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AI is buzzing around the globe like a busy-little bee with a secret, a hidden hive about which only the worker bees and the Queen are privy. I suspect the creators of AI-powered engines are fine and dandy with this status quo, to be ogled, rather than to be denounced. It's better to be uplifted by world users and heralded as God's gift to artist-kind. Right?

Not necessarily. Read on, if you please.

I actively take special note of AI's impact online all the time, as well as to experience how AI is thoroughly discussed on podcasts. If you want to understand the real and current pulse of the world, you need only dip your baby toe into the pond of political commentary, or scroll through the many podcasts whose guests are either heavily involved in building out AI models, or have at one point in time in their illustrious careers been employed by a tech giant.

But this post is for the authors of this world, Indie authors to be precise, for whom I carry a special place in my heart, given that the standard trade publishing houses like to regard Indie authors as persona non-grata and are therefore loathe to spend time working with them, which translates into not being taken seriously. Boo-hoo! There's a reason why I had coined the acronym of TPBs, which is to say they are the 'thieving publishing bastards' of the literary world. 😂And, these large traditional publishing houses have been at it for a very long time.

You're welcome to do so, though perhaps it's not necessary, but if you choose to do so, you may get upset and stop reading at this point, if you're presently represented by a large, traditional publishing house, and this is OK. Good for you, by the way. I'm not currently represented by one because I'm a stalwart and proud Indie author. I've been offered contracts in the past for some of my novels. I ended up turning them down because they insisted in taking full creative control. That will simply not do for someone as independent as me.

There's a difference, incidentally, between being an Indie author and being self-published. The former means that you write your novel, and then outsource the next stages to other artists, to break down each component as it relates to the stages of finalizing a new novel, prior to being released into the wilds of the reading public. An Indie author gets to choose their principal editor, copy editor and proof-reader, how the design style is going to look in their printed book (or if they trust their editor they'll let them recommend an interior design). The Indie author chooses where and how much of their money will be spent on promoting their new novel, as well as to break down all the associated costs, such as hiring a brilliant graphic designer to whip up a commissioned cover, original.

Here is where the landscape is changing and in some respects has already changed, despite some authors like me who are prepared to argue over these subtle differences. I've had heated discussions, just this week in fact, with some young authors working on their first novel, and who've admitted to me that they've learned what it really means to be an author: it's bloody hard work for zero reward upfront. These are the same writers who ask me what I think about using AI, as a tool, to help them while in the process of writing their novel. I don't hold back. I'm not interested in sparing their feelings. I adamantly stress that using AI to help you write your novel is a cop-out. Your views and mine may potentially diverge, like we're all separate but nonetheless all the same tall trees grouped tightly together in the deep woods; there are an innumerable number of choices you get to make, and can make, being an Indie author.

You may choose to use AI to help you plot out your story, what I wouldn't consider doing. Or, you may choose to use AI to help with your outline to ensure that it's cohesive, something else I wouldn't consider doing. Or, you may choose to utilize AI to help you suggest an alternative writing angle if you encounter the dreaded writer's block, yet another option I'd refuse to choose. Being a writer means overcoming all of these obstacles, to bear down, and push and push, gritting your teeth, as your mouth is clamped down on a stick, to endure the pain, rather than bite through your lip. Books have been written for centuries and somehow these authors who've preceded you were able to get through it, to slog out the hours to finish their book, in some case over a long protracted period of years, just like it took Tolstoy six years to write War and Peace. Six years doesn't seem like a long time for one book until you do it yourself.

It took me nine years to write my seventh novel, and I didn't use AI to write one gotdamn word. I even asked my editor who had also handled the interior design to add a specific line in the copyright page to this effect, that not one word was written by Artificial Intelligence. It's a matter of principle for me. Oh sure. I will use notebooks to jot down notes, plot points, to build out the characters by way of assigning them curious habits and the like (how real people behave), and I will carefully devise a plot structure, as well as to track the events of each chapter as I build out my story. All of these methods become part of your writing style, as well as your voice. It takes time to gestate good ideas, as it does to convey these ideas in a compelling form.

Moving right along, and in my discourse with these young writers, they tried to make a case to justify the use of AI for specific instances, as I had previously stated: cohesiveness, overcoming writer's block (a monster for some; what Fran Lebowitz jokingly declares her 'Writer's Blockade') as well as to use AI to lay down a plot. I didn't intend on arguing with them, to justify my position. I could only state that my opinions were being expressed on my behalf, that I am only prepared to speak on my own behalf.

But this dialogue had inspired me to pose a question to Grok about this very subject.

Here is my exact question:

"Can an author present their novel as their own if they use AI to write their book, in part or in whole, or if they use AI to solicit and suggest cohesive plot lines, as well as to use AI when they have writer's block, for AI to help them to write their way out of the corner? I've been arguing with some persons who contend that tools like the calculator, computer, online dictionaries have helped authors, and to this I don't disagree. But where I take exception to this comparison is that these tools play no part in literally writing the author's novel, not in part or in whole."

