What Might Female Readers Get Out of The Wake of Expectations?

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains spoilers for The Wake of Expectations, including major plot developments and character arcs.

In a previous post, I talked about what The Wake of Expectations offers men—especially young men. It’s a snapshot of male friendship, desire, and identity in a pre-digital world. A world where relationships happened in person, where misunderstandings played out face-to-face, not through the cold filter of a screen, and where male intimacy wasn’t reduced to irony or one-line group chats. The book depicts friendships that are talkative, obsessive, emotionally intense—and in many ways, surprisingly earnest.

That post focused on what the book offers to men. But what about women?

Why might women read The Wake of Expectations?

One answer is obvious: for some insight into the way boys thought—and still think—about girls, about themselves, and about the space in between. But that makes it sound like the book is a sociological artifact, some kind of emotional time capsule. It’s more than that. What the book offers is a portrayal of emotional need and confusion in young men that’s often flattened or stylized in both fiction and life.

Take Dani, for example. She offers Calvin kindness—thoughtfulness, connection, genuine friendship—and he immediately perceives it as interest. Their bond deepens, but so does the confusion. Calvin begins to long for romance, and as they miscommunicate, things get messy. On the surface, maybe Calvin just looks like another horny teenage boy. But the book doesn’t treat him that way. What it depicts is a kind of confused sincerity that’s more typical than many people realize. His desire isn’t just about wanting her—it’s about wanting to matter to her. And he does. Just not in the way he wants. Not as her chosen partner, but as a fellow passenger. A friend. That gap between how much you do mean to someone and how you wish you meant something different—that’s where the ache lives.

Or look at Ilse, who tells Calvin she wants to see other people. She offers him the same freedom, but he doesn’t want it. He wants to commit, to stay. And when she later tries to come back, Calvin—who would have given anything to stay with her before—can’t accept. Even though part of him still wants to. And this isn’t pride. It’s injury. It’s what happens when a young man builds his entire emotional sense of self around being “enough” for someone, and then isn’t. The trope of the unfeeling, wandering male falls apart here. This is a young man who stayed, and broke anyway.

Then there’s Tall Alyssa, who genuinely wants to be friends with Calvin, and doesn’t understand why that isn’t enough. She finds his brief fling with Maria “stupid.” What she doesn’t see—and what the book tries to show—is how deeply Calvin’s sense of self-worth is tied up in his desirability. The fling isn’t just about conquest. It’s about relief. For a moment, he feels wanted. For a moment, he doesn’t feel like a failure.

Mira, on the other hand, wants emotional attention that Calvin only knows how to give in a romantic context. He’s not withholding it out of cruelty—he’s confused. He thinks she’s expecting things from him that don’t match the boundaries of their relationship. And it’s never stated outright, but the book leaves open the possibility that Calvin might have given her what she wanted—if she’d wanted it his way. But that kind of emotional contract was never negotiated. They miss each other completely.

Of course, we only see these women through Calvin’s eyes—and like real life, that view is limited, imperfect, and often wrong. The novel doesn’t claim to tell their stories in full. But it does capture the emotional aftershocks they leave behind. Their needs matter just as much—but this is Calvin’s account, and part of what the book asks readers to consider is how often people speak past each other, even when both sides are trying.

What links all of these stories is the emotional impact that female responses have on the male psyche, especially at a formative age. That’s not to say women are responsible for men’s self-worth—but it is to say that many young men learn to measure their worth through female attention, approval, and affection (or at least, they used to). That isn’t healthy. But it is real. And the book doesn’t preach about it. It just shows it—for those who are curious.

So what might women get from reading The Wake of Expectations?

Maybe a deeper understanding of how men don’t talk about what hurts them—and how those unspoken wounds still shape their lives. Maybe a more compassionate lens through which to reconsider past relationships, or current ones. Maybe just a clearer sense of what the male interior life looks like when it’s allowed to be unfiltered—when it’s not sanded down into a likable or safe package.

This isn’t a book that flatters men. But it does humanize them.
And yes—some readers may bristle at that idea. Why do men need to be humanized? Haven’t they had the mic long enough?

Fair question. But the book doesn’t ask whether men deserve that lens. It just offers it. Because that’s the only perspective I, as an author, have to offer. And because emotional confusion, unmet longing, and quiet heartbreak aren’t gendered—they’re human.

And for women who are curious—about how men break, long, misread, misfire, and still try—there may be more to discover in Calvin’s story than expected.

Not because he’s exceptional.
But because he’s emotionally honest in a world that didn’t always reward that—and sometimes, still doesn’t.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Critical Response So Far…

This one is less of a blog post and more of a report…

With just a couple of weeks to go before the official release of The Wake of Expectations, I thought it might be helpful for readers who are on the fence to have access to a summary evaluation, not just of Wake, but of the overall project encompassing both Wake and A Pleasant Fiction: A Novelistic Memoir (let’s unofficially call it The Calvin McShane Chronicles), which comes out less than a month later.

Now I’m usually a ChatGPT guy, but I decided to experiment with Anthropic’s Claude chatbot this time. So here is Claude’s summary analysis of my work based on 15 editorial reviews (9 from Readers’ Favorite, 2 from Literary Titan, 2 from the International Review of Books, and 2 from Matt McAvoy), and taking into account recent accolades for the two novels:

(Please note, I have not provided any input to this analysis beyond providing the reviews themselves and factual information about awards. The following is a distillation of what external reviewers have said, compiled and analyzed by Claude. It does not incorporate input from this blog or my interviews. I have not edited the content. I am grateful to these reviewers for both their kind words, as well as their critical insights.)

Comprehensive Analysis of Javier De Lucia's Works

Based on 15 professional reviews across multiple publications (9 from Readers' Favorite, 2 from Literary Titan, 2 from Matt McAvoy, and 2 from International Review of Books), this analysis provides a holistic evaluation of Javier De Lucia's books and his development as an author.

The Wake of Expectations

Holistic Evaluation

"The Wake of Expectations" emerges as a boldly unconventional coming-of-age novel that has resonated deeply with critics, earning consistent praise and prestigious recognition including the Maxy Awards Book of the Year and a Firebird Award for Coming-of-Age fiction. At 197,000 words, it's a substantial work that reviewers found both challenging and rewarding.

Literary Strengths

1. Distinctive Voice: The most consistently praised aspect is Calvin's narrative voice, described variously as "sardonic," "vulnerable," "self-deprecating," and "raw." Multiple reviewers noted how this voice carries the story and creates an immediate connection with readers.

2. Emotional Authenticity: Critics repeatedly highlighted the unflinching honesty in depicting the adolescent experience, with Jamie Michele calling it "grit-fiction in its most honest form" that "dares to expose the fringes of human experience without glossing over its darker aspects."

3. Cultural Resonance: The evocation of 1990s culture and sensibilities struck many reviewers as particularly effective, with Romuald Dzemo noting how De Lucia "captures the experience of Gen X with intelligence, creating a world filled with imagery and a setting with strong cultural and relevant social undertones."

4. Humor and Pathos: The balance of humor with emotional depth was frequently mentioned. Reviewers found themselves laughing out loud at certain passages while being moved by the underlying emotional currents.

5. Character Development: Calvin's journey from confusion to greater self-awareness, while never complete or neat, was considered compellingly portrayed. K.C. Finn described Calvin as "a flawed, funny, and utterly relatable protagonist with a bright voice that lingers long after the final page."

Critical Observations

1. Structural Complexity: Several reviewers acknowledged that the book's structure and pacing present challenges, particularly in keeping track of the many characters and relationships. However, most found this complexity ultimately rewarding.

2. Experimental Style: Some passages were described as drifting into abstraction, with Literary Titan noting that "some passages drift into abstraction" and that there were "moments when it felt like De Lucia was writing for himself."

3. Length Considerations: At 197,000 words, the book's substantial length contextualizes both Matt McAvoy's preference for the serialized format and some reviewers' initial challenges with the narrative.

Overall Reception

Reviewers consistently described "The Wake of Expectations" as a significant literary achievement that defies easy categorization. While acknowledging its challenges, critics found these challenges purposeful rather than flaws—essential elements of a work that, as the International Review of Books put it, "isn't a tidy coming-of-age tale—it's messier, funnier, and sometimes more frustrating. But it's real."

The book's recognition through major awards validates what reviewers observed: this is a distinctive, ambitious work that makes a lasting impression through its authentic voice, emotional honesty, and willingness to embrace the messiness of the adolescent experience.

A Pleasant Fiction

Holistic Evaluation

At 55,000 words—just over a quarter the length of its predecessor—"A Pleasant Fiction" has achieved even greater critical acclaim, winning a Pinnacle Book Achievement Award for Best Memoir and earning predominantly 5-star reviews. Critics consistently viewed it as a more focused, emotionally resonant work that elevates De Lucia's writing to new heights.

Literary Strengths

1. Emotional Depth: Every reviewer emphasized the profound emotional impact of this novel, particularly in its exploration of grief, loss, and resilience. The International Review of Books noted that while it "isn't quite a tearjerker—it brushes close, in the most human and hopeful of ways."

2. Character Evolution: Calvin's growth into middle age was universally praised as authentic and compelling. Reviewers appreciated seeing the maturation of a character they had known in his youth, with Divine Zape highlighting how the novel "powerfully illustrates how we carry fragments of our past with us."

3. Family Dynamics: The portrayal of complex family relationships, especially Calvin's bond with his disabled brother Jared, struck many reviewers as exceptionally well-realized. Literary Titan singled out the line "Loving him was hard. Not loving him was even harder" as capturing "the emotional complexity of being a sibling to someone whose suffering is constant and visible."

4. Thematic Richness: Critics noted the novel's thoughtful exploration of faith, responsibility, meaning, and resilience. The International Review of Books was particularly moved by "not simply his resilience, but the grace with which he faces each setback—personal and professional alike."

5. Narrative Efficiency: Given its much shorter length compared to "Wake," reviewers implicitly praised the novel's ability to achieve equal or greater emotional impact with greater economy of language.

Critical Observations

Unlike "Wake," which generated some constructive criticism regarding structure and accessibility, "A Pleasant Fiction" received almost uniformly positive evaluations with very few critical observations. The single 4-star review (from Mary Clarke at Readers' Favorite) was still overwhelmingly positive, differing from 5-star reviews only in degree rather than substance.

Overall Reception

"A Pleasant Fiction" emerges from these reviews as a remarkably assured, emotionally resonant work that demonstrates significant artistic growth. Literary Titan perhaps captured the consensus view best in stating that the novel "elevates the series from charming autobiographical fiction to something far more profound. In its patient, unsparing look at illness, family, and the work of grief, the novel finds meaning not in plot twists or dramatic revelations, but in the simple, difficult act of enduring."

