AI is becoming a polarizing topic among artists—and I get it. I understand both sides of the topic (and have some rather strong opinions of my own), but I would be an effing liar to say I never use it. For one thing, I’m made to use it at my day job. My opinion there is that many of my co-workers way overuse it, and something I see in my teaching job is that students who use it have no clue how to really, truly write on their own—and, as a writing instructor, that concerns me.
Do I use AI? Yes—but maybe not in the ways you think.
I write my own books and always will. I design my own covers and always will. (That said, about a year ago, I was crafting covers for my new book series and the images I chose involved removing some backgrounds. When I tried to add in color instead of a white background, AI in the tool on Depositphotos did some funky stuff. So I wound up on one of the covers painstakingly adding in black stroke by stroke because the paint can “dump” didn’t work.)
Don’t get me wrong—I realize that, if I just let it do some things like these for me, my life would be so much easier. It’s also likely that my book sales would reap the benefits. But I have my reasons for using AI sparingly. First, something you may already know is that for any query that you make of AI, it will use water to keep all of its hardware cool. (Side note: it pisses me off that I don’t have a choice when I do a Google query. I get AI answers whether I want it or not.). How much still seems up for debate, and I’m not about to engage in that. I do want to mention that I realize the water we have on the planet technically “recycles” all the time, but the issue is that the places where these data centers exist mean that citizens don’t necessarily have the water or won’t necessarily have the water they need. I’m not even talking about the animals or plants in the area or looking at the bigger picture. On top of that, many of these data centers are not paying taxes, and so they are giving nothing to the communities where they exist. They are taking, taking, taking without giving. AI takes water, energy, and jobs and I’m not a fan of any of those things.
Other reasons? When AI can’t find the answer, it just makes shit up. I’ve seen that time and time again with student papers, and that’s frequently how I figure out they haven’t written their work. Those of you who have followed me for a long time know that I research the hell out of my topics when I don’t know them well, because I want to tell a good story (and I’m sure I still miss the mark on occasion). Why I do that is because of my reader half. I hate when I read or watch a story and they get the facts wrong, because it takes me completely out of it in a way that means I can never go back and enjoy what might have been good. The most recent example I can think of is the television series The Man in the High Castle, based on a story by Philip K. Dick (whose work I love). I knew it was a speculative dystopian story (something I also love)—and what excited me was that it was based in Canon City, Colorado. I have lived in Canon City for over thirty years, so I was thrilled to see how they would incorporate it.
I didn’t get past the first episode.
They showed a sign in town and then they showed what they imagine the Royal Gorge (a beautiful attraction outside of town. The bridge is the highest suspension bridge in the U.S.) looked like—and completely botched it. I could easily accept the town looking way different, but nature doesn’t change so quickly. It was quite obvious that the scout who came to take pictures never bothered to drive out to the Gorge. And that was all it took for me to tap out.
It’s bad enough when writers don’t do due diligence—but AI often doesn’t and it hasn’t necessarily been trained to. If a writer isn’t motivated enough to do the research in the first place, will they have any gumption to fact check what ChatGPT or Gemini told them?
But I digress (something I’m pretty good at 😉).
I told you I do use AI sparingly. You might even already know that. I do not use AI in a way that takes work from someone. For example, I still design my own covers using photos taken or designs created by a person. I also have a human editor who proofreads my final manuscripts after I have done so. I also do not use AI to write my books, because that is, in essence, a promise I have made to you, my reader. Every word, all the words you read in my books are my words, my thoughts, my emotions—and only by writing my books can I promise you an authentic experience. I feel so strongly about AI in this regard that I’m considering spending a little extra money per book to have it certified (something I can do as an Author’s Guild member). I know there are a lot of AI books out there (words, images, and even just editing), and I’ve heard that some of them are actually good. Please know that, if you want to read those books, I am not going to judge you.
But if you don’t want to read those books, that’s part of why I want to assure you that my books are written by me and always will be. That is my promise to you.
So how do I use it? Will I please just get to the point? Okay! Here’s how I do use AI:
- It helps me plot my stories. I used to be what’s known as a pantser (that’s a Stephen King-ism, by the way), and I loved that, watching the story emerge for me as I brought it to life—but the longer I wrote and did so at a faster pace, the more I realized that I sometimes struggled to figure out how to get from plot point A to plot point B. I also realized, after studying craft for a number of years—after becoming a published author, by the way—that there were a lot of things I should be doing to meet reader expectations. Sometimes I stumbled upon those organically, but sometimes I didn’t (even as an avid reader and lover of stories, I failed to see what was going on behind the curtain). But as I grow in my craft, one of the things I want the most is to offer you an enjoyable experience, a story that you will get lost in and love. So I have started having AI help me do some plotting revision. I come up with the basic plot and do a brain dump of everything I already know about the story: the characters, the setting, various scenes, etc.—and then I ask AI to help me “check” it. I ask, “Are there plot points that should be added or that I’m missing? Are there things I haven’t thought of? What should I add to make sure that what I’ve got here will meet reader expectations?” This process alone has made plotting so much easier. It used to take me hours to write out a plot (sometimes days), and now it takes an hour or two at the most. For that, I’m grateful.
- AI helps me with data analysis. Even though I consider myself intelligent, I don’t always have the time or the ability to really analyze the data that I collect on advertising and that sort of thing, and so I use AI to help me analyze those numbers. Doing so allows me to figure out what I’m doing right, so I can do more of it, and what I’m doing not so right, so I can do less of it. I’m still figuring out how to do this, but it’s one of the ways I can use AI in a way that allows me to keep the creative part to myself.
- I use AI to help me with marketing. For example, I have been using AI to help me write more compelling book descriptions. I ask it to take my description and make it better and then I test it and see if it worked. I also have it write ad copy.
I avoided AI for a long time until I had lunch with one of my author friends last year—and when she told me all the things she used ChatGPT for, I decided to give it a try (I don’t use ChatGPT anymore, but that’s where I started). She had it write all of her newsletters, for example—and so much more! No judgment from me, but I realized maybe I needed to try it. Because I did, I can see that there are good uses of it—but I also realize that I personally need to be a good steward. I limit my use of AI for all the reasons I mentioned above, but it is nice to be able to give it some tasks that are not necessarily my forte.
So now I have questions for you. How do you feel about AI in terms of the book world? Are you for or against its use or do you not care? Do you know if you’ve ever read an AI book (or suspect as much)? I would love to know your thoughts in the comments below. And, as always, thank you for reading my writing. Now, more than ever, your support truly means the world to me.
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