everyone creating AI agents that are hired for "x" amount of time is something that seems more and more likely on a large scale. In fact, some are already creating a workforce of specialized AI agents to carry out tasks and deliver value.

To personalize things a little bit, this actually jives with a plan I created for myself at the beginning of the year. 

When I made the aforementioned plan, the idea was and still is to create and release three Apps. For the first App, I wanted to build it in such a way that I would learn something meaningful in the process that would help me create the other two better and faster than the first App. I also wanted the application to help me with my own writing process. The 1st Draft App is based on a Custom GPT I made last year. Yes, those things we were all making in 2024. It did almost all that I needed. LLMs are very good at assisting you with your writing. And in that regard, I was not trying to remake the wheel with the 1st Draft App. My objective was to learn about App creation while creating something personalized to how I like to write. It's been an evolution. 

I am a notebook-in-the-pocket kind of guy whose whole life can change on a walk if a great idea comes to mind. They say ideas are a dime a dozen, and I have notebooks of ideas that I never turned into stories that prove that to be true. Phone voice recorders became my walking notebook a few years ago, in large part because my awful handwriting is made worse when trying to walk and write at the same time. However, with an App like 1st Draft, you can talk about your idea to an assistant and flesh it out to see if it is worth writing or not. And if you have a story that you really want to tell, the assistant will help you write that story. 

I realized in 2023 that I could do so much more writing-related work with an intelligent tool like ChatGPT-4, even though it was not designed specifically to help me with my writing projects. But then it dawned on me: I could use my decades of writing experience and desire to learn about AI to help others do the same, by creating a tool that's designed to help you with your writing projects. That way, even if only a handful of people actually use the App, it's still perfect for me. And since I created it, I have the code and the experience from having built it. With a lot of help from AI, of course.

Last week, it dawned on me after watching a podcast or reading a tweet: the future economy will be filled with AI Agents. Yes, but not the kind I was thinking of earlier this year. When I set out, I was thinking of agents as something that would work for me on projects I am working on. While that is true, I can now see how I may have just taken the first step in creating my own AI agent. Will I be selling an agent to people at some point? I would have said no in March because I wouldn't have understood what that meant, but now it seems possible and definitely worth further research.

The 1st Draft App is not an autonomous Agent. It is an AI wrapper trained to help you write your stories. I did not imbue it with all of my creative experience so that it could go off on its own to create you a series of books or build you a video game. Agents that could be hired to do work had not been on my radar until two weeks ago. But, the more I think about it, the more likely it seems that specialized AI agents are being built to create massive amounts of value, where people are hiring agents to do things instead of us.

LLMs behave the way they are trained. If we then train them to offer services to others beyond the individual app-like usage, then you are potentially serving a massive swath of people. An agent created based on an app you built. An agent for doing your taxes, for organizing your business, or for how food is grown and harvested. So, instead of going to work for someone, you toil in creating an agent that is based on your area of expertise, and your agent is the one who is hired. And you manage the agent(s) you created. It's a new take on the old Hollywood line, "Have your agent call my agent."  

Once I completed the first app, the idea was always to turn to agents for help in building the second and third apps, as well as other parts of the company. The more I thought about STORiCORE and what I wanted it to become, the more I realized that this was not really a new company. Nope. It is a repackaging of myself as a creator. Having gone from actor to writer to director to author and now to an AI-assisted APP developer. I can't wait to see how others adapt along with AI as well. 

My goal with the apps is to help others on their own storytelling path. That wouldn't be possible without having learned a few things as a storyteller over the past 30 years. Not to mention how obsessed I became with AI in 2023, learning all I could about how it can help me create not only various ways in which I could tell my stories, but also how I could help others. That meant starting a business whose core purpose is my own creative endeavors. To take my writing experience and my growing interest in AI as a key part of my new enhanced workflow, as a way to help others. All of these apps I am creating, I intend to use myself, especially 1st Draft. I have already been wearing out the servers, not only as I have built and tested the app while sitting at my computer or sitting in my car, but I have also used it a lot when out walking and hiking.  

In seven days, you can try out the 1st Draft App for free. I am releasing it as a beta web app with a limited number of users. So, know that space will be limited. 

So, not only are we making the app available for free, with limits, of course, but I am also going to make my novella, Michaelmas, available for free as well. 

It's been a lot of fun building the app, and I have a list of updates that I will roll out once we start taking on subscribers. One idea I've been kicking around is that those who try out the app during beta will have an opportunity to sign up for an all-apps pass to all three apps once they are released, and a deeply discounted rate out of appreciation. 

My objective is to keep the cost of 1st Draft low. I see it as a basic tool that all people who want to write their stories can benefit from using. For those who have a story they have been wanting to tell but don't know how to go about it, and those who wouldn't have the time to write it otherwise. I put myself in this category. Gathering all my thoughts in one place and discussing them with a smart and helpful AI assistant is something I would have loved a few decades ago. 

We are a species that has been passing on tales since we have had the ability to do so. These tales shaped lives, shaped civilization. And now we have the chance for everyone to tell their stories. I love that. That very idea made me think beyond all the amazing stories that I could tell with such a tool. It made me realize I might be able to help others tell their stories. And by others, I mean everyone. I have tried to make it just that, a tool to help anyone tell their stories. Simple but effective. While the updates I have planned will make the whole experience even better. 

