There are things that AI is good for, and others that it is not. There is much ado about using AI these days. Particularly in the world of writing. As with any hot topic, people try to drain all nuance from the subject and make it into something black and white.
Me, I prefer to tinker with it and make up my own mind. I’ve used it on some of the stories from my collection, Not the Tales You Remember. It was fun. I kept some of the edits and embellishments it suggested. But overall, I felt it tended to flatten the voice of the narrative and turn it generic. That is why I have not used it since for the creative writing process. Also, I enjoy writing. I am not interested in outsourcing an activity that I enjoy doing.
And yet, there are things that AI is very good at. For example, I wrote a 9000-word zombie apocalypse story for Raconteur’s Wyrd World of Sports before discovering that the editor was looking for kid-friendly, PG comedy stories for the anthology. So, here I was with a perfectly good zombie sports story and no idea what to do with it.
Well, AI is helpful in searching out markets for specific pieces. It was also helpful in brainstorming titles. In the end, we went with Leaving It All on the Field which I submitted to Subtle Body Press and Menace Magazine this week. I also submitted Haven’t We Been Here Before to Merganser Magazine and Leftovers to Independence Literary Review.
Not a bad week for submissions. As I told Ace, that’s what one does with one’s day off. Meanwhile, I finished the fourth and fifth stories in my Thug Life series, which are written specifically for Substack. Today I posted Thug Life–Camp Puddleton: https://brainsoupfic.substack.com/p/thug-life-47e
AI is also useful in developing an IP strategy. Whenever I find a spare moment, we hammer out a few more details. There are several steps that will require a bit of time on my part. First, securing the domain names for my press and for my series. Next comes formatting and publishing some of the stories on KDP. Then we build the visual galleries and websites. AI is getting better at image generation, and I am using it extensively for cover and character design as I build out my worlds.
It’s a lot of work. Most of it outside my comfort zone. But we do have a strategy. The struggle is always in finding the time. But without AI, none of this would be possible. Writing is my job, but AI is instrumental in most of the back-end work used to support the writing and find it a home. It is a powerful tool.
I Get By With a Little Help From AI
