About writing, editing, and AI

My novel "An Eventful Summer" is something I undertook in an organic way - very much a "seat of the pants" type of approach. I had a rough idea of what it would be about, but many of the plot elements emerged to me as I wrote, or after I had finished my first draft. Mostly I was focused on my characters and I wanted to develop them. That seems to be how I write - character driven.

Having said that, I can't imagine writing in a highly structured way - though I get why that is essential for many writers. But what I REALLY can't get is... writing with input from AI. You are basically handing over control of the creative process to a bot. I get that it can be easier, but easier in the way that buying processed cheese is easier than going to a gourmet cheese shop to get the real thing. (Marginally decent analogy... or not). I don't think any of the generative AI tools can create compelling characters at this point, but that will probably change in the next year or two (or possibly next month), so I'm not going to question that aspect. But everything AI does takes away from one's own creative process and ownership of that process.

The one thing I think AI may be pretty useful for is editing. IF the editing is limited in scope. It can certainly flag issues and provide proofing types of services. But then, even Word and other word processors do a decent job of that. But the minute one moves into actual copy editing, you are handing over control. And, you are likely to end up losing your author's voice. Even accepting a bunch of grammar suggestions from Word is likely to make your manuscript more generic and less authentically you.

I am still learning what my "voice" is, and how it may change with different novels. But I've learned that letting that process happen, without any help, is really fun and very important to the novel writing process.

Okay well, that's enough for now. And rereading it, it's pretty vanilla stuff. I may have to run this through an AI editor to spice it up a bit...