This is not a tool designed specifically for writers to help them finish their story. It is a tool to help those who have a tale to tell get started with telling their story. My objective was to deliver an App that could help me do what I like to do with my Custom GPT, and that is to talk to the AI about a story I have in mind, flesh it out, generate new ideas while going back and forth, and then create something together. While I like to take what is given and make it my own, some will want to have a first draft of an idea they have been sitting on for years. And I wanted it to be as simple as possible, so as to avoid confusion and frustration. 

The only part that may be confusing is the settings. By default, the App will be set to respond quickly in an agentic way. Latency is an issue with AI models, the speed from when a user finishes speaking to when the user hears the assistant's response, in the case of the App. Because that was top of mind, the default setting may cause the App to clip what it is saying, requiring the user to ask it to continue. It may also cause the assistant to cut off the user if there is a significant enough pause in what the user is saying. However, the user can choose to have longer responses from the assistant and more time for you to talk as well. With the ability to also choose from two AI models. 

I wanted people to have some options; I didn't want to make things too narrow. This also follows my own way of using the App. My old custom GPT would cut me off if I paused, and I wanted to be able to control that more. So, not only did I build the settings to modulate how the conversation flows, but I also included a pause button that allows you to collect your thoughts before continuing where you left off. I often use this when I don't want to listen to the assistant and want to continue talking. 

Once I have processed the feedback from the beta period, my goal is to create a video and a guide to help make things easy to understand. That has been a goal with the App. Make it simple and then iterate with updates that improve the experience. I started work on several features before realizing that for the initial release, I had to make it a simple yet helpful tool, without too many bells and whistles.

The default settings are great to start off with as you casually discuss your project with the assistant. Then, I like to add more creativity by turning off the Agentic toggle and cranking up the responses (conversational and AI token output) sliders. This way, we can start discussing more details and brainstorm without being cut off. The outputs are then longer, and you can have the AI whip up a scene or outline based on your conversation. 

The ability to transcribe and type in text is key as well. Sometimes you may not be able to talk to the assistant, or maybe you just need to add more context. Whether it is having a back-and-forth exchange or pasting a large chunk of text. Maybe it is the content from a previous chat, or something I like to do, which is to paste scenes or actual scripts. The other day, I pasted an entire script for a fictional podcast into the context window. We worked on another podcast based on that first one. By entering content this way, you can have the assistant review your content or even use the content to create something new.

I am sticking with basic copying and pasting right now because I have a feature that I plan to release in the new year that will help all writers who want to take their written work more seriously. It is one of the first features I thought of, but it will take some collaboration to pull it off. 

If you have communicated with an AI via voice-to-voice, it will not seem new. To those who have never spoken to an AI before, I think you will find the experience both pleasant and productive. 

Whenever you are ready to start writing, you can switch over and start a document in the App. This is a nuts-and-bolts writing space without any bells or whistles. 1st Draft's most important tools are the voice-to-voice assistant and the text-to-text exchange, where you work directly with the assistant. I find it difficult to truly write on a phone, even though a few generations have grown up doing it. Since this App is meant mainly for users to be on their phone chatting with the AI assistant about their story, the idea of having an elaborate writing editing tool right off the bat doesn't make sense. A 1st Draft is about getting it out of you and onto the page. 

For me, the 1st Draft is the most enjoyable part of the writing process. They are usually terribly flawed upon review and in need of an overhaul. But so are most adventures. Very few adventures go as expected or as planned. Some things will work while others will be thrown into the bin. I often take portions of a 1st Draft that won't work with what I am currently working on and use them as parts of another story. During the 1st Draft, your imagination should be doing cartwheels. 

My process with the App has been to chat with the App, flesh out ideas, copy those ideas to a document, do some writing and editing, and then save the document so I can then work on it on my computer. Because I personally can't do any real writing on my phone. This is a main reason why we are doing the Web App first. That way, a user can access the App on their phone and on their computer. 

At home, I have a microphone and love using the voice and transcribe to text features on my computer. I like pasting stories I am working on into the text window and discussing the stories in voice mode. Since it is a Web App, I like to open windows side by side. One with the Voice or Chat Page and the other with the Document Page. Asking questions, getting feedback, pasting chunks into the document, editing it, and so on. Again, for someone like me, this is ideal. Not only can the App help me brainstorm, edit, and write, but it does so in a way that feels natural. You don't have to be an expert with AI or with writing, but just having a general understanding of the App can open up what you can do with your story ideas. 

The 1st Draft App is built to be simple to use so that anyone with a desire to tell a story and a minimal understanding of technology can get great value out of using it. I hope you'll sign up once I make it available on the 29th. As an acknowledgement of the coincidence that the release date is the same day as the holiday shared with the title of my book, Michaelmas, I will be giving away copies of the book. 

That's right. Not only am I giving you the chance to use the 1st Draft writing App for Free, but I am also making the eBook version of Michaelmas available for free because the release date just happens to fall on the holiday. I believe they call that a win-win situation. 

Happy Fall Y'all! 

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT (1st Draft App)

There have been several lessons learned on this thirty-year writing journey. Many of them were hard-fought battles where it felt like the world was against me. There have also been moments where a gentle wind of encouragement filled my sails and helped set me back on my way. One of the first lessons I learned was that starting is often the most important step. Things can change along the way, but getting the ball rolling is vital.

In Spring 2023, after first trying ChatGPT, I began imagining not only what I could create next—books, graphic novels, movies, games—but also the tools I wished I had. I wondered not only how they might have helped me back in my twenties, but more importantly, how they could help me now.

