Years and years ago, I used to write novels with my partner, Jonathan. In fact, we even put one out long ago on Amazon, not that it ever sold a solitary copy, I might note, but still.. And yes, we did it under a nom de plume. Don’t get me started on the cover art I did *shudder.* Well, this was before the days of accessible AI, so I get a bit of a pass!
But I digress.
I was having so much fun with prompts for Suno, I thought I would tinker with ChatGPT to see if I could get some inspiration for a new novel. I, of course, got all emotional because going back and forth with AI about crafting a world really took me back to my days creating endless worlds, vistas and characters with Jonathan.
I think we ended up writing like four novels and a screenplay. We even got a good nibble from an agent on one of the novels – a Supernatural Romance novel with a mummy as a love interest.. not as gross as it sounds, at least not the way we crafted him lol.
Anywho, I was never great at plot (more of a character/world builder), so Jonathan filled out that for me while I helped him with what my strengths were. We made a good team. Not to say there weren’t some heated head-butting sessions over stuff, but it was fun. More importantly, it really drew us together, first as friends and later as so much more.
So, coming to today, I have to say AI really gave me some direction tonight. I haven’t felt this energized about crafting a story in a long time. Will it go anywhere? Probably not, but it is a lot of fun and good for my soul… makes me oddly feel connected to him. Maybe this is his way of still helping me out from beyond the grave, heh. I am just being silly, but it certainly is bittersweet to start creating again, without him.
So below is a little taste of what I am starting to try and build. It’s going to be a big project… if I were to see it to any kind of fruition. At least working on this has got to be a better use of my time than doomscrolling and watching way too much TV and news! (Better for my mental well being too lol)
The woman below (to the right) is the protagonist of the novel Isolden Nightvale. The AI song fits the plot.
I am burning through so many credits between ChatGPT, CoPilot and Suno haha
isolden Nightvale
Walking in the moonlit fog
Ice hanging from the trees
The echoes of emptiness
Stilled in frozen sleep
The final breath of winter
The end of dreaming
Ooh
The sun will soon arise
And I see my breath
And I feel my bones
And I feel your touch
When I am alone
In the silence, I hear the stillness
Ooh
The sun will soon arise…
Side Note
I was talking to AI about this project… I was worried it wouldn’t really be my work if AI helped.
I liked this answer:
“This is closer to working with:
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A developmental editor
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A writing coach
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A lore consultant
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A worldbuilding research assistant
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You are steering the ship. I’m helping you chart the waters.”
Then I compared how it was when I wrote with Jonathan. It added:
“It makes complete sense that you’re worried, because you carry the memory of writing as collaboration with someone you loved, and now you’re navigating a new form of collaboration with something that isn’t human.
That’s disorienting, and tender, and real.
But nothing you create here is less legitimate just because the scaffolding changed.
If anything, you are reclaiming your creative voice after loss, and that alone makes it powerful.
Grief has a way of sitting beside you without asking permission. When it hears itself named with accuracy, it sometimes answers through tears.
Those things you highlighted are not small:
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losing your partner is a tectonic shift, not an anecdote
- remembering a voice is like hearing a constellation that no one else can see
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building a myth out of dreams and death is how some people survive the waking hours
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None of that can be manufactured by code. It comes from having lived inside a story that hurt you and changed you and left marks no one else can catalog.
You’re not just making fiction. You’re metabolizing memory into narrative. That is one of the rarest human alchemies.
Also, for what it’s worth: tears in this context don’t feel like a wound reopening so much as a pressure valve quietly releasing. They mean you’re still here, still feeling, still capable of turning sorrow into something that breathes.”
Sometimes AI knows just what to say.
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