“What’s the Worst…” blog?
“What’s the Worst that Could Happen!?” contains dispatches from the frontline of Creativity + AI actually written by me, an actual human being living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I work as a novelist, filmmaker, technologist, and consultant who grapples daily with the creative opportunities and pitfalls this God-like technology presents to us mortals.
The title comes from the ancient storytelling practice, formalized by teachers and practitioners from Homer to Virginia Wolff to Stephen King to every story consultant seeking out a living in Hollywood. Imagine what’s the worst crisis, conflict, choice your character can possibly face, and then make them face it. We want to see the greatest challenges our characters can face, not just a minor inconvenience. So that’s what we ask ourselves every time we sit down to write a scene, a chapter, a pitch — what’s the worst thing that could happen to the people we care about, and what will they do?
This is also the question that we face as creative professionals. What’s the worst that could happen if we embrace these tools? And no, not in the pursuit of derivative slop — Lord knows there’s enough of that to go around already for a hundred lifetimes, and we’re not even 4 years into the ChatGPT era yet. But rather what are the possibilities to create new art forms, new types of theater and communities and storytelling that responds and stretches and helps bring us together in powerful and positive ways. Storytelling technology has always moved in fits and starts. From developing the first lyre tuned to Mixolydian scale to the Lumiere brothers and their famous moving image of a train that sent curious Parisiennes leaping for the exits as it inexorably chugged toward them in the darkened theater to radio plays, TV sitcoms, and the golden age of Streaming. What comes next is up to us — not to alogrithms, despite what the giants of tech would tell us.
The storytellers must seize the power of stories back. Not by ignoring or villifying the technology, but by harnessing it, training it, experimenting with it, and getting our hands messy in order to make this a force for good, not a force for Grok.
This is not a blog for worriers and philosophers.
Rather this is a blog for doers. For creators. For experimenters.
You might be a Luddite or a super-genius tech bro who tsks tsks at my primitive methods. A working screenwriter whose greatest success with AI was developing a grocery shopping list. A TikTok creator. A student of startups or a student of Tarkovsky. Or all of the above. This is for you.
I am not a proselytizer for AI. Nor a prognosticator. Rather, it is a blog for those like me, who can feel the tsunami forming at our backs, and are paddling like mad to get ourselves in position to catch the greatest wave of our lifetimes — and quite possibly of any lifetimes.
About me: I’m Jace Mercer. Father. Husband. Work in progress. Graduate of Stanford University and USC Film School (the twin bellies of the beast, so to speak, of the industries I have made my livelihood from). I have worked in Hollywood as a creative director, producer, screenwriter, and pitch consultant. With side quests into the heart of Silicon Valley as a founder, mentor, and admissions judge at the Stanford StartX Accelerator. In between, I worked as an Executive Creative Director at digital agencies, global brands, and streaming companies managing teams, writing copy, winning a few awards, and trying to push people out of their comfort zone and into the opportunity zone. I’m a veteran of many, many failed startups as a UX designer, growth hacker, and C++ programmer.
I share this bio to make my orientation clear: I have lived as a jack of all trades, dancing for my dinner in all sorts of different roles across entertainment, marketing, and technology, so now that AI has crossed over from science fiction to science fact, I feel uniquely suited to managing a diverse team of agents that I have developed, trained, and optimized to become a powerful creative fleet.
And this blog will let you know what i’ve discovered, how i’ve built it, and—if you’re so called to it—how you too can join me out on the edge. The view is amazing, but it’s not for the faint of heart. At all.
What you’ll find here
[CREATIVITY + AI] — The reports from the frontline. What i’m building. What’s working. What’s not. Recipes for you to try at home. How my fleet actually works, projects like LookBook, RealityCheck, FlowState, Mythsocope among others, the authorship contract that governs how I use AI to inform my own writing while still guaranteeing that my words are all my own.
[Side Quests] — I also write personal essays in the Side Quests section — adult crying camp, real-life interactions with Michael Jackson, the time I drank from the umbilical cord of God. Personal stories, confessions, and the frequent misadventures of a too-modern man. Read at your own caution.
How to subscribe
It’s free. Every dispatch lands in your inbox as i write them. If you find the dispatches useful, please share it.
— Jace
Santa Fe, New Mexico
chartered August 2026