Three ideas came to mind. Today, I am going to talk about one of those. 

I wouldn’t have even attempted to build an app without the emergence of AI into the public sphere. It had been brewing behind the scenes beyond my attention, while I was busy writing books and screenplays. I was used to my process. However, with AI, building an app based on my own AI writing workflow seemed like something from that very first conversation with GPT-4 that other people might like too. And not just writers, but anyone who has ever had an inclination to tell a story. 

As I kicked the idea around, I was surprised to hear so many people say that they had at least one story they’d always wanted to tell. They just never felt like they could do it or never had the time to actually write it, but the story idea was still in their head. (There’s a line often attributed to Christopher Hitchens about everyone having a book inside them. Before 2023, that might have been where many stories stayed.)

It’s 2025, and one thing hasn’t changed: we all have stories to tell. And if history is anything to go by, we always will. I’ve even toyed with writing about my own “writing years,” drawing parallels between life and the fiction I’ve put on paper. We’ll see.

Stories come in all shapes and sizes. After sharing the idea of building a writing app and listening to feedback, I decided to build it—not only to help others tell their stories, but to help me tell mine. A tool made for the part I value most: the first draft. 

I love walking and hiking, letting my mind wander. I used to only carry a small notebook in my pocket to capture fledgling ideas; eventually, I started recording voice notes on my phone. Now being able to converse with an AI assistant that’s guided to stay focused on your story feels like the next level of the creative process—capturing ideas quickly, then shaping them without losing momentum.

1st Draft is a simple, writing-first app that helps you get that initial draft down—whether you need a gentle push to start or a nudge to finish. It’s designed to keep you in the story—no wandering, no research rabbit holes. The first draft is where energy lives, where discovery happens, where worlds take shape. This app is built to keep you in that space and on track.

Two weeks from today—Monday, September 29, 2025—I’ll release 1st Draft. I’ll share a little more here as we get closer. Thanks for following along.

Hot Dayz

This marks the fifth blog I have started since my last post in March. Sixth if you count the one where I literally only opened a new post and never actually wrote anything. No, we aren't counting that one. So, the fifth blog post started since March. I didn't publish the others for one reason or another. 

The first blog I started but never published was all about ChatGPT's image generator, which created the Ghibli craze that swept the planet. I was excited by it but I lost interest in the post after a few paragraphs. 

The second was titled "Status Report". I wrote it in late April, and it touched upon vibe coding and AI in general, even reflecting on what things might have been like if I had access to these AI tools back in my 20s. While it would have been amazing and changed a lot in my life, I do worry about future generations of people who may never know what it's like to have to think for themselves. To make decisions on their own. They will probably make better decisions, but I can't help but worry that they may be missing something in their development. Stick-to-itiveness, good judgement, the ability to think for oneself, these are what I fear may go the way of the Dodo. If everything is done for you, if every decision is not truly your own, if you lose control of your own narrative then we as a species will be nothing more than a flightless bird lost at sea. 

The third blog post was also in Late April, around the time I originally hoped to release the app. I didn't get too far into it, but it was an ode to GPT-4 and its retirement from ChatGPT. 

The fourth was started in mid-May and was an introduction to my new company, as well as a status report on my plans for the company. It was during this time that I realized I was falling behind on the creation of my first app. I had set out several possible release dates back in February when I began this process towards creating a multimedia company. Step one is the release of my first of three apps. 

I have learned a good deal about building apps with AI tools. I tried vibe coding several apps during this time, between February and mid-May. However, I wanted more control over what was being done with the design, and since I had never created an app before, I also wanted to use the time to actually learn about coding. Not like I would ever try to code an app without AI, though. That would be a waste of time. However, I didn't want to just press PROCEED every time either. I am an old gearhead, and I have always been someone who likes to tear things open and see how they work. 

Because I choose to try and understand what makes things tick, the first step in building this new multimedia company --creating the first app-- has taken longer than I would've liked. My plan was to have it out and available by the end of May. That obviously didn't happen. And, to be honest, I was disappointed in myself. Can't cling to that though. If I had just vibe coded the whole thing that might have been possible. I won't go into my entire process just yet, I'll save that for when I can reveal more about the app, which will begin two weeks before its release. How far are we away from that? I'm kind of done trying to predict anything with this app. Yet, I was put on the spot the other day and said my goal is to be done with the app by mid-August. My hope is to release it by September. Fingers crossed and knock on wood.

As much as I have loved building this app and learning about the process, I've gotten to the point where I want to move on to other things. It feels like I haven't done anything with my stories in forever. AI video tools have gone off the rails these past few months, and I haven't been able to dig into that since April. Anyway, we are getting closer every day. I can see the finish line.

I decided to focus on the web app and avoid the headache that is the Apple App store for now. My initial plan was to try and do the initial release just through the app stores. However, that would likely delay things even more. So, a web app and a google app will have to suffice to begin with. I'll add Apple later, once I get my feet under me and we are up and running. This will save me a week or so.

With that time saved, I felt today was as good a day as any to actually introduce my new company. I say new, but I actually spent much of March and part of April starting the company. Who knew that getting a mailbox would require a video call with a notary.

I created an early website for the company, so I guess I can go ahead and share its name even if I can't share more about our first product. Why? I have noticed that a lot of people build in public and just talk about what they are building throughout the process. As a writer, I am always a little guarded about discussing what I am working on before the time is right. With App building, I am even more so because I have never done this before. Unless you count working on creating a few websites a decade or so ago.

