I saw on Tik-Tok today some woman who was absolutely clear that AI could not be used in novel development. You could use AI to learn structure, etc, but you couldn’t actually use it to impliment it.
Oh boy.
Don’t quite know what to do about that.
I’m of the opinion that AI is like a spellchecker was 30 years ago. There probably were people who said you can use spellcheck to “help you learn to spell” but when it came to actually writing, you were forbidden from using it.
It’s all too late, for me, even if I wanted to change things. AI is too much a part of my workflow and I’m pretty strict about making sure that what is actually on the page is mine.
It took a while, but I figured out how to use AI in my workflow in such a way that all the text on the page is mine, even if a lot of the backend stuff that readers never see or know about is aided by AI.
I worry that even within the context of my novel being about a sexbot sexworker that it’s too…spicy. That there’s just too much sex depicted. And that that, combined with how old I am and how bonkers I am will make selling this novel traditionally very difficult.
And, yet, it’s a little bit too late at this point to worry about that.
I’m about to wrap up the second act of the latest draft and wade into the third act. Once I do that, I’m going to prepare to work on the NEXT draft, the final second draft, before I let beta readers read the novel.
AND THEN, I’m going to really sit down and think about what my next novel is going to be. What I want to do is go back to working on a homage to Stieg Larsson’s stuff. But there are problems with that idea, at least for the time being.
I would be a male writing occasionally from a female POV. People get confused with switching third person intimate POVs within chapters. The list goes on. So….I don’t know.
I may piviot to another scifi novel once this scifi novel is done. I have two strong candidates. I still have time — unless of course someone swoops in an steals a creative march on me with this novel I’ve been working on.
And I continue to be really uneasy about people assuming “AI wrote it” simply because I’m too poor to get a human editor to help me out in real time. So, meh?
Oh boy. I’m making my way through the text of this scifi dramedy I’ve been working on for some time now and I find myself very moody, as usual, when it comes to the actual writing.
I’m in the twilight of this rather great situation I find myself in when it comes to writing a novel and here I am spending way too much time just daydreaming. I need to stop spinning my wheels and actually get some work done.
I say that in the context of knowing I’m going to wake up and everything will be changed. I won’t have near as much time to write and the whole context will be totally different to the point that everyhting will suck.
And all of this is happening in the context of me really, really needing to be careful with my expectations about what will happen once I start to query this novel. Successfully querying a novel — especially for someone like me — is literally like winning the fucking lottery.
So, I really need to go into the whole querying situation with my eyes open. I can’t have really high expectations like I have in the past with the first novel I actually finished. The key issue is this novel is really, really spicy and that could be a huge turn off to the typical liberal white woman who is, in my imagination, your average literary agent.
But the whole point is to just see how far in this process I can get before it’s clear that I need to start working intently on my other scifi novel I have rolling around in my mind. Only time will tell, as they say.
I don’t know what to tell you, folks. I’m writing about a sexbot and I worry there’s too much…sex…in the novel. And, yet, I don’t know. Maybe I’m overthinking things, looking things too much through the lens of a movie.
The point is to tell a good story and if I can tell a good story while depicting a lot of spicy content, all the better.
But I’m WELL AWARE that the “woke cancel culture mob” will likely hate this novel for various personal and fictional reasons. I can’t help who I am. And I can’t help that I came up with a pretty good idea for a novel that just happened to lend itself to lots of spicy scenes.
My biggest problem right now is how fucking moody I am when it comes to writing. I spend way too much time daydreaming rather than writing. Though I have to admit that using Claude LLM and Gemini LLM as my manuscript consultants has really helped a lot.
And I know because everything is horrible that any whiff of an idea that I used AI to help write this novel will cause a lot of people to dismiss the whole endeavor as “AI slop.”
It’s not. I swear.
I’ve done all the heavy lifting, with some assistance from AI.
The hope is, that once I finish this draft of this novel I’ve been working on for some time now that the NEXT time I go through it will be a breeze. I will just lightly edit it here and there to make absolutely sure that it’s in my own voice and people can’t accuse me “having AI write it.”
My fear, of course, is that I’ll read it the next time and see all these opportunities to make it better and that will slow me down significantly.
But as of right now, I’m feeling pretty good about this novel.
Though, it is of note that absolutely no on but me believes in any of this. I had an alarming conversation with a relative about the movie Ex Machina and….they pretty much said anyone who thought such things up must be some sort of twisted sicko.
I tried to tell her that, “Well….” but it did not register. Which makes me wonder what this person will say once this novel is finished and I MIGHT want her to read it. I find that doubtful now, though. No point.
I’m really going to struggle to find people to serve as Beta Readers I fear. And I’m growing really nervous about what kind of reception I should expect from the mostly liberal white women who make up literary agents. I’m kind of a kook and when they do due diligence on me…they might not like what they find.
And that doesn’t event begin to address the woke cancel culture mob generally not liking any sort of sex written by a smelly male, especially a smelly middle-aged male like me.
Anyway.
Right now, my biggest problem is I have too much information for the characters to process. Too many big events have happened in quick succession and I need to figure out a way to slow things down, to process information over the course of a few scenes, not just one.
