12 - Harnessing AI for Storytelling with Macarena Luz Bianchi from Magical Mindset

In this episode of Brave New Bookshelf, co-hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite sit down with Macarena Luz Bianchi, the creative force behind the "Magical Mindset" podcast, to explore the transformative role of AI in authorship and filmmaking. Macarena shares her unique insights on how AI can enhance creativity, streamline workflows, and empower authors to focus on their strengths. From generating social media content to brainstorming illustration ideas for children's books, discover how AI can be a valuable collaborator in your creative process. Visit our website https://bravenewbookshelf.com to view the full episode notes, links and apps mentioned in the episode, and the full transcript. PLEASE NOTE: Brave New Bookshelf will be on vacation for most of July and August 2024.

[00:00:00] Welcome to Brave New Bookshelf, a podcast that explores the fascinating intersection of AI and authorship. Join hosts, Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite, as they dive into thought provoking discussions, debunk myths, and highlight the transformative role of AI in the publishing industry.

**Steph Pajonas:** Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Brave New Bookshelf. I am one of your co hosts. I'm Steph Pajonas, CTO and COO of Future Fiction Academy where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their business. I'm also an author. I write lots of science fiction romance, space opera romance.

I just finished a book this morning. Yes. I'm so happy. I even finished it and did two bonus scenes. So I'm feeling very proud of myself right now. And that means that I get to work on the next cool project, right? And that's what I'm always loving about AI is it gives me the chance to work on one project and then get it done and move on to the next one, because that is what I struggled with [00:01:00] for so long.

So, let me introduce my co host with me today, Danica Favorite. How are you doing Danica?

**Danica Favorite:** I'm great. I did not finish a book today, so I'm super envious of that, but I'm really excited for you because I know sometimes it's been a slog and the fact that you've got this done, I just want to celebrate that and celebrate you because that's awesome.

So I'm Danica Favorite. I am the community manager of PublishDrive and at PublishDrive, we help authors and publishers distribute their ebooks, audiobooks, and print on demand to a worldwide market. And we also have a super cool metadata tool powered by AI to help people find the optimal AI metadata to get their books out there. Which is super cool because it's actually linked directly to Amazon. So, when it gives you the metadata, it's giving you metadata from Amazon. Super, super cool which I love because I'm also an author. 

Like I said, I did not finish a book today, but [00:02:00] hoping on my little vacation coming up I'm gonna get some writing done or not. I'm gonna have fun. We'll see. 

So we're here today with my friend and Steph's friend Macarena Luz Bianchi And I met Macarena, gosh, a couple years ago now, I think. We're in the same mastermind and I absolutely love her because we both have a lot of similarities in terms of mindset and how to think about writing as a business. How to be in a good mindset as authors and what we can do to improve that mindset. She's got a really cool podcast. 

I was just a guest on that podcast, and as we were talking, one of the things she brought up was this idea of mindset as a filmmaker and how her previous life she worked as a filmmaker and was in that industry and how her learnings from the filmmaking business actually helped her adopt AI and how she approaches AI and all of that.

And I thought this is super fascinating because this is just one more window [00:03:00] into the world of how people are thinking about A. I. And what they're using it for. And I really enjoyed hearing about some of her filmmaking stuff. So I was like, okay, we're gonna have her on the podcast, and we're going to hear more about that.

So, Macarena, why don't you introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit about you, what you do, and then a little bit about your filmmaking stuff. But also, I do want to make sure you mention your writing, your books, your coaching, and your podcast too, because your podcast is fantastic and I encourage everyone to listen to it.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Wow. You are so sweet. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you. I adore both of you. And it's just wonderful to be here. So thank you. I'm Macarena Luz Bianchi. My podcast is called Magical Mindset with me, Macarena Luz Bianchi. And it was a lot of fun speaking with Danica because we found out we have even more similarities. No wonder we gravitate towards each other so much. 

And I feel like I've had many lifetimes. I feel like in this life, like a [00:04:00] lot has happened and I used to be a workaholic. That's part of why I'm very happy go lucky now and I'm all about gratitude and lighthearted living. I've created a lot of frameworks to help people do the inner work because one of the things I found is no one spared the human experience. So I think it's so much more gentle to do these things consciously. 

And everybody I think works hard enough. So this inner work shouldn't feel like another job or like extra duties you have to do. It should be playful and fun. So that's what I've created for my private clients, my coaching clients. 