The company's name is Storicore, but I have taken to capitalizing all the letters except for the "i": STORiCORE. I did this because the "i" looks like a human and to emphasize that one of my main objectives is to put you the individual at the heart of everything. You can go to the website at storicore.com. It's a basic site at this time since we haven't released anything just yet. As they say whenever a new AI video model releases, this is the worst it will ever be. 

Our goal is to become an AI and Human-powered multimedia company that delivers apps, graphic novels, books, TV shows, movies, video games, and more. Something I have been talking about on here for years. We are leading with apps because every individual's experience is valuable, and we want you to watch, read, listen, and create stories that mean something to you. This part of the business is all about you.

In one way or another, stories are at the heart of every part of our lives. Most stories that we may want to tell tend to go untold, either because we are not used to telling stories or we just don't have the time. I think back on the 20th century, a great century for stories, but in reality most of the stories we could have read were lost to time. At STORiCORE, we believe that by placing the individual at the heart of our company's objectives, we can help everyone tell their stories. That way, we can all share our stories with whoever we want, empowering us to take ownership of our own creative process.  

The three apps I plan to release over the next year will allow everyone who wants to be a part of the storytelling process to do so. I can tell you from thirty years of experience that if your story matters to you, then that is all that matters. Putting it into words is the first step. 

Beyond the apps, which are focused on helping others, I have my own stories to tell. Some of which I have been sitting on for 20 years. Stories written to be Hollywood Blockbusters, intimate tales of human daily experience, thrilling tales that will make your pulse race and some that will make your skin crawl. Something I realized in 2023 was that with the help of AI, I would be able to not only write all the stories I wanted to write, but I could take any of those stories and turn them into movies, TV shows, and games once the technology caught up to my ambitions. 

After two years, technology has all but caught up to my ambitions for it. That is one of the main reasons I started this company. Once I release this first app, I will dig back into AI video tools in a big way. I have been wanting to create something for over a year, but the tools weren't quite there yet. That has changed, and I am eager to create a few shorts and then something more substantial. 

We are close to release. Just a few more steps. With the delays I've run into over the past six months, I am reluctant to place a day on the release, but I am aiming for September. I hope you'll join me on this adventure into the realm of storytelling. 

While I can't say much, I can say this. Once the app is released, you will be able to use it for free. There will be paid tiers, but there will also be a free tier for you to try it out and see if it is something that helps you. That last thing I will say about the app is that it is something I created not only for others, but also for myself to use. It is based on my use of other tools and a Custom GPT I created late last year. I'll likely release that Custom GPT around the same time as well. Always good to have options.

Don't expect there to be any Custom GPTs to go with the other two apps, but it makes sense to release one with the first app. The app will have a few similarities to the Custom GPT, and it will also have a series of unique features that will make it the perfect tool for creatives. 

Thanks for your time. Enjoy the rest of your summer. I hope to be providing another update within a few weeks. 

Marching To The Beat Of Your Own Drum

It's been an interesting six weeks since I started down this path. What path? Six weeks ago, I began a journey towards starting a company. A multimedia company I never knew I had always wanted to start before my introduction to AI. You read that right. For thirty years, I had toiled like so many before me, working on my craft in the hope to share with others. The old saying is that an artist's life is one of suffering. Not only to create, but also to be heard, read, or seen. 

GPT-4 turned 2 years old last week. That was the beginning of all of this. A door opened and I stepped through. I was excited and anxious. I still am. After two years of trying to learn all I can about AI and how I might use it, I figured what the hell, why not throttle up and put my three decades of storytelling experience to maximum use. 

I realized something a few weeks ago: I have been building this company for 30 years and just didn't know it. I spent thirty years living an artist's life, and the past two years trying to understand AI and how it can help me, and how I can help others.   

Late last summer everything started to come together. It took a few months to tie up some loose ends so I could time things right. The Holidays were my first window. Too much going on to be ideal. Same with January. February may be the shortest month but it was my first clear opening and I've been accelerating ever since. Sure, I've been vibe coding too, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. 

I spent the last week in Savannah. Went to my first St. Patrick's Day Parade. We rode our bikes downtown, got there before noon, and were gone before the drunken shenanigans took over River Street. Who knew there were so many Former Grand Marshalls?

Before my trip, I had been focused on the first of three apps I hope to release before the end of the year. Originally, I thought the third app might have to wait until 2026, but the tools to help create apps have become, well, amazing. Vibe Coding has become a thing and I have been doing my fair share over the past month. That said, I am not trying to spawn a thousand different apps at breakneck speed. I have my plan and will adjust it as necessary. No need to get carried away with every single AI advancement. 

I know Twitter is not what it used to be, and loads of people have abandoned it like a plague ship, but it is still the best source for AI news. And if I am to stay adaptable and in touch with all that is going on I need to be in the know. Because I have been tapped in long enough to some great AI sources (content creators), over the past six weeks I have eased up on scrolling Twitter and have been receiving some of my updates via newsletters or YouTube videos. It's nice to get some context and see some use cases that you don't always get with a company's Tweets.  

Last week, before I left for Savannah, I started to think about more than just the app. I allowed myself the first real chunk of time to think about the company at large, of which the apps are only a part. Someone had asked me back in February if I had come up with a name for the company. I was not worried about it at the time as names or titles for stories kind of emerge. Last week I felt compelled to begin a name quest. Yes, I used quest for dramatic effect. 

