Speaking for myself, I write my own books. I plot and draft all my books by hand on paper (which takes forever) before I revise and polish them on my computer (also takes forever).
I thought you might want to know how I navigate my writing career in this enhanced digital world that seems to permeate society at all levels in the 21st century. As a former computer programmer, I do understand the nuances of it. But here, I want to zoom in on the writing world and share my opinion.
Again, I am speaking for myself. I am not speaking of or about other authors. I don’t know what they do at their writing desks, and it’s not my problem. I just want to tell you how I myself manage this AI environment that we are now in.
On Writing
I do not use AI in any part of my actual writing process. I do all that by myself. I don’t even use AI to come up with book titles or story ideas. I have a super active imagination and have endless plots of my own.
I do wonder whether I have enough time to write all the books I have planned. At least three dozen more new books are waiting (with book covers ready to go) for me to get to them. But I love to invent new stories and write them!
On Editing
On top of that, I do not feed my manuscripts into AI of any sort whether to edit or proofread chapters or the whole book. I also made sure that my real life human editor reads my books with her own eyes. She is not allowed to use any AI grammar tools to do her job for her. She doesn’t need it, really.
In a strange twist of validation, if you find stray typos leftover in my published books, you know that to err is human. I am the real author behind the typos. Sorry!
On Advertising
However, if the need arises, I may use AI for marketing analysis, memes, and advertising tools, and other non-writing business promotional stuff that save me time and free me up to write more books.
Things like creating cute images and videos, including trailers for my books and boxed sets, are best done in AI nowadays.
For example, it’s impossible to get my real-life Literary Cat to sit still in a chair and hold my novel in his paws for a photo shoot. But AI can.
On Researching
For factual research and to verify historical events and scientific data, I use Google (it has its own AI search tools) and Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Grok and ChatGPT as search engines. I always cross check multiple website sources to verify information.
However, no matter what book research I do online, I always have to check with real-life people. I have several first responders and professionals (such as forensic pathologists, ER doctors, police officers, lawyers, IT experts, etc.) on my call list whenever I need real-world information. I always ask, “Is this true?” Because I know that any AI and LLM can lie at the drop of a hat and make it sound like utter truth.
For example, I was amused and horrified at the same time when an Emergency Room (ER) physician told me that if I did whatever all those search engines told me to do to an open wound, my character would surely lose his leg. Well, what did I expect from AI? It’s not even human. I used to pay a real Registered Nurse (RN) to fact check my medical information, but today my team of human fact-checkers don’t charge me money. They are just glad to tell me what I want to know.
On Publishing
But back to the bottomline: I write my own books with my own intellect and creativity that God has given me. Manually and painstakingly so, one word at a time, one paragraph at a time, all by my own hand. But no, I don’t use a quill, though I have thought of it. I use a ball point pen on paper most of the time.
My art of writing is old school, but I enjoy this dream job very much.
I thought my readers might want to know.