And this was the answer I received from Grok:

AI is a creative tool, not just calculation. Using it for plot ideas, breaking blocks, or early drafts is fine if you steer the vision, edit deeply, and stamp it with your voice—the book stays yours. Unlike a calculator, AI generates prose, so heavy use means the output isn't fully copyrightable as original human work. Disclose substantial AI text for honesty, reader trust, and platforms like Amazon KDP. Light help? No problem. The line is your curation and ownership.

I'll repeat the salient point: heavy use means the output isn't fully copyrightable as original human work.

Essentially, if your copyright page shows only your name as the sole writer of your novel, it means that you didn't lean on AI to pull paragraphs out of its artificial a**, to help you shape, much less finish your novel. Keep in mind, too, that AI has no concept of time, what it means to spend years writing a book, revising, and revising again, passing various versions through editors, to revise yet again. AI understands input and output, and it doesn't differentiate from frustration or struggle because this isn't how AI is programmed to contribute. There is burgeoning understanding of AI and it's called 'data collapse', where over a period of time, subsequent AI models will continue to draw from the previous AI data, and this will potentially result in the degradation of the quality of AI's prose, being used by fledgling authors. This is the hypothesis, in any event. I can't confirm this. I can only highlight a similar issue and this pertains to cover designs for your novel. iStock photos about six years back were hugely successful, and then I attended a presentation at an Ottawa Independent Writers meeting, put on by a man who taught graphic design at Algonquin College. He began his talk by putting up covers by ten different authors. Each author had exactly the same cover design, obviously having purchased the same stock image from iStock's website. You see how this could be embarrassing?

However, the one area where I predict AI will grow in the very near future is to provide a basic level of editorial services, depending on the style of writing that you prefer, and whether or not you wish AI to carry out a forensic editing job for you, which is to say to catch every spelling, grammatical or tense error and to point out these glaring errors. However, it's worth noting that AI will have to know contemporary nomenclature, slang and idioms that us humans take for granted. I appreciate too that the future represents change, and I fully expect in future that authors will issue new releases giving credit to specific sections of their novels that AI wrote for them, after which the author is expected to heavily edit the work provided to them by AI. Yet, and once more, the author will not be in a position to claim sole ownership.

In effect, utilizing AI to write a portion of your novel, in part will mean that authors are willingly choosing to relegate themselves to the role of AI's new author-editor, to become AI's b*tch, until such time as they no longer possess the intestinal fortitude to go it alone, to write their novel, without having to lean on AI. This is merely my prediction. I don't use AI to write my emails or to summarize an email. I read emails myself. I need to write my own emails. I prefer to flex my brain like a muscle.

I'm working on novel eight right now. When I have the first draft in the can, this is when I might reach out to a principal editor to provide input on thematic content, that is to say is the pacing of the novel logical, and do the development of the characters fly off the page? AI won't be able to tell you how the first draft made them feel, because AI doesn't have consciousness, and isn't aware of its feelings. AI has no feelings. I was grateful when one of my principal editors had shared their brutal opinion with me, after reading the first draft of my third novel. "Your character Magdalene is a real bitch and I didn't like her, even though I know she's not a bitch. You wrote her this way." He had made a valid observation. I ended up going back through the entire manuscript to change her tone. Smart advice.

Give an author a crutch and I'll show you an author who argues that anyone not doing the same is holding back on progress. Only, and however, progress doesn't mean stripping authors of the ability to evolve, to learn their craft, to own it fully. Keep in mind that AI has been fed the written work of thousands of authors that came before the invention of AI. How else will AI be able to comprehend how to write prose, were it not for the work of other authors?

I, on the other hand, insist on working with humans. AI doesn't work with emotions that humans are blessed with, that humans struggle with, any more than AI will be inspired out of the blue, to wake up in the middle of the night, when your sleepy brain had quietly worked out the solution to the corner that many authors, myself included, are able to write ourselves into, a corner where the plot stops in its tracks like driving into a dead end. This is the place where only imagination reigns, the human imagination, to be precise. Plots are all fine and well, and I use a plotting device too, yet sometimes the organic writing process hits you like a freight train gone rogue, and your characters take your story in a different direction that you hadn't conjured. Some of the best passages in my novels were unplotted.

How do you throw a lasso around human imagination? You simply cannot and this is the reason why AI has to use generative synthesis, to combine and remix vast amounts of human data, to create a deception of sorts of outputs that mimic imagination. Whereas, the author brain, the human brain, relies on thoughts and emotions—the very building blocks of original, creative writing.

The aforementioned applies too when it comes to the graphic design concept of your cover. Find a brilliantly talented graphic designer, like mine
@fantasy_art_z and you'll think you've uncovered a pot of gold buried deep in the dark forest. Then venture into the forest yourself, to find your voice, and you might be thrilled to discover along your journey your three key editors, all perched on prominent rocks, sitting calmly with the wealth of their experience stored in their minds, minds that are part of the hidden wealth of trees, the very substance that is given from them to authors, then made into paper, to create well-formed paperbacks.

There really is no comparison to the real thing.