C.S. Robadue's Blog

How did we get here?

AUGUST 2025 – Life is full of branching paths. Some routes are as easy as a summer’s day and guide you forward with a carefree confidence that puts a spring in your step. But then others feel like a rugged harrowing climb along a knife’s edge into a deep fog, where you don’t know where you’re going and you just have to hope there is brighter views ahead. I’ve experienced both, but I think most often life is more of a low resolution labyrinth. Full of familiar turns, back tracking, and more than a little bit of confusion and head scratching.

It is only natural to focus on the future and what’s ahead of you, yet, unless you pay attention to where you’re actually headed and the bigger picture, you might just end up back where you started. So it is important to have a creative north star, something to guide you when the way forward is dimly lit and you are feeling lost. Maybe it is your stubborn persistence, or the encouragement of someone inspiring in your life, perhaps its a promise you made to yourself, or your just simply your own internal drive to create that you can’t turn off and have to turn it lose and see where it takes you, haha.

I think the important thing to remember in this age of AI and uncertainty is that only you can create the work that you do. Your creative voice like your fingerprints is completely unique. And the more you strengthen it through practice, persistence, and progress the better a talent you’re going to become. But you have to keep going. Or make the hard choice to take a different route and find a new direction. No shame in that either. The point is to always keep moving and developing and learning.

The light will be there at the end of the tunnel if you are continuing to put forward effort, it just might take you longer to get to where you want, but if you don’t try, you can guarantee that you will never get there. So, chart your course, throw your self into it, and see where you end up!

~ CS

The Slow Regard of Summer

JULY 2025 – Endless summer days and warm weather isn’t helping my writer’s block here, haha. Distraction abound! Watching the sailboats with a book in hand has become my new favorite afternoon escape. I should start practicing my nautical knots again and get back out there!

Still journaling regularly and putting together ideas for a new fiction book project, not completely sold on the merits of it in a world of AI, but still soldiering forward with it as a hypothetical work. Have the foundational plot figured out and the main characters, it is a sci-fi book which would be a first, so lots of new territory to explore.

Tried another Patrick Rothfuss book, his other short story work, ‘The Narrow Road Between Desires’, which I believe is a re-imagining of his earlier book ‘The Lightning Tree’. Like ‘The Slow Regard of Silent Things’ it is also in his main story line universe from the Kingkiller Chronicles and Kvothe. But this story features Bast and was a completely different style book, which I quite enjoyed. It also had wonderful illustrations and numerous bits of humor woven in. It definitely makes me curious when Rothfuss is going to return to this universe and release the third book in his main series, but remain patient and just enthusiastic about the undertaking.

Patient and enthusiastic, story of so much of my life, haha. Now if you’ll excuse me, need to get back to my reading nook and sailboats.

Cheers!

~ CS

The Forest for the Trees

JUNE 2025 – Being a detail oriented person can be extremely helpful when it comes to the world of design and for creating art. Being able to focus in on the tiny elements that help make up the whole and give even the smallest components their due attention is essential for creating great works of literature and artistry. Nothing not considered, everything pondered, analyzed, and fussed over.

It’s just funny how this lesson doesn’t always translate very well to the rest of one’s life, haha. As you can pay too much attention to the little things and miss the overall arc and majesty of the moment. This is certainly something that I’m guilty of – as in modern life it is ever so easy to not fully appreciate what you have until it is gone. And while it is important to care for and pay attention to the needs of the moment, you will be punished for doing so too much. For not zooming out and looking at the bigger picture.

I don’t have any easy solution to this, you just have to remind yourself to come up for air, to be thankful for life in the moment, and to keep the larger arc in mind. Sure, details matter, perfecting your efforts matters, but so does compromise, patience, mutual understanding, and taking a step back to make sure you are still headed in the right direction!

This month I read ‘The Slow Regard of Silent Things’ by Patrick Rothfuss, which as many other have joked really lives up to its name with its glacial pace. It really is a good reminder that you can become a victim of your own success. After writing the incredible ‘The Name of the Wind’ and ‘The Wise Man’s Fear’ the pressure to follow up and exceed those masterworks must be insanely heavy. And I think it can prevent your creativity from flowing freely as you are in a heightened state of perfectionism. Which is why I think he hasn’t been able to write the next book in the series yet. The stakes must feel way too high to risk getting it wrong.

For ‘The Slow Regard of Silent Things’ we stay in the same universe as ‘The Name of the Wind’, following Auri, one of the supporting characters. And I really like the mix of illustration and text, along with the depth of world building, but overall the story feels un-grounded and unsatisfying to the reader. How many times have you read a book and just been waiting for something to happen? But I do recognize the book was a leap of faith to try something different and that is to be commended. I think I was expecting more of a story along the lines of ‘The Hobbit’ where it has a natural arc and adventure, but if it is the only way we get more writing from Patrick Rothfuss, then I guess so be it!

