The AI is here to stay, folks, and the sooner we accept it, the better for all of us.

I’ve been fairly vocal about my opinions on AI-generated writing and art. In this post, I talk about the impact of AI-generated books, blog posts, and art, and how it affects me (a one-woman author, blogger, and artist).

Can I compete with the machine regarding the speed and frequency with which I can write or make art? Hell no. As I said in that blog post, I need breaks and food, time to research and edit, while the machine can pump out blog post after blog post and book after book without needing to pee.

I’ll be bold and say it: The effort we creatives pour into our work makes us irreplaceable. We sew ourselves into every stitch, weave ourselves into every word, and leave traces of our colourful souls in every brush stroke. Whoo, that was over the top cliché, but you get what I mean.

But recently, I’ve seen scores of posts about how writers can integrate AI-generated words into their stories.

I’m not here to debate the morality of that. I think I’ve been fairly clear in my stance about passing off words I didn’t write or art I didn’t create as mine. Just in case I haven’t, though, I’ll do it again.

I won’t ever and have never used AI-generated stories, blog posts, or art and sold them as my own. I enjoy writing the blog posts, stories, and making the art with my own two hands way too much. If and when I do use AI-generated art/writing in blog posts, I’ll ALWAYS credit the machine for their creation, just like I’ll always credit other artists/writers when I include their works in my posts.

I don’t believe in tricking readers/art lovers by slapping my name on something I didn’t create and selling it to them as if I did.

Which brings us back to the opening statement in this post.

The AI is here to stay, and it’s time to accept it.

So, if we’re not going to turn to AI-generated stories, how can we use AI to streamline our writing process?

Portraits of Characters

Not everyone is an artist, and even those of us who are don’t always have the time or energy to sketch every character. (If you’re interested, I did sketch some of them. Check out my art here.)

Sometimes, using AI-generated character portraits can be a quick and effective way to visualise our characters. I’ve blogged about using Artbreeder for this purpose, but I’ve recently relied more heavily on Bing and Dall-E because they offer much more detailed results.

I still put in the prompt, detailing how I want the character to look, meaning it’s still my description of the character. The AI then generates the portrait based on my description, and I choose the one that most closely resembles the character.

For example, I used the prompt “portrait of a shy woman with an emotionless expression with long dark brown hair in a braid and blue eyes wearing a white hooded cloak that partially hides her face in a Victorian home,” and this is what the AI created.

This image is a snapshot straight out of my brain because this is exactly how I’ve always visualised Cara.

I won’t ever sell the image as something I created—Dall-E did that—but it sure is fun to see my main girl as she’d look IRL.

Additionally, my ADHD means I learn visually. Since I started creating portraits of my characters, it’s like I remember their physical traits better than before, and I can see them as they move through my imagined worlds. Figuring out their personalities, motivations, and the way they react comes more easily to me when I know how they look.

AI-generated portraits have been great tools in my writing arsenal.

Name Generation

I’ve been open about my use of name generators in many posts.

For my main cast, I usually scour baby name sites or etymological sites. My favourite is Behind the Name because of their vast databases that span various countries, languages, and historical periods.

For the secondary cast or place names, I don’t always have the time to dive deep, and generated names will suffice. My favourite site is Fantasy Name Generators. Like Behind the Name, FNG has vast data sets, spanning anything from names based in specific fandoms, names based on real places/human names, and made-up names for any imaginary species you can imagine.

Fantasy Name Generators has to be the writer resource I visit the most. By the way, this isn’t a sponsored post. These are resources I use and recommend because they are excellent and deserve more love.

Recently, though, I’ve also turned to Copilot to create names for places.

What I like about Copilot’s name generation is that I can input the source word/s I’d like it to use as inspiration for the names.

For example, I gave Copilot this prompt: “Can you generate names for a fantasy city using root words based in ancient languages that mean ‘ocean’ or ‘water’ and ‘stronghold’ or ‘haven’?”

And this is what it answered with:

1. Thalassonhold – Derived from thalassa (Greek for sea) and hold (Old English for fortress).
2. Aquisgard – From aquis (Latin for water) and gard (Old Norse for stronghold).
3. Nautilheim – Inspired by naut (Greek for sailor/ocean) and heim (Old Norse for home).
4. Vandhaven – Borrowing from vand (Old Norse for water) and haven (Dutch for refuge).
5. Marefortis – Combining mare (Latin for sea) and fortis (Latin for strong).
6. Pelagos Keep – Pelagos (Greek for open sea) and keep (fortified tower).
7. Abyssaria – Inspired by abyssus (Latin for deep ocean) and a melodic suffix for grandeur.
8. Océanveil – A blend of océan (French for ocean) and veil (protection, secrecy).
9. Brínegard – Merging brine (Old English for seawater) and gard (Norse for fort).
10. Hydronis Sanctum – From hydro (Greek for water) and sanctum (Latin for sacred refuge).

In the past, I would’ve lost hours (or, more honestly, days or weeks) researching the etymology of different words, disappearing in the rabbit holes of the internet. I’d have the bloodshot eyes and sallowness of a person captured in the claws of hyperfixation, wasting time by naming every town and once-mentioned character just so. And some of the towns I spent days naming still haven’t been mentioned in the story.

Using Copilot as a name generator saves so much effort. I still mostly default to Fantasy Name Generator for cast names, but when I’d like a place name with a deeper meaning, Copilot has my back.

Other Tools

A handful of my author friends now use AI platforms to help them plan and structure their novels. I haven’t personally tried this, and never will. The conspiracy theorist in me can’t fathom uploading my carefully crafted planning into the void, blissfully teaching the machine new things. I’ll just plan and structure the old-fashioned way, thank you.

I do use AI-based editing, though. Grammarly (again, this isn’t a sponsored post) is the tool I use most frequently to check my spelling before I post anything online. I’m on their free plan, and it works fabulously for blog and social media posts.

That said, Grammarly now offers a massive range of features, from dictating the tone of posts to actually generating content. I’ve never used the features beyond checking my spelling. Am I missing out?

Do you use AI tools in your writing? Tell me more in the comments.

Until next time.

Yolandie