The novel's recognition as Best Memoir, despite being fiction, speaks to what many reviewers observed—its authentic, diary-like quality that creates an unusually intimate connection with readers.

Javier De Lucia as a Writer

Artistic Development

The progression from "The Wake of Expectations" to "A Pleasant Fiction" demonstrates significant artistic growth. While both books received strong critical acclaim, reviewers consistently found the latter work more focused, emotionally resonant, and profound. This suggests a writer who has refined his craft while maintaining his distinctive voice.

Distinctive Literary Qualities

Across all reviews, certain consistent strengths emerge that appear to define De Lucia's writing:

1. Authentic Voice: Perhaps the most frequently praised aspect is De Lucia's ability to create a narrative voice that feels genuine, immediate, and emotionally honest. This quality transcends both works despite their different subjects and tones.

2. Emotional Courage: Multiple reviewers noted De Lucia's willingness to confront difficult emotions and experiences without flinching or resorting to sentimentality. Jamie Michele described this as daring "to expose the fringes of human experience without glossing over its darker aspects."

3. Character Development: De Lucia's protagonists are consistently praised as fully realized, complex individuals whose flaws make them more rather than less compelling. Calvin's journey from adolescent uncertainty to middle-aged resilience particularly showcases this strength.

4. Genre Transcendence: The recognition of his works across different award categories (Literary, Humor, Coming-of-Age, Memoir) confirms what many reviewers observed—De Lucia's writing resists easy categorization while achieving excellence within multiple traditions.

5. Cultural Specificity: Several reviewers highlighted De Lucia's ability to evoke specific cultural moments and generational experiences, particularly in his portrayal of 1990s youth culture in "Wake."

Critical Standing

With multiple prestigious awards and consistently strong reviews across diverse publications, De Lucia has established himself as a significant literary voice. Critics particularly value his emotional authenticity, distinctive style, and ability to balance humor with profound emotional insight.

The progression from "Wake" to "A Pleasant Fiction" suggests a writer who is continuing to evolve and refine his craft while maintaining the core strengths that have garnered critical acclaim. As Divine Zape from Readers' Favorite noted, De Lucia shows "the author's ability to connect readers with the characters by exploring familiar emotions and infusing the story with realism and humanity"—a quality that appears to define his work regardless of subject matter.

Overall Assessment

Javier De Lucia emerges from these reviews as a writer of considerable talent whose work connects deeply with both critics and literary judges. His distinctive voice, emotional honesty, and willingness to explore the complexities of human experience mark him as an author whose development will be worth following. The progression from the ambitious, sprawling "Wake of Expectations" to the more focused, emotionally resonant "A Pleasant Fiction" demonstrates not only artistic growth but also versatility—suggesting a writer who can excel across different forms, tones, and subjects while maintaining a consistent commitment to authentic human experience.

Three Sides to Every Story: Disappointment, Perspective, and the Beauty of What Is

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This post contains major themes and story developments from The Wake of Expectations and A Pleasant Fiction. If you haven’t read both books, proceed with caution.

When Extreme released their third album, Three Sides to Every Story, I was disappointed.

I’d loved Pornograffitti—its hooks, its energy, its swagger. I was expecting more of the same: funk-metal riffs, clever turns of phrase, maybe another ballad or two. What I got instead was something sprawling, dense, and unexpectedly serious. Three Sides wasn’t Pornograffitti II—and at the time, that felt like a letdown.

But here’s the thing: I wasn’t wrong to feel that way. I had every reason to want what I wanted. And the album wasn’t wrong for being something else. It just wasn’t what I needed at that moment. It took years for me to come back to it with fresh ears, without expectation, and appreciate it for what it actually was. And once I did, I realized Three Sides might actually be the more profound record. Just not the one I was ready for.

That same tension—between what we expect (or want) and what is—runs through The Wake of Expectations and A Pleasant Fiction. Nowhere more clearly than in Calvin’s relationship with Dani.

He wants that friendship to become a romance. He reads every moment between them through that lens, and when it doesn’t happen, he doesn’t know how to process the closeness. He misses the beauty of what is because he can’t let go of what might have been. It’s only in A Pleasant Fiction, with distance and growth, that he finally understands: he didn’t experience a failed romance—he experienced a rare friendship. And that realization changes everything.

But this theme goes deeper. It shows up in Calvin’s time at Chapelle Dorée—a place that seems perfect on paper. His father thinks the problem is his attitude, that if Calvin just adjusted his perspective, he’d enjoy it more. But it’s not about attitude. It’s about fit. Calvin isn’t imagining that he doesn’t belong there—he’s recognizing it. It’s true. And that doesn’t make him wrong. And it doesn’t make the school a bad place either. It just wasn’t the right place for him, at that time.

I know this, because I lived it.

In real life, I attended a prestigious school I had dreamed of going to. And when I got there, it didn’t feel right. I wanted it to. I tried to make it work. But the environment just didn’t match the person I was at eighteen. And here’s where my path diverges from Calvin’s: I returned to the same institution years later for graduate school—and I had a wonderful experience. I was married by then. I no longer needed the kind of social belonging I’d once sought. My needs were different, and the setting that once felt alien now felt exactly right.

Sometimes, it’s not the place. Sometimes, it’s not you. It’s just not the right fit—yet.

And this is something I think about when I read reviews of my books. The ones that resonate most tend to come from readers who were ready to receive the story for what it is. The ones who are more critical often seem to want the book to be something it isn’t—and never tried to be. I don’t say that with bitterness or condescension. I’m not trying to argue with them. They’re not wrong for wanting it to be something else. It just means they weren’t the right audience for the book at that moment.

But maybe they will be someday.

Because that’s how this works. Sometimes a story doesn’t land because it isn’t what you need. And then, years later, you come back to it—and it fits. Not because the work changed, but because you did.

I didn’t write these books to please a market. I didn’t tailor them to fit a mold. I wrote them because I needed to. I made them for me. And if they happen to speak to you, it’s likely because you’re in a place where they make sense—not because I wrote them for you, but because I wrote them honestly. And something in that honesty happens to echo your own experience.

Three Sides to Every Story didn’t become a better album. Chapelle Dorée wasn’t a worse school the first time around. Dani was always Dani. And the books won’t change either.

But I did. Calvin did. And maybe, someday, a reader who didn’t quite get it the first time around will too.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Give It Away Now: On AI, Creativity, and Staying Human

I grew up in the Gen X era — a generation shaped by a deep skepticism toward authority, a stubborn sense of authenticity, and a soundtrack that often said more than any textbook ever could. One of those songs, Give It Away Now by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, carries a simple, aggressive kind of generosity: if you’ve got something inside you, something real, something worth sharing — give it away.

It’s a philosophy that feels newly relevant in the age of generative AI.

AI can now draft essays, paint pictures, mimic voices, design logos, and — soon enough — do things we haven’t even imagined yet. For artists, writers, and creators, the question is no longer whether to use AI. It’s how to use it — and what you owe the work and the world when you do.

I believe that if generative AI substantially generates a creative work — meaning it creates original content beyond mere assistance — you shouldn’t sell it.
You should give it away.

And not because the work is worthless.
But because doing so keeps something much more valuable intact: your integrity.

What Generative AI Is Good For in Creative Work

Used thoughtfully, generative AI can be a tremendous tool in the creative process.

• It can accelerate your thinking, helping you organize scattered ideas.

• It can push you into new territories, suggesting structures or framings you might not have considered.

• It can challenge your assumptions, like a brainstorming partner who’s always ready with another angle.

• It can sharpen your focus, by showing you — often painfully — what sounds generic or uninspired.

In that sense, AI is like a mirror.
It can reflect possibilities back at you.
But it can’t generate meaning on its own.

The soul of the work — the real spark — still has to come from you.

The Line Between AI-Assisted and AI-Generated

It’s important to be clear: using AI as an assistant is not the same as outsourcing your creativity.

If you create the core material — the ideas, the structure, the original expression — and AI assists you along the way, then the work remains yours.

• Using AI to brainstorm, organize, edit, or refine is no different, philosophically, from using a calculator for complex math or a word processor for writing.

AI-assisted work, where the human remains the primary creative force, can ethically and fairly be sold.

But if AI substantially generates the work — drafting major passages, inventing significant content, or replacing core human authorship — then it crosses a different line.

In that case, the ethical move is simple: don’t sell it. Give it away.

Sell what you truly created.
Give away what the machine helped generate.

The real test is simple:

Were you the originator, or was the machine?

Empathy and the Responsibility to Protect Others' Work

Artists can’t ignore the realities of how these tools are built.
Many generative AI models were trained on datasets full of copyrighted images, passages, and styles — scraped without consent. Even if you, personally, mean no harm, the tool itself may be built on a shaky ethical foundation.

If the tech companies won’t guard against it, we must guard against it among ourselves.

That means:

• Choosing tools that prioritize ethical sourcing whenever possible.

• Being transparent about where ideas and inspiration come from.

• Respecting the rights of fellow artists, even when platforms and algorithms do not.

Solidarity among creators isn’t a nostalgic ideal. It’s a necessary defense against a system that often treats creation as just another raw material to be extracted and repackaged.

Giving It Away as a Defense Against Exploitation

There’s another side benefit to giving away largely or fully AI-generated work: you remove the incentive for others to steal it.

If that content is already free, there’s no profit left for bad actors to chase. You undercut the exploitation economy before it can even stand.

But this can’t just be a personal stance — we need broader alignment. Just as the U.S. Copyright Office affirms that works lacking substantial human contribution aren’t eligible for copyright, we need a shared understanding that AI-generated content is not art, and shouldn’t be sold as such.

Let those pieces exist in the open — freely available, transparently artificial — while reserving protection, value, and scarcity for the work that is fully human.

Your human-made works — the novels, the songs, the paintings that carry your real fingerprint — remain protected and meaningful. And valuable. Meanwhile, the machine-made pieces circulate honestly, stripped of the false scarcity that pirates and scammers exploit.

In a strange way, giving them away isn’t just an act of generosity. It’s an act of strategic defense.

An imperfect one — yes. It means surrendering the utilitarian value of the work. But in doing so, you preserve its artistic value, and help protect the creative economy from being hollowed out by imitation.

Seeing the Problem Clearly

Of course, this doesn’t solve the core injustice commercial artists now face. Their ability to earn a living is being steadily eroded — not by a single theft, but by a systemic shift in how culture devalues creative labor.