Too Much AI I am very self-conscious about there being any AI used to actually write anything in this novel. My hope is, through the editing process, I can eliminate any “AI speak” that may have slipped through the development process. I have worked so hard on this novel, I would be devastated if it was unpublishable because I had used AI too much to actually write it. (Which I haven’t.)
It’s Too Spicy There is a lot of sex in this novel. And I’m worried that the very nature, the very premise, of the novel will be seen as “too trashy” for the liberal white women I imagine make up most literary agents. But who knows. The novel is shaping up to be pretty good, all things considered.
I’m Too Big A Kook I’m really worried that whenever I get into the querying process and literary agents are doing “due diligence” on me that they will read this blog, or my social media presence and be extremely spooked that I’m just too big of a weirdo to sell a novel. But we’ll see, I guess. Stranger things and all that.
The core difference between my novel and Annie Bot is mine is told from the POV of the “owner” of the android. Similar premises, in a sense, but told from the exact opposite POV.
Now, I decided to tell my novel this way because, well, lulz, the woke cancel culture mob demands that men only write from a male POV and as such, lulz, I have to write it the way I am.
Of course, given GenZ’s general “no sex please” sentiment that is ANOTHER issue that I have to worry about. My novel has a lot of spicy content in it for various and obvious reasons.
But I worry that 1) Annie Bot is better written than my novel and 2) the woke cancel culture mob will poo-poo my attempt to write a dramedy about a man’s relationship to an android he subscribes to.
And, yet, I really like what I’ve come up with. It is, all things considered, pretty good. It’s quite an entertaining yarn, if I do say so myself.
I’m in what I’m calling the “color correction” phase of this novel’s development. I’m trying to not rewrite anything — or as little as possible — but I keep failing. I’m supposed to just be editing when absolutely necessary to kind of get everything in shape, but I find myself just giving in to the temptation to rewrite entire scenes.
That proclivity, of course, is slowing me down.
The next stage of things will be a lot quicker — once I’m done with this version of the novel, I’m going to re-read it one last time before handing it over to Beta Readers. I just want to make sure I put things in my voice as much as possible, just in case any “AI speak” slips past me when I get AI to “gently edit” the text of what I’ve written.
As of right now, at least, I continue to be on track to query around Sept 1st. I still — still! — have three books about querying I need to read and yet to date refuse to do so. I’m skcart, as they say.
I’m scared that after all this work, I’ll stumble across a passage in the querying books that makes it clear that I can absolutely never successfully query this novel. Ugh. And, yet, I also know that I have to read the books.
I am probably going to start serious development work on a new novel once I wrap up this novel, so I have something to work on while I query.
This novel is not intended to be high art; rather, it is meant to be engaging, accessible, and enjoyable, even as it moves toward a somewhat melancholy conclusion. In that sense, I would compare its ending to that of the film Her, as the two share certain emotional and thematic resonances.
At its core, the story follows a sexbot sex worker and the unusual agreement she forms with her subscriber. I find the premise compelling and rich with narrative potential, though I am aware that its subject matter may give some pause—particularly within more traditional literary circles.
That said, quality ultimately matters more than categorization. If the novel succeeds on its own terms–if it is genuinely engaging and well-executed–then its more pulpy or unconventional elements may prove less of an obstacle than I sometimes imagine.
I have also found myself reflecting on the role of AI in my writing process. At times, I have used it for light editing—much in the way writers have historically relied on tools like spellcheck or grammar suggestions. Given the amount of effort I have invested in this work, I would find it frustrating if such use were misunderstood or dismissed outright. Still, I recognize that sensitivities around AI in creative work are real and evolving.
For what it is worth, I am careful to revise extensively in my own voice, ensuring that the final product reflects my intent and sensibility. While I am aware of broader conversations about AI-generated writing, I do not see those concerns applying in any substantial way to this project.
As for the novel’s more provocative elements, it is difficult to predict how they will be received. It could go either way. However, my instinct is that the story’s underlying strength—its emotional core and narrative drive—will ultimately carry more weight than any perceived “trashy” qualities, particularly with those whose opinions matter most in the publishing process.
Well, I’ve finished A Draft of this scifi dramedy novel I’ve been working on. And now, I don’t quite know what to do.
I guess what I will do is go through and read the entire draft to get some sense of what happens next. I worry there are some structural issues that would cause me to have to do plot “open heart surgery” on the novel, but I just don’t know.
Maybe that won’t happen.
What you’re SUPPOSED to do at this point is take a month-long break and then start work on the next draft. But this draft is unique because it’s really a mixture of vomit draft and second draft.
As such, I think, as I mentioned, I’m going to go through and read the entire novel updating the outline as I do.
Now, one issue is the time frame for when I am going to query the final production of this novel. I still think it’s going to be Sept 1st for various post-production reasons.
Anyway, I am, in general pleased with where things stand. I just can’t continue to drift towards my goal. I need to buckle down and get things done with this thing. As I keep saying, I continue to worry that my kooky nature will — and age — will prevent me from selling this novel, no matter how good it may be.
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