I should talk, I am having a slow regard for new ideas myself, haha. It’s tough when you want everything to be great and then you get bound up creatively by feeling like you aren’t living up to your own standard. So take a step back my friends, in life, in love, in art, and appreciate the stunning beauty of the Forest around you.

~ CS

Stepping Away

MAY 2025 – Traveling and stepping outside of the norm (and chiefly your routine) really can re-calibrate your thoughts and perspectives. It always helps me appreciate the everyday differently and alleviates any creative or mental malaise I might be muddling through. There is that saying that familiarity breeds contempt, which I’d say tracks pretty well to how we can easily take what we have for granted. But by stepping away for a minute, an hour, a day, and so on it can allow a new perspective to rise in our conscious thoughts. One that better recognizes the good and obscures the petty.

Where you go is up to you, but grab some fresh air and a fresh perspective. I personally enjoy both nature and old world charm and architecture, so my list of places to explore is near endless. Would like to venture to Asia someday too, see Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan. One of my friends that lived in Seoul for awhile said it was like living in the future. And I imagine in the age or AI and robotics it will continue to flourish and feel otherworldly like that.

This month I picked up a Michael Crichton for the road as I wanted something fun and adventurous to match the spirit of the moment. Realized fifty odd pages in that I had read it before (Sphere), but it was still an excellent read. Need to watch the 90s film adaptation as I’m super curious how they interpreted the work. It doesn’t have great reviews, but the cast is excellent, so maybe it is a cult sleeper??

Definitely ready for summer and lazy days reading at the beach. Catch you all around!

~ CS

Outlook Foggy

APRIL 2025 – Been such a busy stretch, I have lost sight a bit of my creative pursuits here. Life sure can get foggy sometimes, can’t it? Where it is hard to see where you’re going or where you’ve been. So its been a bit of a slog these last few months, but worthwhile work often is. But I definitely like the digital footprints in the sand that this blog provides, so I haven’t abandoned it completely, haha. Just a commercial break from your regularly scheduled program I guess!

Modern innovation has alleviated a lot of mundane tasks or at least made them drastically easier, but moving certainly isn’t one of them. Endless packing, cardboard boxes, furniture to move, and logistics to plan. That’s what I want AI to take care of for me, and my taxes while it’s at it, haha. Instead we get computer poetry and low resolution visualizations. Not the tradeoff I was looking for. And I’m not hating on it, I actually think it is incredible and a modern marvel, I’ll just be ready for it to handle stuff I genuinely don’t want to do over the cool stuff I do want to do.

Despite the headaches associated with moving, it does also offer opportunities for clarity and new horizons, which are wonderful. And it does have a way of creating a proper chapter break in the daily narrative of one’s personal story. But unless the latest AI models can help with unpacking, I guess I’m going to have to take the lead on that as well, haha.

Stay awesome everyone, thanks for stopping by!

~ CS

Changing Royalties

MARCH 2025 – Important note! Amazon is updating their cost structure for print books and this will impact the list prices for my catalog of work. So if you’re interested in ordering a copy of any of my books at their current prices (and before they go up), make sure you do so by June of this year, as at that point the prices will change to reflect the new royalty structure that is being put in place for print versions.

I don’t believe this will impact the digital versions at all. If so, I’ll report back on that!

To order copies of any of my books, navigate to the ‘Books’ tab on the site here and select any of the titles and follow the link to the ‘Order a Copy’ button on the left-hand side.

Thanks everyone, happy reading!

~ CS

Digital Intelligence

JANUARY 2025 – I have been grappling for the last year or so with what creativity and art means in the new age of artificial intelligence. The progress in technology has been incredible with LLM, image/video generation tools, and AIP tools. Just amazing. Like many others have pointed out, I sort of thought the future and technological innovation would be more like the jetsons with robots and devices that made our food, etc. It is very interesting that knowledge work and creativity is going to be disrupted next in a profound way, I didn’t see that coming.

Innovations to make infinite carbon free energy, safe/fast mass transportation, or remove more of the drudgery from life were more on my bingo card. That doesn’t make the awe and amazement at what engineers and programmers have achieved any less real, as it is absolutely incredible what the current batch of AIs can do (and it is only the beginning here in 2025!!). Having them be able to write stories, create images, and even do ever larger and larger scale animation is a lot to take in as a creative person.

On one-hand it opens up tons of possibilities and is a new tool towards taking your vision and making it a reality. It is also unsettling to see the speed at what can be created which before would have taken a ton of dedicated creative labor and concentration. What’s the play? Have an AI write the first-draft of your book from a prompt and then fine tune it from there? Is that really your work? I suppose in a way. For many computational tasks this new analytic power is incredible and it does allow anyone to take an idea and bring it forward. So there should be no lack of content going forward. I want to be optimistic about it, but I’m also a bit unsettled by what it means. Maybe the scope and scale of the creative aperture is just that much wider now. And all we can do is embrace this new era as like it or not, AI is here to stay in a major way.