And basically the through line and everything I do is lighthearted empowerment and expression. So it doesn't matter whether it was like with movies. with the children's books, with the poetry books, with the courses, with the podcast. That's like the through line that connects everything. 

And I started off as a film producer. I actually didn't really get that writing was a talent. I was more of like an [00:05:00] assignment writer. Even in elementary school, they'd be like, write about your summer vacation. And every time I just did the assignment. And then every time it was like, wow, not only is this really well written, it's deep and interesting. 

That's how I started getting the feedback. And I was like, Oh, doesn't everybody know how to express themselves? Apparently not. And I used to get a lot of slack from my brother. He used to call me like a BS artist. 

However, if he needed something of persuasion written, he came to me because he knew I could communicate clearly, so it took a while had I known that maybe I would have, instead of being a producing major, when I went to film school, I probably would have done writing.

But I've written plenty of screenplays. I had written nonfiction. I'd written all kinds of stuff. And then I started working on poetry and then that kind of like just blew up and then I was doing poetry for grownups and for kids and so I have my grateful giraffe series and how I got into the AI thing. 

So when AI came into the [00:06:00] scene, I was like, Oh, that's a cool tool. Especially in filmmaking, like when you make a movie or videos or whatever, it's highly collaborative and you're going to get great ideas and terrible ideas from everywhere. 

And it doesn't matter where they're coming from. Ultimately, as a writer or director or producer, you're going to say, That's a great idea. Let's use it. Or, Oh, that's interesting, but it doesn't work. So when AI came into the scene, it was really interesting to see the meltdown within the author community. And it was a little odd, but because I always saw myself as a storyteller and because of the filmmaking, I'm like, it's just a tool. You could use it or not use it, or it might give you some good ideas. It might give you some terrible ideas. 

Ultimately. You are in the pilot seat. You're the driver of the story. Actually in film, I really saw myself when I was producing or directing or even writing all of it, really as the caretaker of the story. We say a story [00:07:00] is written three times. When you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. And it is so difficult with so many moving parts, it's so difficult to have good products, good movies, good TV shows. I'm amazed.

So I love it when something's done well. There's so many movie parts. It's like hundreds of people involved. And sometimes like the great ideas come from the most unlikely places. And you wouldn't be like, Oh no, I can't take that idea because it came from the craft service person.

Like, no, no, you're like, you have a great idea. Great. I'm going to use it. So that, that was how I approached AI. Like, Oh, this is interesting. It'll be interesting how it develops. And use it. Don't use it. I was very like non emotional about it. Let's put it that way because it's everything's a collaboration, right?

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, yeah. And I really love that. I'm so going to steal that at some point where you said, you're the caretaker of the story. I think that's really a beautiful way to look at it. And as, as the caretaker, right? Like you just want what's best for the [00:08:00] story. You don't care what it comes from, it's what's best for the story.

And as a caretaker, that's really important to remember. So I think that's going to stick with me for a long time.

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, that sticks with me, too, because I've always felt like I was a storyteller in many different formats. I started out with just, writing in a notebook as a teenager, and then I went to screenwriting, and then I worked for HBO for a long time, and I was working on the website, so I wasn't obviously in any of those writers rooms, but it was still a very large collaborative effort from all the way from, the show producers down to the craft service people. Absolutely. Very much a collaborative effort. So I've always felt that way. And when you become an author, sometimes it can be a very lonely experience.

It's very much just you and your story. And there are definitely times when you could use a friend. You could use a friend to call up and ask questions of. And AI can be that for a lot of people. So I also have always seen it as a tool and nothing to be scared of because I'm always in the driver's seat when it comes [00:09:00] to the story. So I agree with you there, definitely.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** And you do need someone to play with or to bounce off like, ping pong or tennis or something. Sometimes you just need to mull things over. And yeah, it's been fun. Like, because when the whole AI thing started, I remember I was like the only one in my household, like my kids had heard about it, but they were like in their own world. But I knew my husband was like completely. not even aware of what's going on. Like he'd heard about it in the business use, but he had no idea. 

And then one day, it was interesting what happened. He was in the process of selling his company and the news got leaked by a quasi reporter, not even a good reporter, and he got all the details wrong. 

