14 - Finding Joy Using AI in Authorship with Danica Favorite and Steph Pajonas

[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:** Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Brave New Bookshelf. I'm Steph Pajonas, CTO and COO of the Future Fiction Academy and soon to be Future Fiction Press. By the time this goes live, the website will probably be up and we'll be talking about it more. But in the meantime, I'm here with my lovely co host.

As always, hi, Danica. How are you?

**Danica Favorite:** I'm good. Thanks. Hi everyone. I am Danica Favorite and I am the Community Manager at PublishDrive. And we help authors on every stage of their author journey, whether that is helping find the best description and metadata for their books using AI tools [00:01:00] or distributing their book to the widest markets or even splitting royalties with their co authors.

A lot of cool things and the best thing about my job is that I get to talk. About all things AI with my good friend here, Steph Pajonas. We're really happy to be here. Happy to get to talk to you today because when Steph and I were talking about what we were going to talk about, I am so excited because so much about me and who I am as an author, and even in the writing coaching that I do, is all about Mindfulness and finding joy in what you do.

And one of the things that Steph and I have been talking about, that's missing in the AI conversation sometimes, although to be fair, we have talked about this a little bit.

**Steph Pajonas:** Just a little. Yeah.

**Danica Favorite:** just a little, and it really is about finding joy in your writing and in your process. And the joy using AI tools brings, because I think ultimately we have to recognize that this is a [00:02:00] tool.

It's just a tool. And we would not we were just talking about how I recently got back into re watching Veronica Mars, because it's my favorite show because I found a friend who hasn't seen it yet. Of course, I have to spread the Veronica Mars love. And we were laughing because they were still using flip phones. And here I am with my giant cell phone that's got all this cool AI stuff. Like, Steph and I were talking about is how, Veronica Mars was a badass. Can you imagine what she could have done with a Smartphone? Seriously!

**Steph Pajonas:** She could have done some major damage, I think. Yeah.

**Danica Favorite:** yeah, and the thing is, is that none of us hate on her for that.

None of even like the different kinds of cameras and the camera technology they had back in. Right now we have, the reason I got my phone, I'll be really honest, is because at the time it was the very best camera that you could get in a phone. That was why I chose the Google Pixel. And now technology [00:03:00] has evolved so much.

I still think it's one of the better cameras, but I think I was reading something about a camera that beats it now. But here's the point. I get great pictures off of my phone and yet I know other people still prefer to use their telephoto lenses and all their other cool stuff on a regular camera camera.

And so my friend and I, as we're watching Veronica Mars, we're commenting. Do you remember how hard it used to be when you were waiting to get your photos back from the printer?

**Steph Pajonas:** My husband and I were just talking about that recently just think about where did all the photo developing places go, right? They went away at some point, now I think you can still get film developed by sending it away. And that's pretty much it. Mhm.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, and none of us say, oh, real photographers aren't photographers because they're not using film. And I'm one of those people, I am old enough that I used to for the school newspaper, I helped my friend with the photography. We developed our pictures in a darkroom. I [00:04:00] know how to do that.

Theoretically, I haven't done it since I was in high school, but I know how to do that.

**Steph Pajonas:** I haven't done it since college. Yeah. Mhm. Mhm.

**Danica Favorite:** and it doesn't make my pictures any less. I love, I can take 50 shots of one thing, and then out of those 50 shots, pick the best one. When you're dealing with camera and film, you just better pray that that first or second shot is good, and you don't know if it's good or not until you develop it.

And so I think about that, and we're not down on photographers for saying, hey, how dare you use technology? I think that this has opened up photography to a whole new generation of people who will never have to sit in a stinky dark room and gosh, I'm sure those chemicals we were inhaling weren't that great for us.

**Steph Pajonas:** Can only imagine. Yeah. 

**Danica Favorite:** And, and that's how I think, We need to approach AI. Steph and I were talking about that a lot. We talk about it a lot. [00:05:00] We, we moderate the AI for authors group. She's actually the owner. I'm one of the moderators. And we talk about this a lot because people have been posting a lot. How do I not feel guilty for using AI?

How do I not feel bad about this? And I just want to take each one of these people by the hand. And so listeners, I want to take you by the hand right now and say, Stop it. And if I need to shake some sense into you, stop it. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Stop it, please. Please stop 

**Danica Favorite:** feel

guilty for taking pictures with this? No. And we have to do the same thing.

