Something I imagine people might want to know is how do I employ AI in my writing. I first published in 2012, many, many years before generative AI entered the scene. I know how to write without it, and was able to maintain a pace that would be considered above average. When at my fastest, I was able to put out two to three releases a week, with each release being maybe a six to nine thousand word serial.
Since getting back into writing, I’ve been using AI to help keep my rate up, but I still consider the stories I tell to be wholly my own. I don’t just give a general idea to the AI and say “make me a story.” If I did, it would be pretty bad. AI just isn’t there yet, and probably won’t be for a long time. AI is good at doing directed tasks, sure, but when given too much leeway with abstract tasks without a clear end criteria, it doesn’t do well right now.
So I mostly use it to help with drafting and to iterate on ideas. It’s not uncommon to ask the AI to take the first stab at a scene or passage, and then I refine, revise, etc. It’s very similar to how I used to write using stream of consciousness, “just get something on the page” and then see how it works. But even then, the AI needs a lot of prep work. I usually come up with the characters, general ideas, etc. first, and then start iterating on them with the AI to help out.
Overall, I think it produces output that is as good or better than I used to produce, but is still mine. I’m also generally going through the content more times than I used to. There’s a couple initial idea passes, a refiner pass, and then a final pass. I make changes and edits at all these passes. They’re still my stories, I just used some tools to help me tell them.