Mark William Chase's Blog

I have just released my Never AI pledge.

I should not have to do this, but with the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence, the threat posed to all creative-types has never been greater. Writers, poets, illustrators, voice actors, composers, musicians, and artists of all kinds now face a truly existential crisis.

As creatives, we must stand together against the polluted tide of AI-generated slop that is flooding every nook and cranny of our world. We must also reassure our readers, viewers, and fans that we will never use AI in any of our works, in whole or in part. Ever.

Please take a moment to read my Never AI pledge. If you are a fellow writer or another creative type, I encourage you to take this pledge as well.

Thank you,

Mark William Chase

Following their massively insulting AI writing scandal, in which they said they would permit AI writing, then doubled down saying it was “classism” to discriminating against AI writing, Nation Novel Writing Month lost a huge number of subscribers and is now shutting down. And that’s on top of a prior scandal involving allegations of child grooming.

I deleted my account with them last year, and so did thousands of others.

So good bye and good riddance.

You can read more about the story here.

I have deleted my NaNoWriMo account and will never participate in their official event ever again, even if they reverse course on this issue.

For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month, which is held in November) has officially stated that they do not condemn the usage of Generative AI. This is a slap in the face to all writers everywhere.

The second paragraph and last paragraph are what’s critical. I’ve removed some content in the middle where they were defined “ableism” and “classism” for some weird reason, so if you want to read the whole article, you can do so on their zendesk site.

What this means is that the organization behind this once-loved novel writing event is perfectly fine with you generating 50,000 words of AI garbage to win their contest. NaNoWriMo was supposed to support and encourage the creative writing community. Instead, they have just thrown it all away.

Moreover, we should not forget last years other fiasco, with allegations of child grooming activity on their forums. If true, then that is even more egregious than this AI kerfuffle, and is reason enough to kick NaNoWriMo to the gutter where it belongs.

As writers, we must make our feelings clear on this matter. Don’t just boycott NaNoWriMo this year. Delete your account. It is time for us to walk away.

Back in 2022, massively prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson went out on a limb to stand by independent authors regarding some of Audible’s rather unfair practices. To gain some clout in this, he refused to release his Secret Projects books to Audible, instead selling them on small audiobook platforms.

Well, Sanderson just announced that Audible has finally listened! At least, a little bit. But as he himself says in his blog post announcement, “every little bit helps”.

You can read his big announcement about it here.

Audible had promised to increase rates (a little bit) and to give better reporting and transparency about how the audible credits are applied. And they will start paying monthly instead of quarterly. That’s good.

However, the big problem with Audible’s payments to authors remains unaddressed.

An audiobook might be priced at $29, and 40% of that is $11.60. That sounds great right? Authors must be making a fortune!

But no one buys audiobooks for that price. Instead, they by audiobooks using Audible credits, which are worth anywhere from $5 to $10, and 40% of $5 is $2. Yes, that all an authors get for an audiobook sale. The rest goes to Audible. And remember, authors must hire voice actors to narrate their book, costing thousands of dollars. So on top of the fact that we not only write the book, but must also pay $4000 to $6000 or more to make the audiobook, we also only get $2 per sale, and sometimes less.

But Audible still refuses to address that problem, which is of course the real problem.

Even so, Brandon Sanderson continues to fight the good fight and help the little guy. He has the most clout in the industry, and if anyone can bring the much-needed change, he certainly can!

The first full trailer for Zack Snyder’s two-part movie “Rebel Moon” has just come out, and it already has me excited! The three-and-a-half minute trailer is packed full of action, and introduces us to an all new sci-fi universe.

Zack Snyder originally pitched the basic idea for Rebel Moon to Disney as a possible Star Wars movie, but the Mouse declined. And so, Zack Snyder took the idea and create his own sci-fi epic to bring it to the big screen… Or in this case, actually, the streaming screen.

Part 1 comes out on December 22, 2023 (although the writer’s strike might affect that), and Part 2 is set for April 2024.

