My thoughts on ai and what I have learned

Ever since the rise of AI, I have struggled with its place in the creative world. As an author who is self-published, I always promised myself that when it came to digital art and book covers, I would either design my own or hire a real artist to bring something fun to life.

When it came to writing, my boundaries were even stricter. I remained a firm believer that if you let AI write a story and pass it off as your own, it isn't real writing. Like if you wrote to chatgpt and said, "Write such and such" and took credit, I didn't support it. But when it came to using it for editing, grammar, and flow? That was an entirely different struggle and battle I have dealt with.

For years, I relied on and used Grammarly to catch basic mistakes like missing periods or misplaced commas. Back when I was a teenager, I met another writer and we both used Wattpad, and we collabed for a long time until college, work, and adulthood naturally pulled us apart from collabing. We are still friends but adulthood kept us from writing together as often as we once had all those years ago.

Left on my own, editing became a massive hurdle. I have a physical disability that makes writing much more difficult, forcing me to type with only one hand whether I am on my phone, laptop, or computer.

Because of this, it is incredibly easy for me to miss the little things. I tend to always have typos, grammar mistakes. Basically any mistake anyone can have.

​When I became a self-published author early last year, my first two or three books suffered. I lacked formatting skills, and honestly, the writing still read like my early Wattpad days. I was embarrassed to my core and I wanted to publish well written stories.

By the time I published my third romance novel, Ex-Wedding Planner, I had finally perfected physical formatting. For mr this was a huge freaking milestone I was incredibly proud of. (E-books are still a struggle, which is why I eventually signed up with Diarmi to publish stories online).

But as proud as I was of that book's formatting, I was deeply insecure about my writing style and flow. I just didn't feel like a "good" writer. I always took what readers said to heart and I still do but was deeply disappointed with myself for not publishing the perfect book I could.

Feeling weak in the areas I lacked, I turned to AI. I didn't want it to do the actual writing; I just wanted it to help make my stories easier to read and enjoy. But I was wrong, and the tool completely changed my relationship with my writing for the short period I started to rely heavily on ai for writing flow, grammar and such.

Writing stopped being fun and started feeling like a chore. While I never used AI for any of my original, published work on Amazon or Diarmi, I did lean on it to help with the flow of my fanfics. I thought I was only looking out for grammar fixes. At first, I didn't see an issue because the chapters were entirely mine before I ran them through the tool. But recently, a reader left a comment expressing disappointment with my latest updates, mentioning how much they missed my old writing style. For me that was my wake-up call.

So, what did I do?

​I began re-reading my chapters and noticed a jarring shift between what I wrote back in January versus my recent updates. The writing style wasn’t just differet. It pretty much completely lacked my voice. And in a way, it wasn't my voice anymore. I had fed my words to a machine and told it to fix them, and it stripped away the personality in the process.

​That comment pushed me to research AI and read about the experiences of other writers who used it for help in any way. Now, I fully realize how insidious it can be. I felt so much shame for using it, but I am incredibly grateful that I only experimented with it on my fanfics rather than my original novels.

​I am currently going back through my chapters to re-edit them, working hard to restore my authentic, real talent and voice.

But because those old insecurities are still there, I reached out to two loved ones who also love to write. Now, we read, write, and edit together. Even though I am still editing my fanfics, it has made a huge difference already. I am starting to have fun again and love it slowly.

Having used AI myself, I don't feel it is my place to judge others who have used it as a tool. However, I want to use my experience to show other authors how harmful it can be, even in fanfiction. I still have a major issue with creators who refuse to admit when they use AI, and an even bigger issue with authors who let AI do all the work and claim it as their own. My goal now is to turn a poor choice into a meaningful lesson for others.

The only time I will ever touch AI now is for pure entertainment for things like converting funny comment sections or text threads into goofy songs for my YouTube channel, which I’ve always done just for fun. For my writing, the only assistance I use now is text-to-speech software to read my work back to me so I can catch typos. That is really just it.

​I hope that by sharing my journey, other writers can learn from my mistakes. Write in your own voice. Art is entirely subjective, but if you need extra help, find family, friends, or a community of writers to lean on. Don't lose your voice to a machine.