We have to stop feeling guilty for something that just makes the process easier. I, like I said, I love that. I can take 50 photos of something and 48 of them are crap. And then I've got two really good ones and I can say, ooh, which one do I like the best? 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, I was just thinking about that particular post in the group, because the person had used Claude to help them draft chapters of their book [00:06:00] and while they were reading it back and reading it over, they had a moment of guilt. They felt like, oh, this really, maybe it's not really my work maybe it's not mine.

And I think that it's important to remember that when you use the AI tools, they're not generating content all on their own, You have somebody who is sitting there, guiding them, showing them the next beat of the story, the next piece of dialogue that they need, the next description that they need, and that It would not be generating anything were it not for the human sitting there and giving it direction, okay?

So everything that ends up on the page is there because you chose it to be there. Nothing is ending up there that isn't yours in some way. I wanna give these people a hug, right? I wanna be like, I understand. I'm gonna give you this hug and tell you that it's okay. That your story is paramount and however you got there, as long as you [00:07:00] weren't going out there and stealing from somebody else, which AI does not do, It's generating words.

That's all it's doing. That you're the owner of your story. You are the storyteller of that particular piece of work. So take a moment to feel the guilt and then let it go. Just let it go.

**Danica Favorite:** I think you have to remember this like back when I was doing the write with me hours on Sudowrite and I said this in every one of my classes. I'm going to say it again. I know I've said this a lot on the podcast too, is that you are the writer. Every word on that page in your final project, you need to be proud of because you made those choices. Yes, AI might have come up with some of the words, but here's the thing. You were in control and you made the decision to keep that word because you said this was a good word. Rather than accepting it was a dark and stormy night. You said, okay, let's do something different. And so maybe the idea of the [00:08:00] stormy night is still there. But you have rewritten it to say the stormy night is better or maybe you took the reverse and you knew you wanted the dark And stormy night But you didn't know how to say it in a clever way so you said AI give me ten ways to describe a dark and stormy night and the AI comes back with the ten ways and out of those ten ways you're like, okay I like this thing and I like this thing and I like this thing and I like this thing and it comes together Into your description of that dark and stormy night.

But here's the thing, you made every single one of those choices. You decided every single one of those words was good. And that's your talent as an author, because you as an author know which words are good and which words actually fit the story. We'll talk about the ridiculous results you get from AI. And that's what a lot of anti AI people will say is, Oh, I tried to write an AI book and the words were crap. Duh, of course it was. Because it didn't have that human interaction with it to say, Okay, I choose this piece and I choose this [00:09:00] piece and I'm putting them together and I'm making it a better story. I just had this conversation with this guy the other day and he said to me it's not going to be long before every vampire novel in the world is going to look exactly alike because AI has made them exactly alike.

And I said, You've obviously never tried to write a vampire novel with AI and I say that because I'm actually writing a vampire novel. I don't know if we've talked about this yet. 

**Steph Pajonas:** No, we haven't. 

**Danica Favorite:** so I have this really cool idea for a vampire novel and I, like a little bit of a spoiler alert, I'm taking some of the vampire mythos and I'm twisting it a little bit because that's what I really like to do. And years and years ago, I read a vampire novel where, that's what she did is she took What we think of as vampire mythos and we turned it on its and turned it a little bit on its heels. So I'm doing something similar and I have tried probably about a dozen times to get the AI to give me the opening that I want. First of [00:10:00] all, I think Steph, you and I can agree. AI just sucks at writing openings

**Steph Pajonas:** It really does. This is what I tell people, is go in there and write the opening sentences yourself.

Get it going, prime the pump, and then ask it to pick it up from there because otherwise it will start with, it was a dark and stormy night, or the sun was rising and casting shadows across the floor, or, let's see, what else does it like to start with?

It likes to start with the sun usually.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, yeah, it's very into the sun, which is really problematic for a vampire novel. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, it is, actually. Maybe it should have started with moonlight or something. I don't know. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, it

probably, but my point being, I've done it like probably a dozen times trying to get like this right opening of what I want. And I have gotten a dozen different results every single time. Like it doesn't copy the same thing over and over. It's not going out and pulling from every vampire story ever told now. It learns like we do. And this is another thing I think we need to go over again, is the idea of how AI [00:11:00] learns, is it's not saying, oh, she's writing a vampire book, okay, let me read all billion vampire books that are out there, here's all the pieces, okay, I'm going to cobble together all the pieces. It does what we do.

