Let’s Talk About AI

Is it a useful tool or destined to destroy?

I have mixed feelings about AI. I’ll admit it, I use it. I use it to illustrate my books. And that’s because I have ZERO artistic ability. I can’t walk a straight line on a good day let alone draw one. There are many people in my family that can draw, sketch, paint, doodle. I am not one of them. Not only did that gene skip me but it laughed in my face while doing so.

I WANT to use an artist to illustrate my stories and really bring them to life. I really do. But I can’t afford that at this time and I wouldn’t expect anyone to do it for free or out of the simple kindness of their heart.

So, at this time, I choose to use AI to direct the illustrations I would like to incorporate into my stories and books. For the most part, AI can get it mostly right but you have to be careful and look over everything. I definitely have made mistakes in letting some illustrations make it into the book and didn’t notice until it was too late. I revised and republished and all is well now. It is a learning curve for sure.

Now, as far as writing goes, I don’t let AI write my stories. I have been writing for years and years and take inspiration from anything and everything. And at this point in my life, I feel that I have enough life experience to actually write a decent story. Sometimes I feel like I lack imagination and, depending on the topic, lack knowledge. I’ll use Google and seek out knowledge but I don’t plug in a topic to an AI site and roll the dice. For fun, I have participated in writing prompts so if you want to get technical, I suppose you could say I’ve used AI to write.

Let’s talk about publishing, too. I’ve always been a writer. Before phones, tablets and computers, I wrote using pencil and paper! The very first story I ever had published is in a book called Tales from a Sweltering City. I won the children’s story category in a contest put on by the Glendale Public Library in Glendale, AZ. It’s based on my oldest child wanting to run away from home when he was about 5. All contest winners were added to the book but all author’s retained the rights to their stories. I intend to submit it for publication through Amazon KDP and add some of those wonderful AI illustrations!

But back to the publishing topic. Independent publishing is a great outlet for author’s to get their work out there. Would. I love to have a publishing house pick up my books and provide an editor and hook me up with an illustrator? Heck yes! Is that likely to happen? Not really. I love to write and I love the creative process but I don’t like not seeing the results of that hard work or being able to share it with others. Therefore, places like Amazon that allow for independent authors to have something to show for their work are great tools to use.

Being an indie author is a lot of hard work. It means you are on your own and have absolute creative control over just about every aspect of the entire process. You are writer, editor, illustrator (probably), publisher, marketing team and your own cheerleader. It can be exhausting.

But holding that first print – so worth it.