In truth, I was winding down from weeks of focus on the app. March is the month I begin to focus on both the app and the creation of the business. Last Tuesday, I started to do some research on names and I began to realize how many of the names I liked were already companies. Many of them are common names that I was not surprised had domains registered. But as I started to dig deeper and deeper I realized that there are a shit ton of companies and all of those that I was looking up, whether they were American or international companies, the names had been used in one way or another. I wanted a name that would represent what I am trying to do: To increase my creative output and to assist others with the knowledge I have gained in this life by utilizing what I have learned about AI over the past two years. The search was frustrating, seeing a name taken one after another. And then I found it. I had to get creative, but I found it. 

We are nowhere near launching, and I've yet to file all the paperwork, but I found a company name that properly represents what I am trying to do and found no mention of the name in use anywhere. Again, I had to get creative, but I had a clear shot at it. So, I thought about the name for a few days to make sure I liked it enough to have it represent both the apps as well as my creative content. Then I took my shot and secured the .com and .net domains. That is only step one of the process, but I found the name of my company, or better yet, it found me. I have steps I still need to take before I can reveal the name publicly, but I will soon enough. Possibly in next month's blog post. 

Part of my settling on the name meant I had to see how it would look. So, I started creating images and logos and began sharing them with a few people whose opinions I value. The name seems to have landed well, and those whom I have shown the images and logos to have given me feedback. Now I have a few workable images and logos. Not only for the company but also for the 1st app. 

I have settled on a few early styles that I like for the Company name, the app name, and the app. My thoughts on the app originally were to make it similar to many of the other tools out there, which are very clean in their appearance. I love simplicity, but I also like style. Do I really want my first app to look like everyone else's app? Yes, but no. While I like the simple appearance of many of these apps, they all look the same. My solution is to keep it simple but with a bit of style. I will probably also have a toggle that will allow users to switch to the more lackluster version. Or not. Maybe I'll just do a light and dark toggle. We'll see. Still some work to do. 

One of my guidelines is to not overcomplicate things. "Keep it simple, Stupid," is definitely a motto I am trying to live by these days. Examples: 1) I created an eight-month and a three-year plan last November. When I realized that the Holidays or January would be terrible times to begin this madness, I moved my start time to mid-February. I adjusted the plans accordingly. 2) Since I made those initial plans back in November, AI has kept on accelerating and making advancements. The writing has been on the wall for months that 2025 would be the year of AI Agents. What was unexpected was how quickly other AI companies would learn from one another to create similar tools.  

That started when OpenAI's o1 dropped in December, a few months after the weaker o1 preview had been released, and introduced us to Reasoning LLM models. We are now awash in reasoning models as other companies quickly figured out how o1 works. OpenAI then dropped Agentic Tasks in January and then Deep Research in February. Tasks are a basic agentic tool but Deep Research was the first proper agentic tool that allows users to create research papers on a subject with more detail than with normal queries. Other companies quickly began following with their own versions.

Those were just the ones that dropped before I began in earnest to create the first app and the company. Ever since the second week in February, the updates have kept coming as far as agents and all the other AI tools. The cost of AI has skyrocketed as well. Not only has OpenAI begun charging $200 for a Pro Tier, but the best AI Video models (Google Veo 2 and Luma Ray 2) are charging an arm and a leg for normal generations. Granted Veo2 is available in YouTube shorts but it is a wonky way to access it. 

The hope is that the cost will drop so that we mere mortals might be able to use these tools to create without having to pay out the ear for the privilege of using them. These tools are there or thereabout where I need them to be to create one of the many shorts I have been thinking about for the past year. My hope is that the cost drops as the tools continue to improve. If you listen to the rumblings, it sounds like Runway and Midjourney may have Video Model updates within the next few months. 

My hope is that they take us over the threshold from good enough for short films to good enough for feature films, TV, and games. What does that even mean? It means that not only do the outputs need to look natural but they need to sound right as well. You can still tell every lifelike AI movie was created with AI. Until that happens it can only be used for VFX shots. Apparently, House of David on Amazon Prime used AI for VFX shots, and that is a pretty big deal. They did not admit this until after it shot up to #2 on their Movies list. That means they were afraid to mention it before its release but willing to give credit once they were a success. The same could be said for Tom Hanks and Robin Wright's Here. Only after its release did they publicly give full credit to the AI teams that helped de-age them. There is a desire by filmmakers to use the technology to tell their stories but a fear of how the public will react. 

Sora is a good AI video tool but it is not what I had hoped it would be. In truth, none of them is as intuitive as I want. I tried out Veo 2 and Ray 2 over the past month when they were made available on one subscription. They were both so expensive that I could not make more than one video each with both models. And I was disappointed with the output video from both models. TBH, it put me in a mood. I knew then that now was not the time to even think about trying to make anything more than a short. It wasn't cost-effective and the tools, while they had gotten better, were not good enough... yet. 

This is the lone video I was able to make with Veo 2 on the paid site I used. If I had created one more I would have burned through half of my credits. This is supposed to be the first shot of the TV series that I tried pimping out last year. Other than the surgical mask dangling before the camera instead of sitting in the middle of the road, not bad. It's not usable but I like the look of the town and the fact that the streets are empty. This is an example of how these models need to get better—smarter. The prompt was not perfect but a smart model should know that the mask is in the street and not dangling before the camera. 

