For the fourth time in my life, the urge of writing and completing a novel has kicked in like OCD going out of control. Sometimes, I wish this happened more often, but unfortunately I don’t live off my stories yet.

Is there a reason why I am not there yet? Yes. Other than the fact that the writing life is a roll in the dice, I have sucked miserably promoting my work. 

Whoever said being a novelist is ten percent writing, and ninety percent marketing, deserves a Nobel Prize just for saying that. Maybe the percentages are wrong, but who gives a shit?

The justification I forced upon myself to hide behind my stories, and not come up with a comprehensive marketing strategy, was because I wanted to hone my craft and write the best story possible. 

I’m past that phase. It has done a lot of good for me, focusing on the writing, but I can’t keep dwelling on it. Otherwise, I should expect the same results, which is why I’m doing these blogs.

So much happens while I write a story, or produce a podcast audio drama, a script—anything—there are so many things I learn along the way, I feel like an irredeemable idiot for not sharing it publicly.

This should make an interesting venture, and I would like to start it now.

For example, a few weeks ago, I started writing the first draft of Who Am I?, the story I’m currently working on. Since it’s a murder mystery detective novel, a genre I have no personal or professional experience writing, researching is pivotal to understanding how the field of homicide investigations work.

What do I use for research? Large-language models, hence artificial intelligence platforms. I won’t say which one I’m using, unless they pay me to advertise them, but I’m certain you have heard of it. 

Before you lay upon me your anti-AI wrath, let me remind you that I always double-check the sources and the information these models give me. Relying exclusively on artificial intelligence for research is a self-evidently stupid idea, but what about as a guidance through the landfill of digital data known as the internet?

Search engines suck, and I predict their inevitable demise some time in this decade. All they do is give you the most visited sites, paid links, biased preferences, and with big tech imposing their utopian dystopia down our throats, they are quickly losing their relevance as a reliable data source.

Yes, artificial intelligence can be biased and deceitful too, which is why I emphasized the need to double-check the sources and, in relevant cases, interview professionals who know about a particular topic.

The way I use AI for research is very simple. Since my story takes place in New York City, I state in the prompts that I’m looking for info specifically related to the city’s police department and homicide squad. Then, I ask questions about the structure of a department, certain locations, procedures, equipment they use, you name it.

Being specific in those prompts helps; but like I said, double-check your sources!

In my humble, ten-cents-worth opinion, AI is a decent tool if you are looking to save time, and have an idea of where to find hard information, like certain websites, articles, books, etc. That being said, if you fuck things up, it’ll be on you… or me, in this case. 

As for the story Who Am I?, it is likely I’ll publish a few chapters in this website for free before I take your money with a lifetime subscription to read what will be the first draft of a story. 

I shall go into more details in a future post, so stay in touch. That is enough ranting for today.