I know I haven’t posted any recently updates regarding my books, but rest assured–I am hard at work on the next epic series taking place in the World of Mythania! These are longer epic fantasy books, and I want to get most of the books in the series finished before publishing.

So it will take a bit of time, unfortunately. I’m not the fastest writer around. On the plus side, you won’t need to wait long between book releases once the new series is ready!

Stay tuned for more details.

– Mark William Chase

The Teaser Trailer for the new Star Wars series Ahsoka has been released, and all I have to say is… Wow!

If you haven’t seen the teaser, you have to watch it right now. There’s a lot to unpack! But just a word of warning: if you have not see Star Wars: The Clone Wars or, especially, Star Wars: Rebels, you’re going to be a little lost.

Rosario Dawson reprises her role as Ahsoka Tano in the eponymously titled series. But joining her are Natasha Liu Bordizzo as Sabine Wren, Mary Winstead as Hera Syndulla, Chopper as Chopper, and to the delight of Star Wars fans across the universe, Lars Mikkelsen as Grand Admiral Thrawn!

The reveal, and confirmation, that Grand Admiral Thrawn would be in the series was the biggest takeaway, and I had cold chills when Ahsoka called him the “Heir to the Empire.” Thrawn was first introduce to the Star Wars Expanded universe in 1991 novel Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn, and this is a clear nod to that novel.

As great as it is to get our first live-action glimpse of Hera, Sabine, Chopper, and Thrawn (and a very brief glimpse of a hologram of Erza), the trailer also shows us two new characters: Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati. Baylan and Shin are set up in the trailer as possible Sith or Dark Jedi, but there’s a lot more going on with them than you might suspect.

First, they have orange lightsabers, not the typical red that is held by Sith. Second, their names Baylan Skoll and Shin Hati refer to Norse mythology with the two wolves Skoll and Hati who chase the Sun and Moon.

And finally, it is clear the Shin is not merely Baylan’s apprentice, but a true Padawan, after the Jedi fashion. Jedi Padawans always wear a distinctive hair braid, and in a few brief frames we can see that Shin has this exact hair braid.

Shin, played by Billie Eilish… I mean, Ivanna Sakhno… is clearly a Jedi Padawan. This means Baylan is either a misguided Jedi, a fallen Jedi, or Dark Jedi. The trailer has scenes of Baylan using Dark Side force choke powers against New Republic soldiers, and Shin aggressively attacking the bridge crew of a New Republic ship.

If you want to see a pretty good breakdown of the Ahsoka teaser trailer, check out this one by New Rockstars.

The new Ahsoka series starts sometime in August 2023. I can’t wait!

I have to say, the new upcoming D&D movie, Honor Among Thieves, looks absolutely fantastic from the trailers. Unlike the absolutely awful D&D movie from 2000.

The movie clearly doesn’t take itself too serious, and really plays up (and plays into) the D&D tropes. The character shenanigans are just what I’d expect from a typical D&D player group. In fact, it reminds me a lot of Vox Machina, which is not surprising really, since they’re basically doing the same thing as a new streaming series on Prime Video (also an excellent show to watch if you haven’t).

Anyway, this is definitely a movie to check out, when it’s released on March 31st.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 looks looks like it’s going to be just as amazing as the other two movies! Unfortunately, I think they might be spoiling something really big in this trailer… If you watch, you’ll know what I mean. There is a very sad moment for one beloved character. Maybe. Regardless, trailers do sometimes spoil the movie, and I hate it when they do that. But hopefully it’s just a red herring.

So, I just finished watching the Rings of Power season 1 (we always wait until all episodes drop before stating a series/season). The show was pretty good overall, I think. The lore was a little off, and very condensed, but we already knew it would be. I’m not here to dissect all the differences with Tolkien’s canon, but you can read about some of the differences here (warning: spoilers).

Anyway, this Honest Trailer for the show is hilarious! Only watch if you’ve seen the first season, as there are massive spoilers.