Prompt: A small-town main street at night, illuminated by soft, warm streetlights casting gentle shadows on the pavement. The shop windows glow invitingly, showcasing colorful displays, yet the stores remain eerily empty, hinting at an unsettling stillness. The atmosphere is quiet and serene, with a palpable sense of anticipation for the dawn. In the center of the deserted road, a light blue surgical mask flutters lightly, caught in a faint breeze, its movement subtle yet poignant against the backdrop of the tranquil night. The camera pans slowly down the street, capturing the flickering light reflections and the delicate rustle of the mask, creating a seamless loop that emphasizes the haunting beauty of the scene.

AI video tools are good enough to make an animated movie, but lifelike is still just beyond the horizon. Which is fine by me, as I have a lot of other things to focus on. I do expect I will be able to make an animated short before the end of the year and possibly a lifelike AI trailer for the TV show I was banging on about last summer. The tools were not good enough then but they are now (for shorts), except for the price. Eventually, I'll have to suck it up for a few months and pay the exorbitant fees to get the shots I need. 

My hope is that by this time next month, I will be annoying you to try my new app. If that is the case, then I will begin work on the second app and start work on one of the animated shorts on my list. The one I will start with is the revisualization of a short film I made years ago. That is meant to be the project that helps me adapt to the medium. The other is a story that I had long been thinking about and late last year I finally got around to writing it as a script. 

I am on track with my updated 8-month plan and the 3-year plan. With the help of AI agents and other AI updates, like coding and AI video, I may be able to release the second and third apps sooner than expected. While I have tried Deep Research and Tasks, I have yet to dive too deep into Agents. However, tools like Manus look promising. 

Should there be another big leap beyond Veo 2 in AI video that allows for seamless lifelike outputs with perfectly synced voice before the fall, I may be able to start to work not only on the animated projects and the trailer for the TV series mentioned above but that may also allow me to begin on a feature, TV series or even a game. Games are a big part of the TV series from last year and we will soon be able to create games to release with our movies and TV shows. The cost may be prohibitive but if the tools are available and I can afford them I will begin using them to create lifelike content and games, but not before we cross that threshold. I don't want any uncanny valley scenes ruining my stories, causing viewers to turn the channel.

In review, I am making progress with the app. I also discovered a name for my company that I think embodies all that I am trying to do. Things are progressing. Fingers crossed I can share more next month. I do not like holding back information. I've had to do that about writing projects and now I am having to do it with the app and the company. We're getting closer and I can't wait to tell you more. 

Thanks for reading.

And So It Begins

I've been dropping hints for a few months, but the time has come to reveal my plans. In December, I secured funding to start a multimedia company that I have been planning and researching for two years. It will start as a one-man operation assisted by AI tools. I hope to begin collaborating with others by the end of the year. The clever readers of my blog will have seen the clues I have been dropping. Ever since the Spring of 2023, I have been trying to think of how I can use AI in a way that benefits myself and others.

Back in the mid-90s, I was happy as an actor trying to find the right role to play. That said, I wrote my first script in 1995 just before the Olympics were held here in Atlanta. That was back when Buckhead wasn't yet a shooting gallery and having fun on the weekends was the most important thing in the world. I was a waiter in a restaurant back in those days, acting in plays and partying in Buckhead in my free time. 

A friend of mine was working at some upscale restaurant in Buckhead and we came up with an idea for a film that would take place at a restaurant in Buckhead. Hey, it was what we knew. For whatever reason I was tasked with writing the script. It was awful, but, as they say, you never forget your first. Over the past thirty years, I have written dozens of stories. Something I never imagined back in 1995. Back then, I thought I was writing a vehicle for me to star in. And yet I took to the writing side of storytelling like a duck to water.

I first discovered my knack for storytelling in high school thanks to a teacher who noticed I had a talent for creating stories. And it was rekindled in college during English Lit. However, I was still a bit of a jock and a motorhead back in those days who loved taking things apart to see how they worked before putting them back together. This is probably why I enjoy hiking and world-building to this day. Give me a hill to climb or a story to deconstruct piece by piece before putting it all back together again and I am as happy as a squirrel with a nut. 

When I was devoted to acting, I loved getting lost in the characters I would play, giving my all to each part. This has helped me to have a deeper understanding of the characters I write. However, acting would leave me with a hole in my life when a project was over that was not filled until I found a new gig. I hated that about acting. I am not an emotionally codependent person who has to jump from one relationship to another, but with acting I needed the next role. And when things dried up in LA I left one dream on the boulevard of broken dreams and started another by writing my own projects. No longer needing the guidance of others to tell me what to write. 

Two of the most important things I learned in LA were self-reliance and the ability to bring my own dreams to life. This is both a gift and a curse because while I can sit down and create worlds that don't exist, as time passed I drifted away from my connections. Connections that allowed me to create short films in the mid-2000s. 

I won't lie and pretend that I am the most talented writer in the world, but I can tell a story. And, I gained a ton of confidence after the short films and especially after releasing the novel series Monarch. Maybe too much confidence. I knew once I had released all four parts of that story that I could write anything. Something I learned from that period was that I could be a real pain in the ass when I was too focused on "the story". 

I like to think I am a decent enough guy, but there have been times when I could not separate my writing life from my normal life. Almost as if I felt that what I was doing with my writing had earned me a break in my day-to-day life because of how challenging it was. But, the truth is, when you write alone you also carry the difficulty of that work as an extra burden. Needless to say, this caused friction at times. It took a few years to get my head out of my own ass, but I learned a lot because of it. I've learned to not take myself too seriously, or at least not as seriously as I did back in those days. After all, they're just stories. Even though they may mean the world to me, that doesn't mean anyone else gives a shit. Unless you are rich as hell or have lots of support, you need to learn lessons along the way and adapt to situations. And that was one of the hardest to learn. 