It says, okay, I've read a few thousand vampire novels. You and I have read however many vampire novels we've been reading. And we say, generally, the vampire novels have these characteristics. And let's put these characteristics into a book. But it's not taking those specific words, it's just saying, we know from reading a vampire novel, these are the characteristics it has.

**Steph Pajonas:** hmm. Mm

**Danica Favorite:** this all into a book

and that's the same way you and I write. We think, okay, here is the vampire mythos that I want in my story. Oh, but wait, I'm changing this piece of it. I have like long conversations with the AI about writing a vampire novel and making sure it understands what I want and how I want it. And Then I can say, okay, great. This [00:12:00] is the mythos that you have, that you've pulled from the whole universal body of knowledge. Here's the piece I want you to change. And it can do that. And it does it very well. And so now I have this really cool vampire mythos. And to be honest, what's taking me so long in writing this book is the world building

because I'm building this whole vampire world. That's going to be super cool. I'm really excited about it, but It's my imagination combined with the AI. It isn't just the AI saying, Oh, Anne Rice wrote some really good vampire novels. Let's copy those. It doesn't do that. Now, if I said, please copy an Anne Rice novel for me, I'm sure it would come closer. It's still not going to be exact. 

**Steph Pajonas:** not gonna be exact. It 

**Danica Favorite:** also, 

**Steph Pajonas:** so close, but also, you can read it and you'll be like, Mm, that's just not Anne Rice. I'm sorry.

**Danica Favorite:** And also, it is a reminder that is unethical, and we do not support people doing that.

**Steph Pajonas:** No, neither [00:13:00] of us do that.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. Yeah. So don't say, write a novel like Anne Rice. Just say, hey, I'm writing this vampire novel. I'm not much of a vampire novel person, except I have this really super cool idea. And what it did was it said, okay here's all the vampire stuff. And I'm like, oh, wait, I didn't think about that. I haven't thought about this. I haven't thought about how do vampires get their blood. That one's a little tricky sometimes because like you have to be in the prompting again. This is where you have to know how to prompt. You have to know how to write. So I had to say, we're working on a novel in your knowledge of vampire novels, what are some ethical ways for vampires to get the blood to survive? And then making that part of your vampire lore, because ordinarily you can't ask it about blood and all that stuff, but in that context, but also knowing those limitations of the AI and explaining it. Then the AI can say, Oh, yeah, I can do that. With images, when I'm like, okay, I need a vampire image, it isn't going and copying pictures of [00:14:00] vampires. It's saying, okay, here are the characteristics I know a vampire has and what a vampire looks like and throws it all into an image of a vampire.

**Steph Pajonas:** Mm hmm. 

**Danica Favorite:** and again, I've run this prompt because I have this really specific idea of what I want my vampire to look like. I've run this prompt dozens of times, every time I'm getting a different vampire result. And, again, it's not going out, ooh, let me search the internet for pictures of vampires.

Oh, here's one. How about this one I found off the internet? It's doing that. It's saying, okay, vampires look like this. I'm going to give you an image like this.

Want to stress that because, again, I see this all the time. And listen to people talking about, Oh, they're just copying, no, there's no copying.

It's just, again, if I were to learn how to draw a picture of vampire I started painting again and I'm not a good painter, don't think I'm a great artist, but I draw a lot of trees. And so what do I do when I try to paint a tree? I look at images of trees

**Steph Pajonas:** [00:15:00] hmm.

**Danica Favorite:** and my best ability to make my version of those trees. I'm looking at reference materials. Which is how artists learn how to make art. But ultimately that creation I come up with is mine. And that's what we have to remember when we're using A I and like I said, I love the vampire thing because I'm having so much fun with it. And that really brings me back to the point of what we want to talk about today with the joy.

I'm having fun researching vampires and. I love that I get to ask AI and get pages upon pages of Did You Think About This? Did You Think About That? And if you use the Google AI it'll give you the references. And so then I can go, Boom! Oh! Ooh! This article is cool.

I was discussing with a friend the other day that one of my favorite things in reading academic resources for any [00:16:00] reason is I like to read their sources. And then I just go down that bunny trail. Yeah, I know high intellectualization, all of that stuff. My nerdy part is happy, but there's my joy. And that's why I'm having fun with it is to just say, look, I'm writing a fun vampire book and I'm having fun. 