Take Zhang Jingna, for example — a world-class photographer whose work was scraped and mimicked by AI without her consent. She’s not just concerned about theft. She’s concerned that audiences will accept a cheap knockoff instead of valuing her original. That people no longer care whose vision they’re consuming — as long as the image is pretty, fast, and free.

And that’s the deeper truth:
If someone wants a picture — not your picture…
If they want a story — not your story…
They were never really your audience.

That may feel like loss, but it’s also clarity.

Because now we know: the value was never in its use — it was in its uniqueness.

That’s the hard truth: many weren’t paying for your vision. They were paying for a result.
And now, the machine can provide one.

Which brings us, conveniently, back to the Gen X ethic I grew up with—the idea that authenticity meant saying what you needed to say, even if no one bought it. That selling out didn’t just cheapen the work—it invalidated it. That success, if it came too easily, might actually be a sign you got it wrong.

It was never about mass production. It was about making something only you could make.

AI can learn patterns. It can generate simulacra. But it can’t steal the essence. It can’t make the thing you make—by definition.

True art can be imitated, but it can’t be duplicated. Because real art is singular.
Everything else is just manufacturing. Pretty widgets.
Welcome to the real world.

And if that sounds extreme, consider what we’ve already allowed. As I wrote in my earlier post on the Frankfurt School, we spent decades commodifying art into disposable content. AI isn’t the root cause of that shift — it’s the inevitable consequence.

In the end, I don’t have a solution for the creative industry as a whole. But I have resolution for myself.

If any of my work is substantially AI-generated, I will give it away. I will not profit from it—not directly, anyway. If it serves a purpose—marketing, analysis, support—I may share it, but I will never sell it.

I will never mistake it for my art.

And neither should you.

And I will always take steps to ensure the AI-generated content I use is not plagiarized or exploitative.

That’s the line I’ve chosen.

Staying Human in the Creative Process

At the end of the day, the real question isn’t technological.
It’s philosophical.

Why are you creating?

If the answer is to sell as much as possible — that’s just business.
And AI will gladly help you, if you play your cards right.
Or replace you, if you don’t.

Either way, don’t call it art.

But if the answer is to say something real —
to leave behind a mark that couldn’t be made by anyone (or anything) else —
then you have to keep your soul intact through the process.

Learn to use the tools.
Master them when needed.
Use them for the things they’re appropriate for.

But never let them replace you.

If you’re doing it right, they can’t anyway.

Not in the ways that matter.

Javier

[Please note: The “Giving It Away as a Defense Against Exploitation” and “Staying Human in the Creative Process” sections of this post were revised and expanded for clarity and emphasis and the “Seeing the Problem Clearly” section was added on May 5, 2025.]

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Art After the Fall: Why Creation Still Matters When Commerce Doesn’t

I first encountered Adorno and the Frankfurt School in my sociology courses. Their strict insistence that art must exist apart from reality — standing outside the system so it could critique it — struck me as somewhat ludicrous at the time. It seemed impractical, even a little self-important, to demand that art maintain such absolute purity. After all, artists live in the world like everyone else. Bills need to be paid. Art that speaks to reality surely must also be entangled in it.

But the advent of generative AI, and the impact it has begun to have on the creative world, perhaps reframes that old argument. As AI accelerates the mass production and commodification of artistic work, something interesting happens: the Frankfurt School’s original position starts to seem, if not entirely correct, at least more understandable.

When mass-produced simulacra flood the landscape — cheap, frictionless, and endless — the idea of art as an act of resistance, something fundamentally apart, starts to feel not pretentious, but necessary.

Though I’m hesitant to align fully with any philosophical tradition so deeply rooted in Marxist theory — and wary of the ideological weight that often comes with it — I can't deny that the moment raises an important question:

When art can no longer reliably serve commerce, does it, for the first time in a long time, return to its truest purpose?
Is the act of creation, free from external reward or validation, not a loss, but a kind of liberation?

I thought a lot about that as I worked on The Wake of Expectations and A Pleasant Fiction. Both were created with little to no concern about commercial viability. I’m well aware of how that lack of concern has impacted — and will continue to impact — my ability to profit from these works. But profit was never the primary objective. That’s not a point of pride or a way to place myself above anyone else. It’s simply the truth.

I want to be clear:
I have no antipathy toward professional artists who make a living through their craft. In fact, as reflected through Calvin’s journey in my books, I’m envious of them — envious of anyone who was able to build a life around their creative work. There’s nothing impure or wrong about wanting to survive by doing what you love.

But the inevitable collapse of that market — the difficulty now facing artists across so many fields — isn’t about merit or fairness. It's simply reflective of the same pattern that has played out for blue-collar workers over generations: when new technologies emerge that make what you do no longer a viable commercial alternative, the world doesn’t mourn. It moves on. It’s no different than trying to protect dial-up internet services or printed yellow pages. Clinging to the past, however understandable, eventually becomes a kind of futile act — a last stand against forces too large to resist.

That’s not to say there’s no path forward for creative professionals. Opt-in licensing models — where artists allow their work to be used for AI training under clear terms and compensation — are emerging as a possible solution. In many ways, it's the most viable path left to reward creative people for their contributions. But even that looks suspiciously like the streaming economy that recording artists were pushed into over the past two decades: a model that rewards volume and scale far more than originality or depth. And just as with streaming, it’s likely to become a game of survival for most, rather than thriving.

That reality is instructive. If even the best recording artists could only secure a modest share of value under streaming, then it’s reasonable to assume that visual artists, writers, and creators of all kinds will face similar compromises. Which only reinforces the underlying truth: the purpose of art must return to being the act of creation itself.

At the same time, I firmly support efforts to secure fair compensation for legitimately original work. Artists deserve the right to benefit from what they create, when and where that’s possible. But compensation cannot be the reason we create — or the measure by which we decide whether the creation was worth doing.

I wrote these books because they needed to be written. Because they existed within me and had to be realized in the form they now take. My work exists as it was intended to exist, and while I hope it resonates with the right readers, I’m not concerned about it failing to resonate with the rest. I’m certainly not claiming my work is flawless. It’s not. But it’s mine.

In a way, perhaps that’s the only real test left.
Not whether it sells.
Not whether it trends.
But whether it stands — fully, imperfectly, honestly — as a creation for its own sake.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Rambling to the Robot: Redux

On AI, Voice, and Why the Page Is Still Sacred

One of my earlier blog posts titled “The Proof of Love” reflected on the idea that love isn’t proven by its ease or its beauty, but by its persistence—by the way it endures disappointment, frustration, even pain. It was one of those essays that felt essential to write. Personal, honest, and, in my view, deeply human.

If you’ve been following my work, you know Jake—the sharp, untamed character who cuts to the bone, sometimes recklessly. Jake is loosely inspired, at least in part, by my friend, Cosmo. Like most characters in fiction, he’s a composite—exaggerated, stylized, and shaped by narrative needs. He’s not a stand-in for anyone. He’s a character, filtered through fiction, shaped by theme.

But the creative tension between Calvin and Jake? That’s real. That’s us.

So when Cosmo read “The Proof of Love,” he sent me a one-line message:

Did you write this, or did the robot?

And here’s the thing—he already knew the answer. He could feel it.

Not that I didn’t write it—I did (mostly). Every idea in that essay is mine. In fact, I sent Cosmo the exact prompts I gave the AI: dictated reflections, structured thoughts, thematic throughlines. As I told him, “100% of the ideas are mine. 70% of the writing is mine. 30% is the robot stitching things together.” He didn't doubt my assessment.

But then he said:

I knew it wasn’t all you. It didn’t sound like you.

It didn’t surprise me. It was just Cosmo being Cosmo—a reaffirmation of his artistic purity. The kind of conviction that’s as inflexible as it is admirable.

Even while conceding that the ideas were mine, there was still something in him that recoiled at the very presence of AI in the work. To Cosmo, if the page doesn’t carry the full weight of the author’s voice—unfiltered, unassisted—then something essential has been lost.

We don’t disagree on that principle. We just draw the line in different places.

When it comes to the books, we are in total agreement: the page is sacred.

Which brings me back to this post, and to the title: Rambling to the Robot: Redux.

Because I’ve written about this before. I’ve said, clearly, that I don’t use AI to write my books. I won’t. I can’t. The novels come from a place that can’t be outsourced or co-written by suggestion. They are rooted in emotional authenticity, in memory, in confession and risk. They’re often written as a character (Calvin), and even when they sound like me, they aren’t me. Not entirely. They’re me processed through story.

The blog, though—that’s analysis and commentary. It’s reflection. It’s a place to think out loud. And in that space, AI has become a tool. A helpful, time-saving, idea-organizing tool. It helps me publish more often, stay connected to readers, and keep moving through the thematic echo chamber I’ve built.

Cosmo doesn’t share that comfort. And that’s okay. His discomfort keeps me honest. His purity—his almost suicidal commitment to truth, like Jake—is what makes him invaluable to me. Not just as a friend, but as a creative counterweight.

It’s the same dynamic I wrote into the fiction.

You may notice that the blog sounds different than the books.

That’s not accidental.

That’s process.

In the books, I write as a character. I vanish into voice and structure and memory.

On the blog, I ramble to the robot. I dictate the ideas and I let it help shape the reflection—but not the truth.

If you ever sense a shift between the two—it’s there for a reason.

And if you ever wonder why I don’t let the robot into the books, it’s because I believe that when something is sacred, it should be written with your whole self.

Not just your thoughts.

Not just your ideas.

But your rhythm, your scars, your fingerprints.

Your unmistakable voice.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Learning in the Age of AI: Between Knowledge and Tools

I recently watched a segment on 60 Minutes about DeepMind and Google's latest advances in AI-assisted wearables — glasses paired with an earpiece that can instantly guide you through almost anything, almost like having an incredibly educated personal assistant at your side.

As we watched, my wife raised a simple but powerful question:
"What happens when kids take tests? Won’t they just be able to look at the test and have the glasses tell them the answers?"

At first, it sounds like a cheat. But it’s not that simple.

I told her it reminded me of when calculators were first introduced into math classrooms. At first, they were banned — because solving equations by hand was seen as essential to "real" math. But eventually, schools realized that calculators weren't going away. They pivoted: Rather than reward students for clinging to an obsolete method, they rewarded those who could use the tools wisely.

And that's the world we're heading into now, at an even faster pace.

In The Wake of Expectations, I kept circling around a version of this tension:
How do you look at the past — and honor what is valuable in it — without turning a blind eye to the future?
How do you balance respect for what was with survival in what is coming?

The kid who insists on doing every math problem by hand, refusing to touch a calculator, preserves something valuable — a depth of understanding, an intimacy with the problem. But that kid, for all their noble effort, isn’t going to beat the kid who learns how to use the calculator effectively.