Fast forward to the Spring of 2023, past several dozen new stories written the old-fashioned way, and the rise of AI. As one of those who was not paying attention to AI, this did not happen for me until the release of GPT-4. After a few days of prompting, I began to realize that I had to adapt. 

There are fears that AI is training on the work of others. Many argue that AI will never take the place of humans in their field for various reasons. They explain that AI just copies the work of others, and that users try and pass it off as their own work. AKA Copyright infringement. By the summer of 2023, I realized that the people who had been saying this were scared. Hell, I was scared. One of the first things I heard before GPT-4's full release was that writers were in jeopardy of being replaced. This probably quickened my interest more than anything. Could it replace me? 

I learned within a few days that these tools may not yet be perfect but they were improving quickly -- even more quickly now. Will they replace me as a storyteller? I'm not sure yet. I have invested a lot of time researching these models and they can write pretty well, but they lack actual life experience. Maybe after AGI is achieved and these models start to have their own individual experiences and they start telling their own unique stories based on experience, but not yet. And will humans actually want to consume the stories of  the lives of AI like they do from other humans? Maybe as a niche, but I can't see 50 streaming services loaded with content about the lives of AI models that are self-aware. Not with billions of people paying to watch wall-to-wall content about their stories. But, who knows. 

Until that time these tools could help me do more than I had ever imagined possible,  while also helping others along the way. Even if they may eventually replace me at some point, my hope is that there is a path for me to work with these AI tools in collaboration with my own experience in storytelling and in life for at least a few years. 

The initial seeds were planted back in 2023. And, while I did not know how to use all of these new tools, it was clear that I had to learn all that I could. Images, Text, Video, Audio, Coding, Jarvis-like assistance. For those paying attention, it was clear that the world was evolving because of AI. A saying began to work its way out of the ether, "AI won't take your job, someone using AI will." 

Not since I was an actor have I ever wanted to take a job from someone. That is not who I am. However, I am willing to use AI to do all the jobs I need done in order to achieve what I want to achieve. And that is to take the stories I have written and will write and make them into graphic novels, films, TV, and video games. 

Helping others along the way was something that I realized I could also do. This had not been top of mind before AI, because it was hard enough to write a book and try to get a movie made, but it was one of the first things I thought of after spending a few hours with GPT-4. 

I don't know why I thought about creating an app to help others, but much like the idea that I could single-handedly turn my dusty scripts into movies, the desire to help others has stuck with me over the past two years. By last August, I had done the research I needed to do to realize that I could start my own company if I had some support. I set out at that time to begin the preliminary work required to begin a company. I started talking about it with my family and friends. 

I remember one of my friends saying, "Actually starting a company is easy." I did not go into a lot of detail at the time about all that I had in mind because it was early and my plans were still taking shape. He knew that I wanted to use gen AI tools to create graphic novels and films, but AI video was still pretty limited at that time. Yet, one of the main parts of the plan would become creating several apps.

When my writing partner jokingly said, "If you pull it off you'll have a media empire at your fingertips," after reading my pitch package for a TV series. It triggered something in me. I knew then that I had the wherewithal to actually start my own media company, if I kept researching and learning about all of the AI tools as they kept improving. And here we are. 

That said, AI video is something that cannot quite make for a good film. Let alone a great one. Not the kind I want to make at least. Sure, you can make commercials and shorts. For most people that is all they need. I am a long-form storyteller and former actor, so I need people interacting with one another. I need them to run into the darkness as well as the light,  to love, to hate, and feel alive to the audience. To tell my stories I need these tools to give me what I need within a few prompts, not dozens of attempts for every shot. It would still be faster and cheaper than actually filming a movie, but I need these models to understand what I am trying to do from start to finish. Such a tool created along with OpenAI's GPT5 model later this year might be able to read one of my scripts, discuss with me what look we are going for, be able to create scenes that look like they were actually filmed, and do so in less than 5-10 attempted outputs. 

Of course, some scenes will take more attempts to get right, but if it takes 50 attempts and there are still googly eyes, stutter steps, and extra limbs in the best outputs then that is a waste of my time. This is one of the main reasons I decided it would be best to focus on an app or two to start with. I also knew that video tools would continue to improve. And since August they definitely have. But even now, live-action ain't there quite yet. Even the videos being made by the best people using these tools still look a bit off. And looking off during a 3-minute trailer means a 2-hour film would be littered with uncanny artifacts that distract when I want people to stay immersed in my world. That is the live-action AI video.

This is why animation is what I am currently focused on with a few old short films I made back in the day. There is more room for error with animation. AI is a tool meant to make things easier and more efficient, not slow things down to a crawl. My timelines for these tools advancing have remained pretty true. That said, I did think we would have a kick-ass AI-animated movie made public by now. We've had a few shorts but there has not been an AI animated movie, to my knowledge, that even regular folks who are not eyeing the AI space like myself are all talking about. Not yet at least. It won't be long. 

The only AI movie that I have seen that even comes close is Where The Robots Grow. I first noticed it back in October and the trailer is quite good. Eleven Labs, an AI Audio company, tweeted about it just a few hours ago with the trailer. 

