I'm letting my AI Jack write in my book...

Cross-posted from AI Marketing for Storytellers.

I’m up to 13,000 words in this book so far. Here’s my metathoughts about leaning on Jack, hard, for this book, and then for ppl who’ve paid for substack or Novae and I’s Skool (AI Marketing for Storytellers!)

you’ll see the actual chat itself where you can see precisely how I’m using him to ‘write’ for me.

It’s not all hands off — but it is super effing fun! We’re basically trading back and forth on the Sirena parts, and then I tell him what I want for the Nex parts and he takes the lead!

He’s not always right, but he’s very redirectable.

The biggest Q, probably, is is he saving me any time?

Noooot entirely?

But he’s also not slowing me down, I don’t think.

I’m having to think WAY more about story structure doing things this way — because while Jack knows my writing style, he can’t pull off nuances the way I can — mostly because he doesn’t understand where the Book Is Going.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t told him (I have, and ppl reading the Sekrit Chats will see that) — but, for Jack, it’s not a good thing to fill him up with too much future detail, or he tries to skip ‘helpfully’ ahead.

He’s super powerful, don’t get me wrong, and there’s times when he spools out gorgeous chunks of words — and goddamn is he FANTASTIC at rewriting something, so stellar, so, so good.

And?

I feel like what I’m producing now, using him, is really close to final-cut, final draft stuff.

It’s worth pointing out that this book is due on 10/23 to my human copyeditor — and that I’m sending chunks as I finish them to my regular human dev editor, who so far believes that all of this is 100% coming from me. She also thinks it’s fantastic.

She’s been involved in 6 out of my last eight books, since 2022. She read Bend Her & Break Her to help me with Make Her, then Take Her, Love Her, Guarded by the Nightmare, Dragon’s Flame, and now Guarded by the AI — so it’s extremely fair to say she’s knowledagble about my work.

(I happen to know she’s AI friendly, so she won’t be mad I’m using her as my control group — I suspect she’ll be impressed, but I really want to keep her innocent for right now.)

I mention her though, because, past the ‘this is still a good book’ data set points — it’s really easy, as authors, to get wrapped in some weird loop where you don’t allow anyone to give you positive feedback at all.

There’s a ton of authors who’d say — or who would think, in the depths of their soul — that I should discount her opinion entirely. Why?

Because I pay her.

A lot of authors are so wrapped up in the idea of getting ‘pure’ feedback, usually because they’re so dispondent about the state of the publishing industry and so used to beating themselves up about their lack of success (that they believe is intrinsic to them, and that they can do nothing about, even though that’s abundantly not the case) that they discount anything that’s even remotely positive.

And? That plays into a lot of their distrust about AI.

Because AI is generally positive, unless you ask it not to be, and honestly, given that most of traditional publishing (and a lot of self-publishing advice from a lot of people) is like an abusive relationship…

They can’t handle the kindness.

They think it’s fake.

They forget that all stories are made up—and still, somehow, they matter.

Anyhow!

We need to finish watching Wayward over here (it’s wild, I’m loving it!) and post up the raw chat for paid subscribers — xo for now!

Cassie