So it was a Saturday morning and my husband says, Oh my God, I have to spend the next five hours writing a press release. I'm going to need your help. And I was like, why don't we try something and we put it in and

**Steph Pajonas:** Here comes chat GPT to the rescue, right?

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** [00:10:00] And then of course it needed editing, right? It had some tweaking, but what I thought was really interesting. So the boiler plate about the business, which I had written years ago, it had no notes for that because it was well written, like it had nothing to add. Because, it was done, but the rest, it was fantastic.

So something that had taken us or him five hours in the past took maybe 20 minutes and then he was amazed. And then he showed this to the team and everybody's like, wow, that's really well done, and he was like, this is something called Chat GPT and all of you need to be using it. This was like a year ago.

It was really funny, but I'm like, finally, you know what this is. And we can actually talk about it because he was in the dark. So that was his entry point. And so I it's great for stuff like that.

**Danica Favorite:** It is, that's awesome. So I hope number one, because you saved him so much time, he took you out on a really nice date to celebrate and I hope because he, you just made his company more efficient. He gave you a cut of [00:11:00] something. 

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Oh, thank you, thank you. But trust me I reap all the benefits from the, work. So I was glad that, selfishly, we could like enjoy the weekend and not just have to work. So, 

**Danica Favorite:** What a beautiful gift, though, that instead of him spending the weekend stressing over writing this press release, he got that extra time with you and that is so precious and I love that you guys got that.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Thanks.

**Danica Favorite:** So let's talk about the first question, which you've sort of referred to a little bit here but tell us how you personally are approaching AI and publishing.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** I just saw a really funny meme. The meme said something like, what I want AI to do for me is my laundry and my cleaning, because I wanna do the creative stuff. So, so I'm actually, I do like writing blurbs and I come from the marketing world, so. I don't mind writing those things like that, but sometimes it can be tedious. [00:12:00] 

So I like to use it for social media posts, social media ideas for brainstorming. Like, in my coaching business and in everything, I always talk about the magic is in the art of how you ask the question, the questions you're asking and how you're wording them, right? 

And that's what prompts are. 

Just the other day, my cousin calls me and he's like, do you know what GoFundMe is? I'm like, yeah, of course. He's like, I want to do a GoFundMe for my friend. He's disabled and I want to help him raise some money and I need your help. I was like, okay, if I was doing this for moi, what I would do is I would go to Gemini or one of those, any of them, and say, Do you know what GoFundMe is?

And it's going to explain it to you. And you're going to be like, exactly. I would like a high converting persuasive description regarding someone who's disabled, lives on a wheelchair, whatever little information you [00:13:00] have.

I said, and then, I mean, we can go through that exercise together, or you could do it and I could proofread it for you or however you want to do it. And the beauty is he said, I got this. 

So it was really empowering for him to be like, Oh, I don't need to call my persuasive friends or my cousin to help me do this. He could do it himself. So I thought that was really, really great. 

How I'm excited to use it. Because with the kids books, it took me a long time to come up with what kind of membership model I want to do, like with helping grownups make sure the children in their life understand gratitude and can implement it and have a practice. And I have a lot of books that are great for that. 

The poems, I like to write them because that's the fun, I like to write. So. I don't necessarily need help like that. So like a lot of my favorite apps is probably like Grammarly. I do need someone to like check my work, of course, but the actual writing I like to do. But there's [00:14:00] all this other extra stuff that's a lot of fun. 

So I don't know if you've heard of Fredish, like Fred Rogers, Mr. Rogers created. nine rules that he used when speaking to kids and it's adorable It's like really really sweet. 

So a few years ago or a year ago I think Steph you suggested that I get Poe so I got Poe and I taught it Fredish. I asked, do you know Fredish? It said, yes, these are the nine points. I said, fantastic. 

I have poems for all occasions, from Get Well to Happy Halloween, birthday, friendship, all stuff like that. So I have one for the love of mom, for the love of dad. And I just did the grandparents one. And in it, The grandma is reading to the grateful giraffes. At first it was just like you see part of the page and it was blank. And I'm like, it'd be fun to do like a nursery rhyme or something like that. In Poe, that I had [00:15:00] taught French to, I said, Can you write something about a thankful bee? And it did. And it was so cute. So I like using it for some of the filler stuff for my memberships, like more stories like that. 

And then for example, in my grownup books, I'll do like an acknowledgement, like people I'm grateful for, but then for the kids book, I run it. through Freddish and it simplifies it for kids so that when they're reading that it's something they can relate to. I'm loving that because, it's saving me hours and hours and hours and hours of brain power. 