**Steph Pajonas:** We're hoping to get to the point here where everybody is just respecting other people's space to use the tools that they need to do the things that they need to do. Okay. We're finding joy in the things that we're doing. We're using the tools in an ethical manner.

We are making sure that the things that we publish are from our hearts and from the spaces that we're creative in, whether that's, images, or if it's video, or if it's text, whatever it is we're caring about the kind of output that we are producing for the public, right? And I'm hoping that we can get to this point within the community [00:17:00] where it doesn't matter what tool you used, we care about the final output, okay?

There is this saying in romance that we don't yuck somebody else's yum, and I'm really hoping that we can do the same when it comes to AI, because right now I'm seeing a lot of yucking of other people's stuff, right?

**Danica Favorite:** And it really breaks my heart because I look at some of these people and I really have to do the don't comment, don't comment, don't comment thing. At some point, like I may have to just reach out to some of these people privately and say, please don't let these people yuck your yum because I see these authors who will probably put up, Oh, look at this cover I got with AI.

And then you have like dozens of comments telling them that what they did was awful and that they're awful people. And so first of all, we have to stop that. Do not call someone an awful person for making a creative choice that you don't agree with. That is just a terrible human thing to do. [00:18:00] And I have even stronger words, but I know this is being recorded, so I will not use that strong language, but

**Steph Pajonas:** try to keep this PG 13, right? We try to 

**Danica Favorite:** yeah, we try, we try. But, but really

stop it, because this person is so happy, and so excited, and they just did a thing they're proud of. And rather than say, and it's fair if they're saying, hey, what do you think of my AI cover?

And you notice like a cover element that maybe. They could tweak or whatever, and they've asked for that feedback. That's fair, but to sit there and tell them they're a horrible person, and they're a cheater, and they're stealing, and they're doing all this stuff. Stop it.

And, 

**Steph Pajonas:** just plain bullying and we cannot keep doing that within our community. We cannot. We cannot keep going after each other over things like this. I'm going to remind everybody that there is not one major publisher who has come out and said that they are not going to use [00:19:00] AI.

Not one. One. Okay? And in fact, Penguin Random House was reported to be using a Chat GPT like tool for their internal people.

There have been AI audiobooks?

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, yeah, one of the authors in one of my author groups is absolutely furious about this because she was really excited. She saw that her book was available on overdrive. And so she, of course she checked it out cause she didn't know her book was being made into an audio book and she's listening to it and she's Oh my God, this is AI.

How dare they? And I'm like, yeah, how dare they A, want to make money for you and them and B, get your work out to somebody else. And, and so it's happening and

**Steph Pajonas:** It's happening. And for us to put the entire responsibility of not using these tools because somebody may think that they're stealing or that they're unethical, all on the weights of indie authors or authors in [00:20:00] general to tell us to handle that. That is just plain unfair. Why are we burdened with having to say no to these tools when they can help us, they can make us faster, make us better at our work, make us more creative, all of these things, when our competition, which are the big publishers are going to go ahead and use it.

I just don't understand. 

**Danica Favorite:** And the other point that is really important to me, and I know we talked extensively about this in one of our very first podcasts is that it's ableist. It is one of those things that until you need that tool to help you because you have a disability for some reason You don't know how necessary this is to a lot of authors.

I think about you all the time, Steph, because I know the other day you were just talking about how your brain fog has returned,

**Steph Pajonas:** Mm hmm, mm

**Danica Favorite:** you've still got the ability to keep writing and find the joy in your writing because you have the AI [00:21:00] tools. And is it fair that Steph, through a disability and no fault of her own, and even if it was her fault, who cares, but she's got a disability that she needs help with.

I think about some of these authors who, maybe they can't afford a fancy cover designer, which is what I see a lot in the whole cover design arguments. You've got someone who simply doesn't have the funds to go out and hire a cover designer. And I know I've told this story before, where I spent thousands of dollars on getting a series of covers commissioned. My cover artist ghosted me, and the series was unfinished.