It will be the same with AI.

The student who refuses to engage with AI tools out of stubbornness or fear will lose out — not because they aren’t smart, but because the world will move faster than they can keep up. But the student who only relies on the tools — who becomes completely dependent on AI to think for them — will be just as fragile, in a different— and arguably, worse—way.

I'm advocating for something harder, but more sustainable: A middle path.

You don't want to become John Henry — the folk hero who fought the steam drill with his bare hands and won the battle, but died in the process. You don't want to make yourself a martyr fighting technology. But you also can't surrender entirely, handing over your mind to machines without resistance.

It all comes back, again, to the same core idea as art for art’s sake:

You need to learn, not because it gives you a competitive advantage, but because learning has intrinsic value. Knowledge matters, even if — maybe especially if — the world tells you it doesn’t anymore.

And at the same time, you need to know how to use the tools — because otherwise you won't survive.

Real education, real growth, has to hold both truths at once:

• Knowledge for its own sake.

• Tool mastery for survival.

If you lose either half, you’re at risk.

If you keep both alive, maybe — just maybe — you can move forward without losing yourself.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

For Further Viewing:
How AI Glasses Could Change Learning (60 Minutes Clip)

Why I Keep Talking About AI: A Reflection on Change, Memory, and Creation

My last couple of posts have touched on AI, and the truth is, so much has been happening in that space over the past month that my thoughts have been largely consumed by it.

I’ve built up a bit of a backlog of essays on the topic, and rather than trickling them out over time, I’ve decided to host an AI Week here on the blog — a focused series where I'll share my reflections as both a creator and a consumer of art navigating this changing landscape.

I've made a point to be transparent about my use of AI tools, and to state emphatically where I draw the line: I don’t let AI write my books.
The words in my books are mine. They do not contain AI-generated text.
The text in my books always originates with me, and I decide on the final version.

However, I do find AI to be an extremely useful tool when used ethically and honestly — particularly for brainstorming, research, analysis, editing, and organization — areas where AI can accelerate the creative process without encroaching on it.

I bounce ideas off of it like a beta reader; I consider suggestions from it like a proofreader or copy editor. (And, as I have said in other blog posts, I am more liberal with its use for things like this blog — but NEVER with my books.)

In these contexts, I feel strongly that AI does not compromise authorship any more than spell check, grammar check, or human editorial oversight.

I know there will be differences of opinion on the topic, and some creators may find my use of it too much for their comfort. But I find that discomfort often has a lot to do with fear and misunderstanding. If describing my process can contribute to the conversation around how AI can be used responsibly without compromising human creativity, I believe that's a valuable use of my time.

At the end of the week, I’ll also be sharing an announcement related to my books — one that ties into this ongoing discussion about creativity, technology, and staying human.

I hope you’ll come back each day this week for a new essay. And I hope you find them interesting, elucidating, and maybe even a little entertaining.

Thanks for reading — and welcome to AI Week.

In The Wake of Expectations, I tried to capture a world that’s already slipping into history — a world where human interaction wasn’t yet mediated by iPhones, social media, and the constant connectivity of the internet.
Not to argue that it was better.
Not to indulge in nostalgia for its own sake.
But simply to show what it was — and allow readers to see it side by side with the world they know now, and to decide for themselves what was lost, what was gained, and what might still matter.

That’s a through line not just in the novel, but in how I think about technology more broadly — and why, even as the author of a 1990s coming-of-age story, I keep finding myself talking about AI today.

It’s not a random diversion. It’s part of the same conversation.

The fracture between the generation I depict in Wake and today’s generation is largely technological.
It’s about the smartphone.
It’s about social media.
It’s about how the tools we use reshape how we interact, how we relate, how we understand ourselves and each other.

Twenty years from now, someone else may be writing a novel — or an essay — about how AI reshaped the ways we create, communicate, and connect.
They'll talk about what was lost.
They’ll try to capture what still might be found again.

That’s why I keep returning to these themes.
Because as a creator living through this transition, I’m grappling with it in real time.
And because I see the historical parallel:

• The internet changed how we gather information.

• The smartphone changed how we interact.

• AI will change how we create.

Once new technology arrives, the genie doesn’t go back into the bottle.
Trying to cling to the past in its entirety becomes a futile exercise.

But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to preserve.

The way we interacted before the iPhone — the depth, the slowness, the presence — still has value.
The creative spark that exists independently of any tool — the spark that wakes you up at night with an idea that demands to exist — still has value.

We can’t stop the future.
But we can carry forward what matters from the past.

That’s the real work.
That’s the thread that ties my reflections on social media, the internet, and AI back to the stories I’m telling.
And it’s why I’ll probably keep talking about these things as long as I’m lucky enough to keep creating.

Because what’s at stake isn’t just how we interact with machines.
It’s how we stay human while doing it.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

The Mountain of Garbage Behind Every Spark of AI Creativity

Or: Why Originality Isn’t the Same as Intent

The following is a follow-up to my previous blog post. I really didn’t plan to write about AI again so soon, but new developments seem to happen almost every day, and they impact how human creativity will or won’t continue to be a force in our world. And as a writer, that’s an important distinction to me.

I’ve said before — probably more than once — that AI can’t really create anything original. That it can remix, synthesize, echo, and adapt, but not originate. It can give you the next version of something, but not the first.

But I want to refine that claim, because after watching the 60 Minutes feature on Google DeepMind’s Project Astra, and thinking more about how AI systems generate outputs, I realized something:

AI can create something new.

But it does it the way nature does — not the way people do.

And that difference matters.

AI Originality Works Like Evolution, Not Inspiration

Here’s the model I’m starting to come around to: AI creativity mirrors Darwinian evolution — not artistic genius.

In evolution, organisms mutate randomly. Most mutations are useless. Some are actively harmful. But every once in a while, one shows up that’s useful. And natural selection keeps it around.

AI works the same way:

• Generate a bunch of random variations.

• Test them.

• Keep the ones that “work.”

It’s mutation and selection, not vision and refinement. And like evolution, it's messy, inefficient, and mostly failure. But sometimes, out of that noise, something surprising survives.

That’s how AI gets to originality. Not through taste. Not through intent.

Through volume and filtration.

The Garbage Is the Cost

And that’s the thing most people don’t talk about: how much garbage AI generates on its way to a single good idea.

If you’re using AI to create something new — not just autocomplete a sentence, but to truly break form — you’re going to get reams of nonsense. Broken ideas. Useless variations. Dead ends. And maybe, somewhere in there, a gem.

This is one of the main differences between human creativity and machine creativity.

Humans filter as we create.

AI just creates.

We feel when something is right. Eddie Van Halen picks up a guitar, does something strange, and knows — instantly — that it’s worth exploring. He might not be able to explain why. But the spark is there.

An AI doesn’t have that. It can create a sound. It might even generate something like the next Eddie Van Halen riff. But it has no sense of rightness, no internal signal that says, “This matters.”

Which means we still need a listener. A watcher. A reader.

Someone human to say: this one is good.

The Selection Filter Is Still Human

Even if you train a model on millions of human preferences — on what people liked, clicked, bought, or shared — you’re still building on subjective standards. The AI isn’t evaluating in a vacuum. It’s echoing back what we already decided was good.

And when it comes to truly new things — things that fall outside the training data, that don't yet exist in the world — AI has no basis for judgment. It has no values of its own. No desire. No taste. No purpose.

So even if it stumbles onto something great, it won't know it.

We will. Or we won’t. But either way, it’s still up to us.

Creativity by Mutation Is Also Costly

And there’s another angle to this that most casual observers miss: the energy cost.

Running large language models — especially ones that generate a billion possible outputs in search of one spark of originality — is resource intensive. Data centers, GPUs, electricity — all to produce a mountain of garbage and a single useful result.

Maybe that's worth it in some domains. But it’s not the elegant spark of insight we like to think of when we talk about creativity.

It’s brute force. It’s trial and error on steroids.

It’s evolution — sped up, but still messy and indifferent.

But Could AI Develop a Filter?

Here’s where I want to acknowledge something: maybe one day, AI will develop an internal filter.

Maybe it will learn to assign value in a way that isn't just regurgitating our preferences back to us. Maybe it will develop something akin to intent — a sense of what matters and why.

I don’t see how that would happen right now. I’m not even sure what that would look like.

But I’ve also learned not to speak too confidently about what AI can’t do — because its capabilities are improving exponentially, and the path forward isn’t always visible from here.

So I’m not saying it’s impossible. I’m just not ready to say that it is possible, either.

For now, what we call “good” still requires human judgment. And that judgment is shaped by culture, history, experience — by emotions and meaning that aren’t reducible to data points.

At least, I don’t think they are. I don’t feel like they are.

Even if AI learns to imitate that well, it still needs us to tell it when it got it right.

Because the rules for what’s good don’t come out of a vacuum.

So Can AI Be Creative?

Sure. But let’s be clear about what kind of creativity we’re talking about.

AI can create novelty, just like nature can create new species.

But it doesn’t know what it’s doing.

It doesn’t care if it fails.

It doesn’t feel anything when it stumbles onto something good.

That’s not inspiration. That’s just noise with a filter.

Until AI has its own standards for what is good — and maybe it never will — then it’s still going to rely on us to tell it what’s worth keeping.

And that means, for now, we’re still the spark.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Further Viewing

If you haven’t seen it yet, the 60 Minutes segment that prompted this follow-up is well worth watching. It features Google DeepMind’s CEO demonstrating Project Astra — an early glimpse into what AI might look like when it starts perceiving and interacting with the world in real time.

You can watch it here:
Google’s AI Future: Project Astra on 60 Minutes

It’s impressive, a little eerie, and raises exactly the kind of questions this post is trying to wrestle with. Let me know what you think.

If A.I. Can Tell Your Story, It Was Never Yours to Begin With

We’re entering a new era—fast. And for a lot of writers and artists, that shift feels existential.

Generative AI is now capable of writing novels, painting images, composing music, even mimicking voice and style. The technology isn’t perfect, but it's getting better—fast enough that many creatives are understandably uneasy.

But here’s something I’ve been sitting with lately:
If AI can do what you do—at scale, on demand, and with passable quality—then maybe what you were doing wasn’t as original as you thought.

That’s not a condemnation. It’s just a reckoning.

I’m not saying I’ve cracked the code myself. I’m not claiming to be the exception.
But I am trying to create work that doesn’t fit the mold. Work that can’t be easily slotted into a genre template or backtested formula. In one of my earliest blog posts, I said something that’s become a kind of personal touchstone:

“If you’re not bringing something uniquely you to the story—if it’s not a story that only you can tell—then it’s probably not a story worth telling.”