**Steph Pajonas:** it's almost like a translation tool for you in a way. right? 

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** It is. So it's delightful.

**Steph Pajonas:** great. 

**Danica Favorite:** It is very cool. I love this Freddish. I'm going to look for it later because that sounds so cool. And what I love is what you said here about you went ahead and you knew the parts that you like to do [00:16:00] that you weren't willing to give up, but then you said, okay, how can AI help me? And you took those parts and gave it to AI, which I think is really, really cool because that's the point of this podcast.

And that's the message we want to get to authors is, it's not about saying here, give AI everything. It's what parts of your writing process are you like, eh, I don't like this. I can give it to AI. Like, And I love that you said you enjoy the marketing because some people have talked about in the past. Oh, yeah.

I hate marketing. AI does marketing for me. And you're kind of saying, no, I love marketing. So I still do that.

And 

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** And it's fun to collaborate with the AI and be like, okay, this is where I'm going. For the website, for the Shopify site, you have to do the SEO descriptions. So I write my fluffy description and then I say, I need an SEO rich description that's less than 340 characters, and then voila, [00:17:00] which is great. Another thing I use it for is, so I use an illustrator. I've gone through some, this is my third human illustrator. The first one, I loved her style. And it was with someone that I had met on Indeed. I don't know what happened. She disappeared. 

And. People get hurt every day. People disappear every day, but she like completely disappeared. It was really kind of weird. And it was very traumatic. What I needed from an illustrator is someone who was an expert at movement so that the figures looked natural. Finally, I'm on my third. illustrator, and it's a beautiful collaboration. I created the characters, she draws them, but for every book, because mine are not necessarily stories of my three characters, my three giraffes, Gilbert, Gift, and Gale, they are kind of illustrating what's going on in the poem. 

I prepare the document, we do it in Google Slides. I lay out like, okay, on this page, like the spreads, I want [00:18:00] this part and this part, then we're going to get together and we're going to like really brainstorm it and say, okay, what's the theme like for the mom's poem? It's about gardening. So, they're preparing the garden, they're clipping the flowers, so it's, there's always like a theme through it. What I love about AI, and especially my Freddish Poe is I will say, this is my poem. What are some illustration ideas, and maybe I'll use 3 out of the 10.

But it sparks my imagination. And it helps me fill in the blanks. So it's, it's very much an editing process or almost like B roll. So that's been great because then when I do get together with the illustrator, she's very busy. I'm very busy. Everybody's really busy. It's like, okay, I've come with my ideas plus. A bunch of other ones. And then we say, okay, let's go this, or let's go that, or we're going to move in this direction. Or, something will inspire something else. So it's a beautiful flow of [00:19:00] collaboration and creativity. 

**Danica Favorite:** again, a lot of people, their fear is you're going to put people like your illustrator out of work, but. What you've actually just done is saved your illustrator a lot of time, so your illustrator can really work on what's important to them. But yet you still have to use an illustrator.

You're still using that human and having that human touch, which is so important. And it's really cool to see that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach. It can be these different pieces and this is what is important to me to still have that human touch. This is what's important to me to have my hands on. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I was gonna say that, one of the things I love about AI is its ability to level us up, right? It gives you the chance to not just have two ideas, but to have ten to work with. And then, you can find the best out of those together. I like the fact that It [00:20:00] is bringing more to the table than what we had previously.

So I never really think of it as replacing anything. I just think of it as an enhancer to the whole situation. 

**Danica Favorite:** yeah, for sure. So do you have an AI workflow that you use or anything that speaks more to your process with AI? I know you've given us a little tidbit here and tidbit there, but do you have any specific kind of process that you use?

.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** I can't think of anything else, but I see it like if I have a toolbox. And I know that the toolbox is there and whatever I need, I can figure out, like I use this analogy in my coaching. I say like a hammer is great, but you don't use a hammer for everything.

You, you decide what you're going to use it with. You can build something or you could tear something apart with a hammer. So I find it's the same. Like I feel, I love knowing that it's there. So that if I have a question, like somebody was asking the other day. Like, what is the day in the life of, a coast guard or something like that. And I'm [00:21:00] like, just, that's a great question to take it not to Google, but to like Gemini and be like, what is the day in life of a coast guard or what are the jobs that coast guards do? Like, I don't know, and then I can think of like, who can I call and ask this question or it'll take me. Two minutes to get this information, so there's no limitation of time or accessibility. I think that's really cool about it. 