**Steph Pajonas:** hmm.

**Danica Favorite:** I didn't have the money to keep pursuing it. Everyone's oh, sue him, sue him. Yeah, with what money? And I look at some of these other authors just starting out, who are really trying. And for us to say, oh, no, I'm sorry. You can't afford a real designer. So you don't get to see that the table. That's also really ableist [00:22:00] and elitist

**Steph Pajonas:** And gatekeeping.

And one of the reasons why a lot of us went indie was because we were tired of the gatekeepers. We were tired of having to go through an agent who then would, bring your books to publishers. And then if those editors didn't like you, you never got another chance at it.

Nobody wants to be gatekept. Nobody does. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I think and I think that's important because I see these people with these big dreams. And they think they're doing this really great thing and they're really proud of what they did. And then someone comes and steals their joy. That's not what this community should be about. Like there are things I do and don't do. But I'm not going to be down on you for doing something, making a choice that I don't make.

If you don't want to use AI, I'm not down on you for that choice. You get to make that choice. And I'm proud of you for making the choice that's best for you. I'm proud of Steph for making the choice that's best for her. I'm proud of myself for [00:23:00] making a choice that's best for me. 

But in those conversations, I'm not sitting there telling somebody that their choice is bad because it's different from mine. And unless they're out there breaking laws and things like that, that's a different conversation, but right now, the people who think AI is stealing, they don't have the facts. They certainly don't have the law on their side. So really educate yourself and understand that you're hurting people. You're not standing up for good writing or for artistic integrity. You're actually harming people. Let's get past that. Let's really find The joy and I don't know, Steph, why don't you tell me something?

Cause I got to tell you my fun about the vampire books and the joy I'm having with that. What's some of the joy you're finding in writing and doing stuff with AI right 

**Steph Pajonas:** I'm really loving writing right now. I decided to take some time every Monday through Friday , every morning 8 to 10 a. m. to write. And I take [00:24:00] that time, and I don't do anything else. I could be working on a website. I could be, putting together a newsletter.

I could be doing a million other things, but no, I take that time to get words on the page. And that's because we are launching a press coming up soon that's going to be all AI forward. So we have the Future Fiction Academy, and we're launching the Future Fiction Press. And everything that we're doing with the press is going to be AI forward, and we're not going to hide it either.

I've been working on some books that are completely out of my wheelhouse in a way. I'm writing some fantasy romance. You were just talking about vampires, which is different from what you're used to. I'm writing a Greek fantasy romance, and it's not something that I'm used to whatsoever, but it's been, it's been a lot of fun, I'll tell you I was like, I forget all these little details about Greek mythology that always.

It makes me laugh. I'm like, my gosh, these stories are [00:25:00] crazy, But I'm enjoying this process of working with the AI on these books because my idea was the seed of this whole thing. I was like, I want to write a Greek mythology romance where the gods are coming back and blah, blah, blah.

And I'm gonna give it all away. So it gave me a chance to come up with an idea and spend some time brainstorming with AI, coming up with all of my characters, the way that the series is going to be structured, the structure of every book, like all that stuff is stuff that I'm drilling down into hard with AI.

I'm making sure that It understands my structure. It understands what I'm trying to accomplish with my stories. And I'm not the only one who's working like this. I've got elizabeth Ann West on the team and Stacey Anderson and we are all working on different things for this press. We're trying to hit a lot of the major genres and a lot of the tropes that are interesting to [00:26:00] readers, and we're making sure that the AI is writing at least like 80 to 85% of the books because we wanna show people that with proper prompting and handholding and whatnot, the AI can actually write really well. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. 

**Steph Pajonas:** because

Yeah, because we see that a lot, do that a lot too in groups, right? Like people will say, I tried to write something with GPT and it sucked. It was horrible. And we're going to get past that because it is actually a very decent writer if you're giving it enough direction. One of the podcasts that I listen to Marketing Against the Grain, I'm sure I've mentioned it here many times, right?

So the The one of the podcast hosts is Kieran Flanagan and he was talking about the fact that when you bring somebody new onto your team, if you're in like a corporate environment you're in a corporate environment, you bring somebody new onto your team, what do you do with them? You onboard them, right?

You show them where everything is on the servers and then the best practices and the Standard [00:27:00] operating procedures and you show them how to access everything and you give them a brand kit and you, you really onboard that person. You show them everything that they need, right? And the same is true with the AI.

You have to onboard your AI whenever you have a new task that it needs to do. So you can't just say, give me 25, tweets for a book about Greek mythology romance. It's just not going to get it. It's not going to give you enough unless you onboard it, you show it your book, you show it your style guide you give it examples. You do all these things, and then you can finally get some good output out of it.