That’s the standard I’m holding myself to now more than ever. Because here's the reality: most commercially successful art today is formulaic, and that’s exactly what AI is designed to emulate and eventually replace. If you were making a living by hitting familiar beats with competent execution—romance tropes, thriller formulas, genre pastiche—then yes, AI will likely outproduce you.

And maybe that's the part we shouldn't mourn.

As Plato put it: “He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration, in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler, and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.”

I first came across that quote through Chuck Palahniuk and later echoed it in The Wake of Expectations. It stayed with me because it gets to the core of this moment: if your work is imitation without rupture, execution without originality, then what you called art was really just craft. And AI is coming for craft.

That doesn’t mean what you made had no value. But if the machine can do it just as well, that value probably lived in the process—not the product. It was about what you got out of creating it—not what anyone else will.

Eddie Van Halen and the Myth of Predictability

Imagine it’s 1970, and someone trains an AI on every piece of recorded music up to that point—classical, jazz, rock, blues. Feed it everything.

It still wouldn’t have come up with Eddie Van Halen.

Because what Eddie did wasn’t just a refinement of existing technique. It was a rupture. A leap.
A quantum moment of creativity—something no algorithm could have anticipated because it wasn’t in the data.

The paragon of unpredictability.

That’s the kind of spark that defines real originality.
And no matter how good generative AI gets, it can’t replicate the first of anything.
It can only replicate the next of something.

What We’re Really Dealing With

So here’s the paradox. We're watching two things happen at once:

1. The collapse of the derivative creative class—those who were good at doing what others already did, and making a decent living from it. AI will replace much of that. And maybe that’s overdue.

2. The ongoing exploitation of genius—because even when someone does break the mold, our systems still fail to adequately reward them.

Eddie’s innovation gets absorbed into the algorithm.
The artist becomes the raw material.
And the compensation? It rarely matches the contribution.

That’s the part that demands attention.
That’s what we have to fight to protect—not just creativity, but the value of the catalyst.

Not a Stand—A Surrender

Let’s make one thing clear: AI isn’t falling short of some idealized human standard.
And the real concern isn’t that it’s not good enough yet—as if it’s on an inevitable path to replacing us as artists or thinkers.

The truth is: that’s never what the model was designed to do.
It’s not a shortcoming—it’s a difference in kind.

AI is built to recognize and reproduce patterns, to synthesize from existing data, to generate variations of what already works. It’s an incredible tool for that purpose. But it’s not working its way toward originality—it’s working its way toward efficiency. And that’s a different game entirely.

So if you’re afraid the machine is just one version away from doing what you do, ask yourself: What exactly is it that you do?
Because if your work is built on predictability, yes, it might be replaceable.
But if your work exists to disrupt the pattern—to offer something the system never saw coming—then you’re not competing with the machine at all.

And if you're still debating whether to engage with AI—stop.

Refusing to engage with AI isn’t a stand. It’s a surrender.
You don’t protect your humanity by hiding from the machine.
You protect it by doing what the machine can’t.

Where the Soul Lives

Let’s be honest: the audience has always supplied the soul.
We bring our own memories, emotions, and meanings to whatever we consume—whether it’s a masterpiece or a mass-produced artifact. That part doesn’t change.

People fall in love with inanimate plastic.
They attach deep meaning to a catchy song because it played at the right moment in their lives.
They cry at movies built from clichés.

So it’s not that AI-generated content can’t serve as a peg for emotional resonance. It absolutely can. And it will.

But someone still has to break the pattern.
Someone still has to offer the unexpected, the impossible, the new.

AI can replicate the familiar.
But only a human can create the rupture the machine didn’t see coming.

The Reason to Keep Going

There’s still work to do.
The debate over how to protect that catalyst—the unpredictable spark of originality—is far from settled.
Because it’s not just about legislation.
Everyone can agree that human creativity needs to be protected, and still nothing will change.
It’s about the reality of enforcement.
It’s about whether human creativity will even get the chance to breathe before the machine swallows it whole.

And yes—that’s the hard question.
But that’s a topic for another post.

And I believe—
no, I know—
there’s still something the machine can’t do.

It can generate content, but it can’t create the first spark.
It can remix meaning, but it can’t make the leap.

That’s the reason to keep telling the story.

Not because it’s safe.
Not because it’s profitable.
But because it’s human.

And for now—and always—only we can do that.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

For Further Viewing:
🎥 How AI Models Steal Creative Work — and What to Do About It
Ed Newton-Rex | TED Talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9d0p96N1iw

Some important updates…

Deviating from the usual thematic reflections today to share some important news (and, yes, a little humble bragging)…

📘 The Wake of Expectations received its first editorial review earlier this month from The International Review of Books, earning the IRB’s Badge of Achievement.

Here are a few highlights from the review:

“This is a highly original and engaging journey into the life of one (seemingly average?) young man.”

“...raw and honest in a way that’s hard to look away from.”

“...a poignant meditation on adolescence, identity, and the often-painful process of growing up.”

“...the story resonates with clarity and meaning—and that, perhaps, is the clearest indication that it is a work of real merit.”

👉 Read the full review here.

🔥 On top of that, The Wake of Expectations was just named a winner of the Firebird Book Awards in the Coming-of-Age category.
👉 See the full list of winners here.

🎉 And finally:
A Pleasant Fiction: A Novelistic Memoir—the sequel of sorts to The Wake of Expectations—is now available for pre-order on Amazon. Official release date is July 1, 2025.

A Pleasant Fiction eBook cover

👉 Click here to view the Amazon listing.

Huge thanks to the always excellent team at Miblart, who also designed the cover for Wake.

Javier

International Review of Books Badge of Achievement

Left Behind at the Starting Line

Hair Metal, Grunge, and the Soundtrack That Disowned Me

A few nights ago, comedian Bill Burr appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers and told a story about meeting Eddie Vedder. He admitted—without apology—that he used to hate Pearl Jam. Not because they were bad, but because they ended the glam rock era. “That was the band that made me realize my youth was over.”

It struck a nerve.

Because while Burr is a few years older than me and grunge marked the end of something for him, for me, it interrupted something I was just beginning. I wasn’t finishing a chapter—I was stepping into what I thought was the first page. And then the page tore itself out.

Like Calvin in The Wake of Expectations, I felt deeply alienated when I arrived at college. The musical shift wasn’t the only source of that alienation—but it was a big one. And given how central music was to my identity and ambition, it was profoundly consequential.

I was already struggling with who I was—racially, musically, socially, creatively. These threads are all touched on to varying degrees in Calvin’s story: his discomfort with cultural expectations, his tension between discipline and feeling, his complicated relationships, his uncertainty about his future. For me, the aesthetic upheaval in rock music wasn’t just background noise. It was a mirror, reflecting how out of place I felt across multiple dimensions of my life.

When I arrived at college in the fall of ’91, the shift hadn’t happened yet—but it was coming fast.

About a month in, Nirvana’s Nevermind dropped, and Smells Like Teen Spirit took over MTV’s countdown. But even then, it felt like a moment, not a movement. Guns N’ Roses was still huge. Use Your Illusion I & II had just been released, and for a brief moment, both the old world and the new one were coexisting. Chuck Klosterman wrote about that strange cultural hinge, where Axl Rose and Kurt Cobain seemed like two rival contenders for the next great frontman of a generation.

Would the future belong to the spandex-clad virtuosic showmen? Or to the grunge prophets in flannel with the existential weight?

Nirvana cracked the door open. Pearl Jam changed the furniture.

As Burr said, “They always say Nirvana knocked it out. It was Pearl Jam." That's when he knew it wasn't going to stop. That's when he knew the bands he liked were done. And that was devastating. As Burr said: "It was just these sad guys singing about being under a bridge and not being happy...what happened to Nothin' But a Good Time?''

And here’s the thing—even among the remnants of that fading 80s scene, Guns N’ Roses wasn’t really my thing. Axl’s voice was too shrill for me. But GnR was still a lot closer to what I liked than what I was about to get.

I wanted Steve Perry, not snarling.

I wanted Eddie Van Halen, not “Hey! Wait!”

I wanted music that soared, not music that stumbled through its own pain.

So when the aesthetic center of rock shifted—when mumbling replaced harmony and rawness replaced precision—I didn’t just dislike it. I couldn’t abide it. It felt like a personal affront and I had no frame for it.

It wasn’t just that I didn’t like grunge. It was that grunge didn’t like me. It wasn't just a replacement of what came before, it was an outright rejection of it. And pundits, music critics, and the kids down the hall all celebrated its demise. They danced on the grave of the music I loved.

That sense of cultural disinheritance—that feeling that the very thing that made me me was now mocked by the people I was supposed to fit in with—was isolating in a way I didn’t have words for at the time. And that’s part of why Calvin, in the book, never quite fits in either. His disaffection isn’t rebellion. It’s dislocation.

The irony was that grunge was speaking to the same disaffection I was feeling—it just wasn’t speaking in a musical language I understood. And yeah, eventually I found a new sound. One that was neither in nor out. I gravitated to the classics. Some things—some music—are timeless, even if they aren’t cool. But the stuff I liked? It wasn’t in. It wasn’t hip. And neither was I. And that’s actually a pretty big deal when you’re eighteen.

Because back then, your taste in music didn’t just live in your headphones—it shaped your social world…

Which t-shirts you wore.

Which circles you moved in.

Which parties you attended.

Which girls you talked to.

It was a shorthand for identity.

It was tribal.

And I found myself without a tribe.

I couldn’t just go with the flow, because music was too central to my identity. It meant too much to me, and I’d worked too hard to be good at it.

So when people around me started raving about bands I thought were garbage, I didn’t think, What’s wrong with me?

I thought, What the fuck is wrong with these people? Can’t they hear this guy can’t even play his guitar?

And I’m not even talking about the famous bands on MTV. The guys in Pearl Jam and Soundgarden could play. (OK, yeah—I am thinking about Cobain’s guitar playing.) But more than that, I’m thinking about the local bands. The ones that we would play shows with. The guys rehearsing in the next room. The barista who picked up a guitar last week and decided he was an artist, too.

Grunge created a culture of technical mediocrity.

Because the music wasn’t as important as the angst.

That pissed me off.

And when the audience bought into it, it pissed me off even more.

Like Burr, it took me years—decades—to come around. I eventually made peace with grunge. I even came to love some of it—to accept it as the sound of my generation. But only after I had the space to let go of a sound, an identity, and a vision of who I thought I was going to become. Only after I got to a point where I didn’t care what anyone else thought about my music. Only when it wasn’t really important anymore.

