About my new book

An illustration from my new book

 

This is my first blog following last year’s weekly prayer strike blogs. What I found is that I could blog weekly. It was a challenge, but I managed it.

So, now it’s back to ‘normal’, I guess. Except, it isn’t quite. I feel that so much has gone on in society which I have not commented on because I have been focusing on the prayer strike blogs. The wars continue. The strikes continue. So many things are ongoing. New problems do not take away the old problems.

I don’t think I would be a good writer if I did not mention that I now have a new book out. It is a short book and (trigger warning) it contains AI assisted illustrations. The written content is not AI generated or even assisted.

Currently, in the writing world, in most circles, using AI to help you is a big no-no. Yes, we are luddites. But I have spent any spare time I have had last year in learning ethical generative AI – even taking accredited courses on it.

How can I conscientiously use AI assisted illustrations, when I should have commissioned a flesh and blood illustrator? Well, if I were rich, I would have commissioned someone. But – it was cheap (it was free) and it was relatively easy. If I had commissioned an illustrator, I would be paying hundreds of pounds which I do not, currently, have. So, the reason is the same reason that I do not do not pay a publisher to publish my writing – I can’t afford it.

But it really is a big no-no in so many writers’ circles at the moment. A big group I’m in has a huge campaign against AI. I am keeping quiet there. All of the AI language models were trained on previously published writing (including, you must be aware, all of the human biases and prejudices). It is seen as cheating. I have not, so far, asked for written content which I have gone on to publish with ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini or wherever – and, if you think that you can write a whole book with AI – you might be disappointed by the way that word counts are limited from prompts. You may get a couple of thousand words. But you would have to input an in-depth varying prompt, say 50 times to get a whole novel out of it. It’s not simply a matter of saying ‘Write me a best-selling novel which is better than Ulysses or The Brothers Karamazov’.

As far as I am concerned, there is a brief window of opportunity for writers to experiment with AI with text before it becomes more voice focused, like the home assistants. Then it will likely be in our TVs, phones, cars and all those kinds of places. Before biotech.

So, am I okay with using AI assisted images in my latest book? Well – I think I’m okay with it – I have tried to do it ethically and declared that I’m doing it. I have not used it in the writing content itself. I’m aware of the biases and hallucinations that AI has (try playing hangman with it). It was either that or no illustrations at all.

If you are interested in checking out my latest book, including the illustrations – it is short – and it is available here. It is also available as an audiobook on Google Play and as an ebook. It is called, 'The Parables of the Cold Island'.