And a lot of people will say to you that seems like a lot of work. Why don't I just let somebody else do it, right? Let a human do it. I'm like that human probably needs to be onboarded as well. And they're not going to be as fast as the AI. They're not going to be as cheap as the AI. They're not going to be as available as the [00:28:00] AI either. So for tasks like this that are smaller and you don't necessarily want to hire a whole person to come on to your team to do these things. You would probably contract that out. These are really great tasks for AI.

You should be using it for these things. And once you see, once you get the idea that, AI needs to prime the pump, and you need to onboard it in order to get it to work. To do the kinds of things that you want it to do. Once you understand that, it's the same with writing, too.

Yeah,

**Danica Favorite:** I agree because it really is about, What are the things that you find joy, again, like that idea of finding joy in the writing what do you find joy in? Most writers do not find joy in writing marketing copy. The people who do find joy in writing marketing copy generally work in the marketing industry and that's that. They're also using AI, by the way. 

What is it that you love about the writing process and bringing all that stuff together? I [00:29:00] love the ideation phase and everything. And there are parts of the writing I really love. I've talked a lot about, I love to dictate. And so I love dictating that story. But it's great because then I can throw in my dictation, AI can clean it up, but then also I can go in and say, okay, can you help me fill in the blanks where I missed something? Obviously you've listened to me on the podcast, this is how I dictate my books. It's just me rambling, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Eventually getting to my point. So there's still a lot of editing in there, but I can say to the AI, Hey, what are the most important things of what I just gave you? Okay. Cool. Then I can read through that and sift through it. And that saved me a ton of time. 

Also figuring out, okay, I know I don't do description very well. I don't really like it. But I know I'm supposed to have it in my books. That's what I get dinged on by my editor all the time. And so I can say to AI, Hey, how would you describe this? Give me some examples of things, or I've used this word 10 times. Could you give me some [00:30:00] examples of words to use instead? That makes my writing better, and it's still me, my guidance, all of that.

As I work on a small town, I write small town romance, and there are still pieces of that small town I don't think about. Okay yeah. You know you have five cafes in a town of a hundred, do you think that's really going to be possible? Oh, yeah, good point, Mr. AI, thank you so much. 

It's all the stuff we don't find joy in that suddenly I can say, okay, here, you take care of that. I'm focusing on what I really love and Steph and I have some opposite things we find joy in. Steph gets to take the opposite view and say, okay. I really do not want to deal with coming up with this whole idea and blah, blah, blah. Give me something. And then Steph can say, okay, cool. I like this one. Let me refine it. And this is the part I really love. 

That's what I want for every author. I think every author needs to find those pieces that they find joy in. 

One of the talks that I give is about making your writing business more efficient and how to create efficiency, [00:31:00] because that's something we do for PublishDrive.

That's one of the things that PublishDrive's goal is, is to make authors more efficient in their process. I don't know about you guys, I started to be a writer because I wanted to be a writer. I didn't want to be a marketer. I didn't want to be a business planner. I like all this other stuff that you have to do as an author. And I say that both for Trad Pub and Indie Pub because even with my Trad Pub books, I still have to do marketing. I still have to do all this other stuff. It's so great that now all the stuff I didn't sign up for as an author, I can give to the AI and the AI can do probably about 75% of it. So I'm back to the joy of what I love about writing.

That, to me, is really cool. Because, again, I signed up to be an author. I didn't sign up to be an editor. I hate editing. So AI helps me with that. And,

**Steph Pajonas:** And I love editing. So I'm glad that AI can help me with that first draft. Get those words down and then I can make it shine in the [00:32:00] editing phase. Because that's my favorite part. There's something here for everyone.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, and that's what I love. And that's why we keep saying, don't yuck someone else's yum. Like Steph and I have very different yums and we don't yuck that about each other. We appreciate that about each other. I love that Steph is so different from me and we're obviously super alike too because we're friends,

**Steph Pajonas:** Yes.

**Danica Favorite:** but we can also be friends. And like different things and still love each other. And that's what I want for all authors. I want all authors to just be able to look at someone and say, you know what? I don't agree with that, but I like you and I can still like you, even if you choose not to use AI, I still like you.