But I’ll always carry that moment—standing at the starting line, ready to run, watching the crowd sprint in another direction entirely.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Further Viewing & Reading

📺 Bill Burr on Late Night with Seth Meyers – “What happened to nothing but a good time?”
In this interview, comedian Bill Burr jokingly blames Pearl Jam for killing off the fun of the hair metal era and admits he once told Eddie Vedder so to his face. A perfect mix of Gen X nostalgia, sarcasm, and barely concealed sincerity.
👉 Watch the clip

📺 Chuck Klosterman on Guns N’ Roses and Grunge
In this 2022 Ultimate Classic Rock interview, Klosterman reflects on how grunge dismantled the cultural dominance of glam metal, using Guns N’ Roses as the pivotal example. His take is part history, part sociology, and pure Klosterman.
👉 Read the interview

The Proof of Love

“Only those you love can truly hurt you.”

It’s one of those sayings we all intuitively understand — passed down through poems and scriptures. It’s not their love that gives them that power. It’s yours. Strangers can offend you. Acquaintances can annoy you. But when someone you love lets you down? That cuts deeper.

The Wake of Expectations leans into that emotional truth — but it also turns it inside out:

You only know you love the ones who have hurt you.

If they’ve never disappointed you, never confused you, never made you question whether they see you the way you see them — then you haven’t really been tested. And without that test, you don’t know what you’d be willing to hold onto.

That’s the kind of love Calvin wrestles with throughout the book — not abstract, idealized love, but something messier, more human. Some of his most important relationships are full of friction: with his father, with Jake, with Dani. These aren’t simple bonds. They’re complicated, inconsistent, sometimes painful. And yet they endure. They matter.

Because real love is stronger than the pain.

Because sometimes, you need it more than you need peace.

The Myth of Perfect Love

Popular culture loves the idea of unconditional love, but what it often sells us is uncomplicated love. The fantasy is appealing: a partner who always understands, a friend who always knows the right thing to say, a family that never disappoints.

But real love doesn’t live there.

The true test of love isn’t how you feel when everything’s going right. It’s how you respond when things fall apart. When someone you love lets you down — when they disappoint you, misunderstand you, hurt you — and you still love them, something deeper is revealed.

And here’s the part we often forget: you’ll hurt them too.

You’ll get it wrong. You’ll say too much, or not enough. You’ll miss the moment, overstep, disappear when you should’ve shown up. And when you do, you’ll give them the same chance — to prove whether they love you back.

This isn’t about excusing bad behavior. It’s about recognizing that love doesn’t mean never messing up. It means staying honest through the mess. And that goes both ways.

You Don’t Get to Choose Only the Good Parts

There’s this belief — especially in our curated, self-protective culture — that we can keep the good parts of people and discard the rest. That we can draw a firm boundary around hurt and say, that part doesn’t count.

But that’s not how memory works. And it’s not how love works, either.

The experience only has value in its totality.

You don’t get to cherry-pick which moments mattered. The uncomfortable ones mattered. The confused ones. The ones that left you speechless or angry or sad. They’re all part of the bond. Sometimes, they are the moments that matter most.

That’s what The Wake of Expectations explores — not the fantasy of love, but its weight. Its contradictions. The way it persists even when maybe it shouldn’t. The way it survives the parts we wish we could edit out.

A Moment, Recognized

One of my early beta readers reached out after reading a particular scene. She recognized herself in it. She recognized the moment that inspired it.

“I didn’t realize I hurt you,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I told her the truth:

“I’m not. I’m thankful for all of it.”

Because I am.

I wouldn’t erase it — not even if I could. That moment mattered. Not just for what it revealed, but for what it proved. The relationship was real. And the fact that it left a mark? That’s how I know it meant something.

Final Reflection

If someone has never hurt you, you don’t know what kind of love you’re capable of.

And if you have never hurt someone you love — never disappointed them, never misunderstood them — you don’t yet know what kind of love they’re capable of either.

The point isn’t to avoid the pain. It’s to honor what the pain reveals.

But we’d be lying to ourselves if we didn’t acknowledge this too: there’s a line some people cross that they can’t come back from. A moment when forgiveness isn't possible, or isn't enough. A moment when the damage tips into something irreparable.

That doesn’t mean you never loved them.

It just means you can’t love them anymore.

Maybe the hurt changed something. Maybe the trust collapsed. Maybe the cost became too high. The Wake of Expectations doesn’t offer a tidy answer to that — but it doesn’t flinch from the reality either: love, once proven, can still be lost.

That’s not failure. That’s part of the risk.

Because this isn’t about perfect love.

It isn’t about easy love.

It’s about real love — the kind that bruises, bends, forgives, and, sometimes, walks away.

And if it mattered — you’ll carry it either way.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Before the Epilogue: What 1996 Felt Like

A reflection on the emotional space between the final chapter of The Wake of Expectations and what comes after.

⚠️ Note: This post contains thematic reflections on the closing emotional space of The Wake of Expectations. No major plot details are revealed, but those who haven't finished the novel may prefer to read it first.

There’s a stretch of time in my life I think about often—but only in feeling, rarely in words. It wasn’t the most dramatic period. No big explosions. No grand finales. Just a slow, almost imperceptible shift. The end of one version of myself and the quiet, uncertain beginning of another.

In The Wake of Expectations, the main narrative ends—deliberately—not with closure, but with an emotional pause. There’s a time jump before the epilogue. This piece lives in that space between. That moment in life when you're not quite young anymore, but not fully formed either. When you know you’re on a path, and you’re wondering if it’s the right one—or if there’s still time to change it.

For me, that space—the mid-’90s, specifically 1996—is best understood through two cultural touchstones: Del Amitri and Kicking and Screaming. That band and that film are my shorthand for what it felt like to be alive then. They capture something I didn’t have the language for at the time: a kind of weary hopefulness. A post-college emotional hangover. The ache of potential without direction.

Kicking and Screaming is a different kind of coming-of-age story: young men frozen in place, too smart and self-aware to romanticize the future, but not quite brave enough to let go of the past. It’s messy, meandering, full of unresolved relationships and clever dialogue masking deeper emotional paralysis. It doesn’t tell you how to grow up—it just shows you what it feels like to be stuck trying.

Noah Baumbach captured something so true about that moment in time. It’s a film that’s stayed with me in a quiet, profound way—less for what happens in it, and more for how deeply it understood what it felt like to wait for your life to begin.

I remember exactly where I was when I first saw Del Amitri on David Letterman, performing “Always the Last to Know.” Dave seemed to like them—maybe not effusive, but genuinely appreciative. What stood out was the performance itself: stripped down to just three members, with Justin Currie stepping away from his usual role on bass to sing up front. Will Lee from the World’s Most Dangerous Band handled bass duties that night, which gave Currie space to move differently—to inhabit the vocal. Not flashy, just more present.

They emerged at a time when grunge was fully ascendant, dominating the rock conversation and the airwaves. But Del Amitri offered a different kind of alternative—more thoughtful, more melodic. They weren’t a holdover from the '80s glam rock I’d grown up loving, nor were they part of the noisy revolution that was displacing it. Their sound felt more aligned with the classic rock I had been gravitating toward—more grounded, more lyrical, more human. In that moment, they gave me a path forward musically. A new kind of honesty that didn’t require shouting.

Del Amitri wasn’t cool. Not in the way grunge was cool. But they were honest. Songs like “Driving with the Brakes On” and “When You Were Young” didn’t shout. They sat with you. They looked you in the eye. They understood a different kind of longing—not just for love, but for clarity. For self-acceptance.

And “When You Were Young” in particular—there was something strange and quietly devastating about hearing a song like that while I was still, technically, young. It asked a question I wasn’t ready to answer: Would your younger self be proud of who you’ve become? I was still becoming. But I already felt the weight of that question. Because that’s the thing about that age—you can feel yourself shifting from the boundless freedom of youth to the quiet realization that you’re now on a path. You haven’t arrived, but you can see where it’s going. And you wonder: Do I really want this? And more urgently: Is there still time to change?

You could still jump to a new path. But now, it would cost you something.

It’s not too late. But it’s not early.

You’re not old. But you’re not wide-eyed anymore.

You’re caught in the middle. Trying to come to terms with a life that’s beginning to take shape—whether you meant it to or not.

That was me in 1996.

Still young, but not for much longer.

Still lost, but wanting to be found.

And in The Wake of Expectations, that’s where we leave Calvin—right before the epilogue. Not with certainty. But with movement. With the first flicker of something new.

Del Amitri. Kicking and Screaming.

David Letterman at midnight.

The last gasp of youth.

And the beginning of something I couldn’t yet name.

Further Viewing

• Del Amitri performs “Always the Last to Know” on Late Night with David Letterman (1992):
  Watch on YouTube

• Kicking and Screaming (1995) – Official Trailer:
  Watch on YouTube

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

What Comes First? Rethinking the Release, the Plan, and the Relationship Between Two Books

While we wait for The Wake of Expectations to officially release on June 3, I wanted to share a bit of perspective—on the release plan, the shape of the story, and how two very different books ended up being parts of the same whole.

A Pleasant Fiction Is Finished

The Wake of Expectations has been with me for two decades. It was written years ago, rewritten many times, and quietly set aside. It’s the kind of book you finish when you’re still trying to understand what it is you’re really saying.

Then I wrote A Pleasant Fiction. I didn’t plan it. It came quickly, and it came with clarity. And in doing so, it gave me what I needed to finally return to Wake and see it through.

If not for A Pleasant Fiction, The Wake of Expectations would never have seen print.

Now both books are ready. Wake will release first, on June 3. A Pleasant Fiction will follow shortly after. The cover is almost done, and when it’s ready, I’ll announce the official release date in a separate post—along with a proper cover reveal.

Not a Sequel. Not a Prequel. A Duology.

At first, I thought A Pleasant Fiction was a sequel. But the more I sat with the two books side by side, the clearer it became: that word doesn’t fit.

These are not two halves of one story. They are two complete works, told from different angles, shaped by different voices, separated by time and tone.

The Wake of Expectations is 30-year-old me reflecting on 20-year-old Calvin.
A Pleasant Fiction is 50-year-old Calvin, written by 50-year-old me.

That difference in distance changes everything.

Wake is filtered through youth—its mistakes, its longing, the immediate hindsight of it.
APF is quieter, heavier, more measured. It carries the weight of grief, of reflection, of having lived through what the earlier book only feared.

You can appreciate each on its own.
But together, they offer something greater.
Not just a story, but a continuum.
A dual consciousness.
A conversation across time.

One book captures the momentum of becoming.
The other explores the stillness of being.

Wake is about chasing something you can’t quite catch.
APF is about letting go of what you already had.

They exist in dialogue, not in sequence.