I don't have a set workflow, but I love knowing that the toolbox is there and I can pick and choose as needed. When I think it's done, I like to, of course, have it proofread, because, but I've been doing that, with like Grammarly or ProWritingAid or whatever forever, so I do like that, and now that it's more integrated into everything, I find that sometimes it's really interesting. Like some of the prompts it'll give you, especially when doing things that are, I find tedious, like social media posts or captions [00:22:00] or, or stuff like that. So I guess maybe I use it more for the marketing and the social media than for writing. But I want. a lot more time so I could write novels, but we're not there yet, 

**Danica Favorite:** But I think that's fair. I think it's fair to say, I don't want to use it for my writing. Here are the things I want to use it for. And I know I have a toolbox here that I can use for what I need when I need it, if I choose to use it. And I think that's a really valid answer. And one that's really going to resonate in terms of what other listeners are feeling about their AI use that again, it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

It can be, Oh yeah, this piece, today I want to work through this problem on my own. Oh, tomorrow, you know what? I don't have the bandwidth for that. So I'm going to pull out my toolbox and Ooh, here it is. So I really like your toolbox analogy and how you use it in ways that work for you. [00:23:00] So I'm really glad you shared that.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Yeah, and now that I'm thinking about it, I think it has even more application maybe for nonfiction. My podcast is called the Magical Mindset Podcast, and somebody in one of my writing groups was like, have you written that nonfiction book? And I was like, no, but I get it. It's has to happen. Like I get it, especially because it'll introduce all my frameworks, like the directing your life theme park of experience.

It kind of like ties all that in. So I was like, of course, and then what's great about it is. I went to just a regular one in Poe and it was like, okay, so these are the frameworks I've created. Boom, boom, boom. And the umbrella is Magical Mindset. All of, so this is how I describe Magical Mindset. And these are all the frameworks I've created to help people learn and live that. And then I said, I want to write a book that explains this and it, spit out an [00:24:00] outline like that. 

Then it's so much easier to be like, okay, great. I'm going to use this part, not this part or this, or, move it around or whatever. It's just so much faster. 

And then the part that would scare me is even though I do like marketing and everything is I want to do it on kickstarter Just for the community component of it all and then the idea of having to write out that description might make me freeze at an earlier time point in time, but I'm like, it's going to be really easy because I could say, This is what I'm doing. Help me out. And it will, and it's going to be super simple. So something that would have taken me months could take, a day.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I love that too. And I think it's really good to have someone on here talking about nonfiction because we tend to talk about fiction. But, and I think you and I have spoken about this, where I'm also working on a nonfiction project that's on mindfulness and mindset and things like that for authors.

And I [00:25:00] literally, I have at my feet right now, you guys can't see it, but I have a giant canvas bag that has all of my notes for this book. It's going to be several books at this point. But I'm like, Oh. I'm so overwhelmed by the amount of notes and information I've take and to be able to look at that and say, wait, I can put this all into AI. AI can organize it for me and then I can rearrange it. 

I think it's really cool to see other authors doing that. And so I'm glad you brought that up because as soon as you said that, I'm like, yeah, that's one of my projects for this summer. And so I would be interested, any nonfiction authors out there who listened to the podcast, if any of this is helpful to you, or you've got some great AI tips for doing your nonfiction stuff, please let us know, because we would love to hear from you as well.

**Steph Pajonas:** At the FFA, we've put together tons of like nonfiction help, right? For, for people writing [00:26:00] with AI. We put together these like 1 0 1 courses, 1 0 2, 1 0 3, teaching you just some of the basics about how to write with AI for fiction. It's, it is a nonfiction course, right? To teach you how to write fiction. 

So I was thinking, we really need to have some books that we put on Amazon about this. There's a part of the audience that is only going to really learn from a book and not from video or from audio and they really want to read it.

So I just, I was like, okay, great. I got all the transcripts from every single one of those classes. I brought them into GPT and I was like, let's read these transcripts and help me come up with an outline for this, for a book on the same topic. Boom, boom, boom. It was so fast. 