I still love you. We're still going to be friends. Or if you're on the other side of the fence and you don't want to use AI, you can look at your author friends who do and say, You know what? I'm really glad that you have a way that you can write and find joy in it. I don't agree with that. But I still love you and we're still friends and we're not going to hate each other for it.

We're not going to attack each other for it. There's just the time is too [00:33:00] short, really.

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. 

**Danica Favorite:** I'm getting to the age and the place in my writing journey where a lot of the authors who were mentors to me when I first started writing, they're passing away now. It's starting to be more and more common where I'll see another author share.

Oh, such and such author passed away. And one of them the other day, gutted me because I remember listening to her speak. And I was pregnant with my second child. I was due in about two weeks and she kept 

every break, she'd come over to me and touch my belly and say, are you okay? You're not going to labor. Cause she knew I was that close to my due date. And I thought, Oh, every time I would see her at conferences after that, she asked me about my baby and we would talk and just this lovely, lovely woman. And she recently passed away. And I think. I'm so glad that we never had to be enemies over something so stupid as AI and well, 

**Steph Pajonas:** 100 percent. Ha ha. Mm

**Danica Favorite:** seriously, I just, gosh, there's so many beautiful people out there and authors I love, and I don't [00:34:00] want to be enemies with any of you. I don't want you to see me as your enemy. It's just life is too short. It's too precious. And if you're finding joy in some part of the writing process. I want to share that joy with you. Even if I don't agree with it, I'm still going to tell you I'm proud of you. I'm still going to want to give you a high five and a big hug and say, you go. That's really what I want for this community. 

I really hope that anyone listening to this, if you have something you're finding joy in, number one, I'm Please go to our AI for Authors group and tell us what you're finding joy in,

**Steph Pajonas:** hmm.

**Danica Favorite:** Share that joy or drop us a line at the Brave New Bookshelf website and let us know where you're finding joy because that's important to me. That's important to Steph. That's why we do what we do is we want to help people. We want them to find their joy and we want to be there to celebrate your successes. 

If I have a way I can share your success, I'm going to. I know Future Fiction Press. Their books are going to be [00:35:00] successful because first of all, I know that Stacey, Elizabeth and Steph are all very talented writers in their own right. They know how to write a book. I've seen the stuff they do with AI and I'm like, yeah, this is going to be a good book. And I'm I'm very proudly going to share those books because I'm very proud of them. 

Not just because of the AI use, but because I know they're talented. I know they're smart. I know that combining all of that with the brilliance of AI is going to make those books even better. I'm proud of them for that. So if anyone's please share my AI book. Let me know. I want to share that. I want to be proud of you because I really believe in you and hey, I'll even share if you're not using AI, I can share that too because it's not about AI or not AI. It's really about doing something you're proud of. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Definitely drop us a line if you want to and share the joy. We love spreading the joy. So let's do that. because this is important [00:36:00] to us. We want to see authors succeed, whether you're using AI or not. But we also want to make sure that the people who are using these tools are finding the kind of support that they need.

Drop on by to the bravenewbookshelf. com. Take a look at our notes for this particular episode, and feel free to click on the contact us up at the top and drop us a line if you want to. 

**Danica Favorite:** And I do want to add because I'm really bad about this. We also do have a Facebook page for Brave New Bookshelf. So please go over, give our page a like, leave some comments, tell your stories there. Maybe that would be a great place for us to be able to share your successes too, is if you've got something you're proud of, just pop in there and say, Hey, I just did this thing and I'm really proud of myself.

We're all going to give you a big cheer and say, we're proud of you too. And frankly, if someone wants to comment to hater comment on one of those posts, we're just going to delete it

**Steph Pajonas:** We're just going to delete it. We're not going to let people, we're not going to let people yuck our yums, are we?

**Danica Favorite:** Nope.

Nope.

There is no space for hate in our environment. It's really [00:37:00] positivity and love and joy. And we want to celebrate that.

**Steph Pajonas:** Absolutely. We'll be back again with more episodes coming up, more people that we're interviewing, and Danica and I, we're going to go off and do some writing, aren't we? 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah. We've been talking about my vampire book. I'm like, I haven't worked on that in a few weeks. I'm going to go work on my vampire book.

**Steph Pajonas:** I think you can do that. I think that's what you're going to do this afternoon. Excellent. Okay, everybody. Great to see you. Come back and join us for the next episode on Brave New Bookshelf. Bye.

**Danica Favorite:** All right. Bye.

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.