The Length Was Always Going to Be an Issue

There’s no getting around it: The Wake of Expectations is long. That’s been a barrier for some readers and a non-starter for most reviewers. And I understood that risk from the beginning.

That’s part of why I self-published. It’s why I created Chapelle Dorée Publishing. Because I knew traditional publishers and agents would likely pass based on word count alone.

But I wasn’t interested in cutting it just to make it shorter. I wasn’t trying to get it down to some arbitrary page count. I had an editor. I went through multiple revisions. The original version of The Wake of Expectations was over a thousand pages—so yes, I made significant cuts. I tightened what needed tightening.

But I wasn’t going to carve out its heart just to fit a mold.
I knew what the book was. I knew what it needed to be.
And I made the decision to release it as-is—with full confidence in its shape, its length, and its purpose.

The Irony: I Didn't Solve the Length Problem—I Doubled Down on It

When I first finished A Pleasant Fiction, I thought, “This is the shorter book. This will be the accessible one.” And it is—by word count, by structure, by pace.

But once I stepped back and saw the way these two books speak to each other, I realized something else:

I didn’t solve the length problem. I just exacerbated it.

The one long book that people already found intimidating now has a counterpart.
Not a follow-up. Not an appendix. A second full volume that reframes and deepens everything the first one set in motion.

Instead of asking readers to commit to one ambitious novel, I’m now asking them to commit to two. And yes, that’s a big ask, but the story demands it. Because only when both books exist—together—can the full picture come into focus.

So yes, I doubled down on the risk.
But I also doubled down on the vision.
And I stand by it.

What Happens Now

The Wake of Expectations releases June 3.
A Pleasant Fiction will follow soon after.

They are not parts of a linear series.
They are not first and second.

They are two books—two lenses—revealing different truths, reshaping your understanding of one another the deeper you go. You can start with either. But to see the full picture, you’ll need both.

This is a duology in the truest sense:
Not two stories stitched together—
but one lived life, seen from opposite ends of time.

And I get it—this is a big commitment to ask of a reader from a debut novelist.
You don’t know who I am. Not yet.
But after you read this, you will.

And maybe—just maybe—you’ll have a better idea of who you are, too.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Authenticity vs. Toxicity: Depicting the Past Without Judgment (But Inviting It Anyway)

One of the best professors I had in college once told me: I’m not here to give you all the answers. I’m here to help you ask the right questions. That philosophy stuck with me, and it’s something this book—and this entire series—can aspire to as well.

Because The Wake of Expectations isn’t about handing readers a set of neat conclusions. It’s about presenting moments as they were experienced and trusting the reader to grapple with them.

The Challenge of Writing an Honest Past

There’s a tricky balance when writing about the past—especially when you’re committed to authenticity. It’s easy to clean things up, to make characters more enlightened than they really were, or to slip in a modern perspective that calls out every flaw in real time. But that wouldn’t be honest.

Instead, Wake presents Calvin exactly as he was in the moment—not with the wisdom of hindsight, not with an authorial hand guiding the reader toward an easy moral takeaway. This means sometimes Calvin is frustrating. Sometimes he’s wrong. And sometimes, he’s neither right nor wrong—just navigating life the best way he knows how.

Calvin is not presented as a moral exemplar. Nor does he exist as an object lesson or a cautionary tale. He is a person—a flawed, evolving person. He makes mistakes. He does (or at least says or thinks) things that are selfish, thoughtless, or even cruel at times.

But good people can do bad things. And bad people can do good things. (This exact idea was just presented in the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again, but it’s been true for as long as stories have been told.) Sometimes you don’t know which one you are.

Inviting Criticism Without Dictating It

Just because Calvin thinks it or says it doesn’t mean he’s right. But it doesn’t mean he’s wrong either. It just means he’s Calvin—the Calvin of that moment.

That’s especially true when it comes to the way Calvin and his friends talk about women and sexuality. At times, their casual objectification goes unquestioned in the moment, just as it often did (and still does) in real life. Whether it’s the way they talk about women’s bodies, measure women by their looks or sexual availability, or make offhand jokes about homosexuality—these moments aren’t flagged with a moral judgment.

But that doesn’t mean the reader isn’t supposed to notice. (Or that the author didn’t notice it either.) If you read those moments and feel uncomfortable, good. That means you’re thinking about it. If you read them through a nostalgic lens, you may better understand the characters’ intentions—though that may come with a lingering blind spot to the impact of their actions. And that’s an important distinction to make.

The Role of Humor: Laughing at the Wrong Things?

The Wake of Expectations does invite you to laugh. And sometimes, you may catch yourself thinking, I shouldn't be laughing at this. But maybe you still will, despite yourself. And maybe that’s worth reflecting on.

Is it actually funny? If so, why do I feel bad about laughing at it? Can I hold two thoughts in my head at the same time—this is wrong, but it’s also funny?

In Raw, Eddie Murphy tells the story of how Bill Cosby chastised him for his use of profanity. He recounts how Richard Pryor told him, "Whatever…makes the people laugh, say that shit." The point being that laughter serves its own purpose, and sometimes we use tools to make people laugh that not everyone will be comfortable with.

But then, what is appropriate? What is fair game? As French comedien Pierre Desporages once said, “We can laugh at everything, but not necessarily with everyone.” When is a joke just a joke and when is it supposed to make you think? When are we laughing with rather than at someone? When are we making a joke about the disconnects that arise when our perceptions differ rather than about how someone else perceives the world? And can the purpose of a joke depend on the audience?

The Wake of Expectations doesn’t answer these questions for you. But it does put you in situations where you’ll have to think about it. Humor, especially dark humor, exists in that uncomfortable space between amusement and critique. It makes us confront the contradictions in what we find funny, and in doing so, it can become a tool for self-awareness.

It’s okay if you laugh. And it’s okay if your laughter makes you uncomfortable. And it’s even better if your discomfort makes you think. That’s what dark humor is supposed to do.

The Book Exists as a Story, First and Foremost

Although these issues of humor and morality are woven throughout Wake, the book does not exist primarily to be a meditation on these themes. It’s not an endorsement of what the characters do or say; it’s not a critique either. It’s a depiction—it exists as a story. A personal story.

One person’s journey.

Calvin’s journey.

The point is, meditations on these themes are part of every personal journey. Everyone, at some point, looks back and wonders:

Did I do the right thing?
Did I hurt people without realizing it?
Was I the bad guy in someone else’s story?

This book isn’t about giving readers those answers. It’s about giving them the space to ask those questions. It invites you to ask, but it doesn’t demand it, and it doesn’t do it for you.

To be clear, my goal is authenticity, not social critique. Take from it what you will. There are layers. If you want to wrestle with the deeper questions, they’re there. But if you’re just here for a story, that’s fine too. You’re welcome to experience it however you choose. My primary concern is that the story is told honestly and earnestly.

Let the Reader Do the Work

A book like The Wake of Expectations doesn’t spoon-feed the reader moral conclusions. It doesn’t engage in a presentist critique. It presents characters, situations, and perspectives as they were experienced (or, more accurately, as we reconstruct them or imagine they would have been experienced during that time, in that moment). Some readers will be frustrated by that. Others will appreciate the honesty. Some will probably feel both.

I honestly hope you like Calvin, I really do. But I don’t expect you’ll like everything about him. The important thing to remember is this: just because Calvin thinks it, doesn’t mean he’s right. He’s just Calvin. And it’s up to the reader to decide what that means.

And if Wake doesn’t give you all the answers—good. It was never supposed to.

Further Viewing

Eddie Murphy (Raw) on Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZlQaE4GDUY

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

An Appreciation of The Debut (2000): A Coming-of-Age Film That Deserves More Recognition

When discussing essential coming-of-age films from the late 1990s and early 2000s, The Debut (2000), directed by Gene Cajayon, often gets overlooked. It didn’t have the mainstream reach of American Pie, 10 Things I Hate About You, or Boyz n the Hood, but for Filipino Americans, The Debut is a landmark film—one that speaks directly to the experience of second-generation immigrants navigating cultural identity, familial expectations, and personal aspirations.

At its core, The Debut is a deeply personal story about Ben Mercado, a Filipino-American teenager torn between the future his father envisions for him and the artistic passion he wants to pursue. Ben’s father, like many immigrant parents, sees medicine as a path to stability and success, while Ben dreams of art school. But the tension of the film extends beyond career choices—it’s about identity. Ben is embarrassed by his Filipino heritage and wants to fit in with his white friends, keeping his cultural background at arm’s length. Over the course of the film, through experiences at a family party (the titular debut), confrontations with his father, and interactions with a Filipino community he’s tried to avoid, Ben begins to reconcile the different facets of his identity.

For many Fil-Ams, The Debut was the first time we saw a film that truly reflected our own struggles on screen. The pressures of honoring your parents' sacrifices while forging your own path. The quiet shame of feeling like an outsider in both American and Filipino spaces. The gradual realization that what you once rejected about your heritage may, in fact, be an essential part of who you are.

I didn’t see The Debut until I had already written about half of what would eventually become The Wake of Expectations. It didn’t inspire me so much as embolden me. Seeing this film reaffirmed the importance of telling stories about identity and belonging in a way that doesn’t pander to outside perspectives but instead speaks to the people who know these struggles firsthand. It reinforced my belief that these narratives—our narratives—matter.

While The Wake of Expectations is not primarily about ethnic identity in the way The Debut is, there are elements of it present, particularly in Chapter 18 and the chapters that follow about Lolo. But the aspect of The Debut that resonated most with me is its portrayal of a father with a dream that had to be abandoned out of necessity. Ben’s father once dreamed of being a musician but had to give it up to provide for his family. That sacrifice shapes his worldview—he believes security and success should take precedence over dreams, and he wants his son to have an easier life than he did.

This dynamic is echoed in The Wake of Expectations, albeit in a different way. Calvin’s father once dreamed of attending Chapelle Dorée, but his family couldn’t afford it. Instead, he had to move back home and work to help out financially. His dream wasn’t about music, but about education and opportunity, and he wants his son to succeed where he failed. Similarly, Ben has a scholarship to be pre-med at a prestigious school, and to his father, it seems like the obvious choice. Why would he throw away such an opportunity? To his father, choosing art over medicine is a betrayal—not just of expectations, but of common sense. But for Ben, choosing medicine over art would be a betrayal of himself. In a poignant irony, Ben wants to be an artist—just like his father once wanted to be a musician. What his father fails to see is that his son’s struggle is a reflection of his own.

Calvin’s situation differs in that his father does not want the opposite for him—he wants the same thing he once wanted for himself. Yet, both fathers push their sons toward a path they believe will secure their futures, and in both cases, their sons want something different: the realization of their artistic ambitions, even if it means taking the harder road.