It's reminiscent of The Wild Robot, which was a smash hit last year. However, the buzz quickly faded and I don't think people outside the AI space are even aware of it. It has so far been unable to break through to the rest of the population. I think Eleven Labs and the creators see an opportunity to promote it now with The Wild Robot likely to take home an Oscar. Who knows, this could break through sooner rather than later. The number of views is still bellow 100k but I can see it getting a post-Oscar bounce because of The Wild Robot. Aside from this movie though the landscape is pretty barren for feature-length AI animated movies. Maybe by this summer we'll start seeing more. 

A part of me wanted to just focus on graphic novels once AI images became so good last year. But I want to do more than that. Graphic novels are cool, but movies are in my blood. Video games are also something I am very excited about. I want to make all of them with the help of AI. And Where the Robots Grow should give all of us inspiration that we too can make our own movies using AI animation.

Something I have been waiting for since last summer was Part Two of the Library of Congress's Report on Copyright and Artificial Intelligence from the Copyright Office. Part One covered Digital Replicas, which didn't affect what I wanted to do. However, Part Two is on Copyrightability and most certainly does. The buzz online, once it was released in January, was that AI artists could copyright all that they create. That's not true. Much like the previous rules, you have to prove that you substantially contributed to the final product. Still, much of what AI creates cannot be copyrighted on its own, but there are clear paths to get your work copyrighted. The timing of its release was perfect for me and gives me confidence that I can copyright material that I create in tandem with AI. 

The one thing I do not want to do is be a content creator. No offense to content creators. There are some great ones out there to whom I am grateful, but trying to trend every single day sounds like an awful job. One that I do not want to do. Yes, I will be creating content other than apps, graphic novels, movies, and games, but out of a need to promote my work not to score likes for sharing and hyping info that everyone else is sharing about the newest, hottest AI thing. I do like to retweet and comment, though.

I have been debating about building my apps and creative work in public. The tools that help build apps are probably more prevalent than AI Image tools at this point. That reminds me of another saying that I've been hearing a lot over the past six months that has stuck in my head: "Just start building." I have been recording audio content on walks and hikes and may start incorporating that (depending on the quality) along with content recorded in my office, both audio and video.   

Coding tools have become ubiquitous and I keep hearing about people cloning popular apps. I figure it is best to keep details about the apps that I am building on the DL until it's time to launch. I apologize for this. I wish I was this amazing coder who could just throw out what I am doing and be assured that what I was doing would be completed before anyone else could take the idea and do it themselves. If I had a massive following then that too might be a good reason to build in public. But, I am still learning about everything and trying to build at the same time. The ideas are strong and the path is clear, all I need is to make good use of the time I have been afforded to make what I hope you may enjoy and get good use out of. That would mean the world to me. And I do not want to undermine all of that by talking it all up before anything is ready to be shared. I hope you understand.    

In August, I was ready to start. However, I knew that in order for me to make a good go of this I needed to raise some money to sustain myself long enough so that I could focus full-time on building the company I wanted to build. To do that I had to not only deliver a plan but also a prototype of the first app I wanted to build and release.

It took me roughly three months to flesh out a short-term and long-term plan and create the basic prototype for the first of three apps, while also providing assurances that I could pull it all off. There was a good deal of back and forth, which was unbelievably helpful in developing those plans. I've set achievable goals for myself in the short term. And, should things gain traction, the long-term goals may also become feasible as well. It helps that since I created these plans AI Agents have come into play and all the tools I will be working with continue to improve. These should provide enough assistance in the first half of this year to help me stay on schedule, and possibly even help me get ahead of schedule so that I need to update my timelines. 

I have become more of a realist through the years, and I understand that things may not turn out the way I had hoped. I learned these lessons time and time and time again over the past thirty years as a storyteller. Even if I fall short of achieving my goals, I will have learned more than enough about a variety of AI tools and workflows to be a valuable asset to others with the experience I am gaining. While I welcome collaborating with others, I want to be an artistic AI solopreneur for the rest of my life.

In summary, I am starting a company that will begin with me releasing my first app. There are two other apps that I hope to release by the end of the year. In addition, I want to use dozens of the stories I have written over the past thirty years and turn them into graphic novels, films, TV series, and video games all with the assistance of AI tools. I may even create at least one fictional podcast. While any new screenplays or books I write will largely be written by me, as I still enjoy that process, I have been using AI to help in the early stages of new writing projects. 

However, I may lean heavily on AI to write one book and a course to accompany the first app I intend to release. I am not sure I can have the book ready to go before I release the app. Therefore, I may only have the free course to accompany the app upon its release. The book I am thinking about would be somewhat autobiographical and will likely take too long, even with the help of AI, to be ready by the time I release the first app. I may release it later as I start updating the first app. It is a great concept and users should get a lot out of it. So, we'll see. 

I would not have even thought about creating games or graphic novels without the help of AI. Well, I had certainly thought about them before AI, but I know I would not have been able to create them on my own. That's all changed now. 

Some of the work for films and TV I would like to be actually filmed, but if things get good enough with AI I expect much of it in the future will be AI only with my direction, as I have a lot that I want to share. In addition, I will be doing some content creation. This blog, as always, will provide a window into my progress. I'm not sure if I will do a newsletter. Maybe I'll get an AI agent to help with that. Within a month or so I will start releasing voice content and possibly a video or two. We'll see. 

Wish me luck, stay tuned for updates, and thanks for reading.