The above graphic was made by Grok AI from a prompt. Super cool! I was trying to illustrate a scene from ‘The Da Vinci Code’ by Dan Brown, which I read again this month. With the wintry weather it was nice to revisit a favorite book and a fun adventure story at that. The book has such reverence for the ancient masters, it seemed fitting to enjoy it as we move into a new realm of artistry and pay our respects for all that has come before.

I would certainly use AI to research historical concepts for my writing, but at this point in time I wouldn’t use an AI to write my book for me. As to me that sort of defeats the purpose of letting my own voice be heard. What do you think? Would you use an AI to write a book for you? Does generative art feel different to you? Are we not going to be able to tell the difference before long?

~ CS

A White Christmas

DECEMBER 2024 – Daylight is fading and the sun is setting on another year on planet Earth. Careless afternoons have been replaced with cozy evenings and holiday gatherings. I am feeling very grateful for all of my family and friends, both new and old. Always thankful for the good souls out there that are eternally worth fighting for and protecting. This season I’ve really enjoyed sitting by the fire and reading and relishing a slower pace of life.

Looking forward, I can see a great number of changes on the horizon, with their implications certain to ripple far into the future. But for the time being, the emphasis is on skating along with the present moment and embracing the warmth and joy of the season. And I’m looking for opportunities to give back and pay forward my good fortune.

Being home in New England for the end of December was extra special as we had a white Christmas this year, which was wonderful and really stoked the embers of good memories of my grandparents and holidays gone by. Dialing down the volume of the outside world and focusing in on family is definitely what this time of year is all about. Well, that and all the amazing eats, haha. I’ve had probably too many stroopwafels (if such a thing is even possible) and hot chocolates, but I love it.

Wishing all of you my literary friends a wonderful Christmas and New Year’s celebration! Be good to yourself, your family, and those you hold dear. Bright moments for 2025!

Cheers!

~ CS

The Unexpected

NOVEMBER 2024 – Change remains the changeless state. You can always bank on the unexpected to shake things up in your world. As ultimately, in life, everything is constantly in motion, even if moving a glacial pace. And it can be difficult to calibrate to this endless change, especially when the movements become seismic and the proximity personal. So steel yourself. Adapt and figure out how to course correct quickly when things take a turn in an improper direction. Will it always save you? No. Should you always try? Yes. Because you’re not always going to be able to tell which situation is which and the price of failing is consistently less than the cost of failing to try.

There will be stretches that test this resolve and make you wonder why. And riding out the storm becomes essential as it eventually will pass and you’ll need to have the courage to dust yourself off and keep on going. I try and remind myself of this and to consider trying situations from the perspective of others as that can help you understand that it was never really about you. Like the saying goes, “that’s just life.” Eventually we have to face certain realities and the more seasoned you are with change and adversity, the softer the impact will be when it hits you.

Life is full of things we can’t control. Maybe the glacier boulders have the right idea and we should just go with the flow, haha. Find your reason to keep going and pick the speed forward you can manage, the rest is just math, as you’ll eventually get where you’re going.

On a related topic, I recently read about the dangers of rumination and I think that is especially pertinent when the unexpected turns revolve around things we have no control over. And about how staying too long in negative thought patterns and memories can amplify the damage that they do. Makes it all the more valuable to accept the truth of the moment and then proceed along your path.

Sometimes you just have to take the advice of the Brits and keep calm and carry on. Happy belated Thanksgiving all, I appreciate you!

~ CS

Failing/Falling

OCTOBER 2024 – Failing has a funny way of bringing clarity to a situation. You can learn so much from things going wrong, even if they are painful lessons. I’ve heard people say if you aren’t failing, you aren’t trying hard enough. What do you think, is that true? A lot of things that are worthwhile in your life won’t have a 100% win rate, so you have to get over the inevitable setbacks and not let them prevent you from even trying to begin with. [Insert truism about missing 100% of the shots you don’t take] As anything you do that is even remotely high risk, high reward is going to force you to face this reality. Failure happens.

How you deal with failing is what matters. I’ve certainly had my fair share of these moments with a mixed bag report card on how I’ve handled it, haha. But like you were taught as a child, when you fall down, you have to get back up and keep going! Resiliency is so underrated. Universally, nature and the world value strength, but resiliency and perseverance is how you get there, that’s so often the missing ingredient.

I think these lessons carry over into every aspect of our lives. Take the healthcare system in the United States, where astronomical amounts of people suffer from chronic disease and insufficient access to medical services. It could easily be called a failure, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the story. This month I’ve been reading a book called ‘Good Energy’ by Dr. Casey Means about metabolic health and mitochondria dysfunction that is leading to so many health problems for modern humans. And more importantly the book talks about what to do about it. I’d definitely recommend giving it a read if you are interested in a fresh voice from the medical community on how to improve your personal health and how we as a society can refocus the conversation on healthcare in a new direction.

On that note, I’m going to go get some fresh air. Cheers!

~ CS