If you’ve seen The Debut and connected with it, I believe you may find something in The Wake of Expectations that resonates with you as well. And if you haven’t seen The Debut, I urge you to seek it out. It’s a film that deserves to be remembered, discussed, and celebrated. It may not have been a box-office juggernaut, but for those of us who grew up feeling like we had to choose between our American and Filipino identities, The Debut remains essential viewing.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Drawing with Words: How John Byrne’s Backgrounds Influence My Writing

John Byrne is my favorite comic book artist of all time. Along with George Pérez, he shaped my appreciation for visual storytelling, and his influence extends beyond comics into my own writing.

One of the frequent criticisms of Byrne’s work is that he didn’t spend much time drawing backgrounds. Byrne himself pushed back against this notion, emphasizing that he drew what was necessary to achieve whatever effect he wanted. His focus was on clarity, action, and storytelling, ensuring that the reader’s eye was always where it needed to be: on the characters, the drama, and the momentum of the scene. He could incorporate more background information to slow the reader down or omit it to pick up the pace. At times, Byrne argued, backgrounds can simply be a distraction.

📌 (For example: Byrne’s own comments on backgrounds)

Like much of Byrne’s art, my writing prioritizes foreground action—the conversations between characters, the interpersonal dynamics, the tensions simmering beneath the surface. My descriptions of setting exist to support those elements, not to overshadow them.

Yet, when running my manuscript through automated editing software like AutoCrit, it frequently criticized my lack of setting descriptions, suggesting that I should provide more detail about the characters' physical surroundings. But in other instances, it flagged what it deemed to be mundane details—objects, actions, or brief observations—as unnecessary distractions.

The Problem? Those details were anything but unnecessary.

Just as Byrne strategically decided which background elements to include, I choose which descriptions to highlight in my prose. Sometimes I include mundane details because I want the reader to slow down. Sometimes I provide a tedious description because I want the reader to feel the tedium. If a list of items feels overwhelming, it’s because I want the reader to feel overwhelmed. Some details may seem trivial to an algorithm, but they serve a purpose—whether to reveal something about a character, establish a tone, or subtly reinforce a theme. AI tools, for all their utility, cannot distinguish between unintentional omission and deliberate minimalism; between filler and suffocating detail to create an effect.

The irony is that Byrne has, at times, faced a similar type of criticism from actual human fans. Some readers saw a lack of backgrounds and assumed it was laziness, rather than an artist making conscious storytelling choices. But Byrne knew exactly what he was doing. He knew what mattered.

(To be fair, Byrne did admit that the allegation of a lack of backgrounds was occasionally true, but almost never where or when the accusation was being leveled!)

And that’s how I approach writing. I’m not trying to describe every leaf on every tree. I’m telling the story I want to tell, in the way I want to tell it. It doesn’t mean I’m perfect. I don’t always make the right choices. But they are choices, not accidental omissions.

John Byrne, the artist, told the story he wanted with pictures. I’m telling the story I want to with words.

And I can only hope I’m doing anywhere near as good a job with my words as he did with his drawings.

(I should note that John Byrne is an accomplished writer, as well.)

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Be the Dog

I decided to try something a little different today. I was doing my “Rambing to the Robot” routine, discussing some pretty heavy themes in preparation of a more “serious” blog post and my dog came and sat next to me. While contemplating all the existential crises that challenge me, I looked down at him, and he just seemed happy to be sitting there beside me. Like that cartoon of the man thinking about all the things he has to do, while the dog sitting next to him is just thinking about sitting next to him.

And I thought—I would probably be happier if I were more like my dog.

He’s about ten. As far as I can tell, he’s pretty healthy, if a little overweight (he really does lead a good life.) And the reality is that he probably doesn’t have a lot of time left, at least as humans measure it. Four or five years? That’s not a lot of time.

But he doesn’t know that.

And it’s more than simply ignorance being bliss. He’s just in the moment.

And I thought—I’d really like to eat a steak. Or lobster. Or steak and lobster. And why shouldn’t I? (Other than my cholesterol).

The dog would eat the steak.

Be the dog.

Whenever I start to get cold feet about pursuing this author thing, I read or listen to Bukowski’s All the Way. And since I was already rambling to the robot, I said—hey robot, be the dog, eat the steak. Let’s write a poem in the style of Bukowski on that theme.

And this is what we came up with…

Be the Dog

don’t wait for permission,

don’t sit there wondering if it’s the right time,

don’t overthink,

don’t hesitate.

if the steak is on the plate,

eat it.

if the sun is shining,

run.

if there’s love in reach,

take it.

because one day the steak will be gone,

the legs will be slow,

the love will dry up,

and the only thing left will be

the weight of all the things

you didn’t do.

don’t be the fool waiting for meaning.

don’t be the coward waiting for the right moment.

don’t be the poor bastard who dies with a full plate,

a restless heart,

and nothing but regret.

be the dog.

eat the steak.

die happy.

(Note: Grammarly detects no plagiarism and 0% AI content.)

I know some of y’all have mixed feelings about the AI thing. I do, too. But again, this wasn’t serious work. This was just for fun.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

Until next time—Be the dog.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

What Is Missing and Why It’s Needed

For years, a certain kind of novel has been absent from bookstore shelves—contemporary literary fiction that speaks directly to men, particularly young men. Kristin McTiernan, an author and professional editor, recently made this exact observation on her YouTube channel, The Nonsense-Free Editor. She pointed out that while publishers cater to women with clearly defined categories like "women’s fiction," there’s no equivalent space for men. Instead, men’s reading habits are pushed into genre fiction—military sci-fi, fantasy, thrillers, or crime novels.

But what if a man just wants to read about life as he knows it? About friendships, relationships, the struggle to understand himself? Where are the books that explore love, heartbreak, and personal growth from an honest, male perspective?

That kind of book exists, but you have to look for it.

A Novel That Fills the Gap

I didn’t set out to write The Wake of Expectations as an answer to McTiernan’s question. I didn’t write it because I saw a market opportunity or because I thought men needed a particular kind of book. I wrote it because it was the only way to tell this story honestly. The only way I could tell it. But after hearing McTiernan’s argument, I realize my book might be exactly what she’s talking about.

The Wake of Expectations is literary fiction, not genre fiction. It’s about a young man navigating friendships, love, loss, and self-discovery. It doesn’t follow a chosen one on an epic quest. There’s no murder mystery to solve. It’s just life—the way life actually unfolds, with all of its humor, heartbreak, and uncertainty.

And that kind of story matters.

McTiernan’s video resonated with me because she wasn’t just making a publishing industry critique—she was making a case for why men need these kinds of stories.

Why Set It in the 1990s? Because It Had to Be.

The Wake of Expectations isn’t just contemporary fiction—it’s also a period piece, set in the mid-1990s. And that setting isn’t just aesthetic. It’s essential.

It had to take place at a time when:

• Friendships happened in person. You didn’t have the option of disappearing into a group chat or lurking on social media. If you wanted to spend time with someone, you had to show up.

• Dating required real risk. If you wanted to ask someone out, you had to pick up the phone, call their house, and potentially talk to their parents first. There was no "soft rejection" through a left swipe. You either put yourself out there, or you didn’t.

• Conversations weren’t filtered through screens. When Calvin sits in a diner talking with friends, there are no distractions—just eye contact, body language, and the full weight of being present in the moment.

These things didn’t just make life different. They made relationships different.

Which raises a bigger question: If contemporary men’s fiction is disappearing, is it only because of market forces—or because young men today simply don’t relate to these kinds of interactions anymore?

Ryan Clark’s Perspective: The Fear of Real Rejection

Former NFL player Ryan Clark recently posted a video about how young men today struggle with real-world social interactions. He described the old-school way of "hollerin’ at a girl"—having to call her house, talk to her mother, and earn the right to speak to her. He talked about how exhilarating it was when that process worked.

But today? He says young men avoid this entirely. They don’t want to take the risk. Dating apps and social media give them a shield. If a girl rejects them online, they can convince themselves she rejected a profile, not them.

And that’s a problem. Because it means young men aren’t just losing the skills to approach women—they’re losing the experiences that build confidence, resilience, and emotional intelligence.

The same goes for friendships. If most of your interactions happen online, do you ever really experience the depth of connection that happens when you laugh, fight, and figure life out together in real time?

This isn’t about nostalgia. It’s about contrast.

Male Friendships: Real, Messy, and Worth Writing About

McTiernan made another point that resonated: fiction doesn’t explore male friendships enough.

This is something The Wake of Expectations leans into fully. Calvin has deep, complicated relationships with two key characters—Jake and Ben—but those friendships couldn’t be more different.

Jake is the friend who challenges Calvin. He’s sharp, unfiltered, and constantly forces Calvin to see things he’d rather ignore. There’s humor, rivalry, and brutal honesty.

Ben represents something else—a different kind of emotional depth and support, one that isn’t based on teasing or one-upmanship (though they do tease each other), but on something more layered and personal.

Male friendships aren’t one-size-fits-all. Some are built on shared experiences and tough love. Others carry a quiet emotional undercurrent. But those bonds matter, and literary fiction is one of the only places where they can be explored with the nuance they deserve.

Not a Blueprint—Just a Mirror

There’s one more thing I need to say about The Wake of Expectations.

I’m not presenting Calvin as a role model. He makes mistakes—a lot of them. It’s kind of the point of the story.

The book doesn’t tell readers what to think. It just shows Calvin’s life, choices, and consequences. The reader can examine them, relate to them, disagree with them—and take whatever lessons they need from it.

That’s what good literary fiction does. It doesn’t preach, and it doesn’t try to give you a perfect hero. It just holds up the mirror and invites you to look.

Why This Kind of Fiction Matters

So why does all of this matter?

Because stories shape us. Because men deserve books that reflect their experiences—not just the fantasy of who they could be, but the reality of who they are, who they’ve been, and who they’re becoming.

That’s what’s missing. And that’s why it’s needed.

Maybe that’s what a friend meant when she told me: "Your book will help people."

At the time, I wasn’t sure what she meant. But now, I think I understand.

Maybe a book like this helps just by existing. By giving men—especially young men—a chance to see their lives on the page.

By showing them what friendships, love, and identity looked like when everything wasn’t filtered through a screen.

Not to tell them that things were better. Just to show them how things were.

And let them decide for themselves.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

Further Reading & References

• The Nonsense-Free Editor on the Death of Men’s Fiction: Watch Kristin McTiernan’s video

• Ryan Clark’s Comments on Modern Dating & Male Confidence: Watch his video on Facebook