And that was information that probably would have taken me a long time to sit down and collate and put together and figure out what goes with what. And it just would have taken me a long time. But now I have this resource where I can just give it a big transcript and say, Hey, give me an idea of what the outline can be with this [00:27:00] material. And so it just, it just opened up all of this time. We're talking about this a lot lately on this podcast is just how much time we're saving because we're able to create this content faster with AI. And it's not like it's less or. Not as worthy. It just gave it to us in a quicker amount of time. And that is really what a lot of us are looking for.

We're looking to grab time and bring it back into our lives.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** There's some exciting stuff that's coming. I was at a business mastermind yesterday and one of the coaches said she created an app and she cloned herself. She put in all her books. All her recorded sessions, just, she said, like, it was an absurd amount of data, like volumes and volumes and volumes of her coaching people so that the AI, you can interact with it, ask her, and it will [00:28:00] even call you. and have a conversation with you. 

So I heard that and I was like, we need to talk. I need to understand how you did this because anybody who wants to help people, there's just so much we can do in a day and 24 hours. There's just not enough time. So we think like, how do we scale? How do we leverage? the goods that we provide to help the most amount of people.

So yeah, it's going to be fascinating to get into that, but that's the future. And it's, I think, very exciting. Obviously if used. With the right intentions.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, absolutely. And what I think is cool about that and what Both you and Steph pointed out is that it's your content. It's not like the AI is making up something for her. It's not like the AI is taking all of Steph's notes or making up stuff. It's going right from their notes and to me, that's really encouraging because as I'm pointing down to this giant canvas bag full of my notes, part of why it was [00:29:00] so daunting for me is that I literally had taken all of my notes for this book and it was laid out across the big dining room table. And I had sticky notes here and sticky notes there and blah, blah, blah. The wind came through and blew it all off. And I got so frustrated that I scooped it all together and stuffed it in this canvas bag and that's where it has sat. 

So now what I can do is instead of having to relay it all out, I can just sit down with AI. Feed it the files and say, okay, boom, give me something. So I think that's cool. And again, it's going to save everyone so much time because again, it's not that the AI is thinking for us or making stuff up for us. Like we're doing the work. It's just making that burden a lot easier because, I can go out and dig a hole with a spoon. I can dig a hole with a shovel, or I can dig a hole with a backhoe and it all depends on the size of the hole you need. Okay.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** True, true, true.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. So tell us about your [00:30:00] favorite AI tool. Do you have, I know you've talked about a few that you use. Do you have a favorite or a go to that you really love?

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** I'm really excited about the future. I love tools that really make things that people have been putting off for like years or months, and it does it in a snap of a finger. And then you can decide, Oh, I do like they chose that type of photo.

I can use that type of photo. You can decide you want to use that copy or you want to change it, but at least it gives you like a story, but like a first draft. But it's actually not even a first draft. It's like, you could just hit, like, upload and it's ready to go, which is really, really phenomenal. 

I'm excited for things like Sora, like the text to video output, because then I can create, and I'm thinking like for my community, extra stuff, but like my grateful giraffes. then to do like really cool stuff. Like, let's say it's somebody's birthday and you want to send like Their favorite giraffe is Gilbert and you want to send them a birthday message. Like I can do that without [00:31:00] like it being impossible or taking years to be able to do something like that. 

So I'm really excited for what's coming, I think. I haven't played with like the new ChatGPT where apparently like it can read your face. I don't even know how that works. 

There's part of, I'm part of that mastermind for business and every day they're like, did you find out, hear about this tool and this thing and it does this for you and it does that for you. It's so overwhelming, like the amount of tools, but basically anything you need. Especially if you want to do a pitch deck for your podcast sponsorship, it's never been a better time to be able to do these things quite easily. So I'm really excited about all that.

So I'm just happy with the options. I have Poe. So I'm sticking to that. I am a member of the. your fiction academy, and I just haven't, I haven't dug in. I figured it's just going to get easier and easier and more streamlined, so by the time I get to it, [00:32:00] I'm going to, save some time there.

**Steph Pajonas:** It's never been a better time to be a creator. I honestly believe that. There's just so much. And the potential is limitless. I think about all the cool stuff we could be doing, the writing, the video, the audio, the music. We have the chance to create now and I'm excited for the future as well.

Absolutely.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** I do want to share a really cool thing with you. Cause you mentioned you like filmmaking and screenwriting. So I went to the American Film Institute. It's only like a graduate thing. And out of a thousand people, only like 20 get in per discipline. It was a lot of work and it was a lot of fun. But one of the most valuable things I got from that experience came a month before graduation. And I was like, you guys need to start with this! Don't wait this till the end. 

And what it is, is he does a workshop. But. It's basically film school in a book, and it's called The Visual Story by Bruce Block. I don't know if you've heard of [00:33:00] this, but the whole thing is about the principle of contrast and affinity. 

And the principle states, the greater the contrast, the more intensity. And inversely, like if the less contrast, the more affinity, the calmer things feel. So in film, in the visual medium, you can manipulate this in a lot of ways: shape, line, color, tone, you name it. In that book or at his workshop, he goes through, people talk about, why was Hitchcock a genius or Orson Welles? And it, You see it because he breaks down the scenes and a lot of that, a lot of artists do intuitively, but this breaks it down. 

And that's the difference between a professional or someone with a camera and I think it's the same thing that that's, what's going to get to with the AI tools. There's going to be people who resist and don't understand it or are afraid of it. And then there's the people like the artists who [00:34:00] aren't afraid of it. The ones who use it are going to be able to do so much more, so much more, so much faster. 

So it's not about either or, but you want to use these principles and have the tools that allow you to express them in the most efficient way possible so that you could do more of the thing of your talent, of your gift, of the thing that only you can do and everything else should be leveraged. 

I don't know if we were talking about this with you, Danica, but this whole idea of like your strengths. Like the Clifton strengths or understanding your enneagram and things like that. Growing up, it was so important to be well rounded, which there's something valid to that. I think still it has its application, but now it's really understood for you to 10 X, your success, 10 X, your productivity to really reach your goals. The key is to follow, not just your instincts, but double down on your talents. Focus on leveraging those [00:35:00] things. And I think that AI can allow us, because then like as an author where we have 101 jobs to do that, a lot of 'em we don't like to do or we don't have the time to do it, is so much easier to delegate.

And if you can't delegate to a human, definitely delegate to a computer, in the meantime.

**Steph Pajonas:** Absolutely. I want to delegate more to my computers. I need like a robo, vacuum cleaner too. I need to bring them into my house as well. Could use all the extra help I could get. 

Well, I'm glad you like those tools, Poe is very helpful. I can't wait to see what Sora is going to be like.

I'm also excited for all the stuff that's going to come down the pipeline in the next couple of months, next year. Because there's just so much possibility that we could be tapping into. And I think that there's a lot for authors, there's a lot for creators here to tap into and to really take advantage of.

So I'm glad that you came here to talk [00:36:00] about this today. So why don't you let us know how our readers and our listeners and everybody who's showing up to this podcast online can find you online as well.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Sure, so my website is my name MacarenaLuzBianchi. com M A C A R E N A L U Z B dot com That will actually get you to like, Landing page that takes you to everything like the podcast, my bookshop, pretty much everything. And of course, I'm in social media. I'm pretty much everywhere. You can look up Macarena Luz Bianchi and you will find me.

**Steph Pajonas:** Excellent. Thank you so much for showing up today and widening our perspective on AI, because it was cool to hear about you using it for your poetry and children's books and with your background in film, because I think that that's something that we don't get enough perspective on generally. So thank you very much.

So that's it today for Brave New [00:37:00] Bookshelf. I want to thank everybody for listening and for showing up every week. Danica, do you have anything to say on your way out the door here? 

**Danica Favorite:** just want to say thank you to everyone for listening. And thank you Macarena for coming today because I find it fascinating and I'm really glad to bring in this other idea and to hear that cool new direction that AI could be coming in, because how cool would it be for a parent to be able to send a birthday greeting to their child from their favorite giraffe?

Like I'm going. That'd be so cool. And I love that we get to do that now. And I think for me, you just opened up so many new possibilities and ideas, and I'm really excited. I can't wait to see what's next. So thank you for coming. Thank you for giving us that broader perspective.

**Macarena Luz Bianchi:** Thank you for having me.

**Steph Pajonas:** Thanks, guys. All right, so that's it for today for Brave New Bookshelf. Bye, everybody.

**Danica Favorite:** Bye.

**Steph Pajonas:** Bye. 

[00:38:00] Thanks for joining us on the Brave New Bookshelf. Be sure to like and subscribe to us on YouTube and your favorite podcast app. You can also visit us at BraveNewBookshelf. com, sign up for our newsletter, and get all the show notes.