23 - How AI Has Made Us Better Writers With Danica Favorite & Steph Pajonas

In this episode of Brave New Bookshelf, hosts Steph Pajonas and Danica Favorite delve into the transformative impact of AI on the writing process. As an accomplished author and tech enthusiast, Steph shares her insights on how AI has helped elevate her writing skills, offering practical examples of how technology enhances creativity. Danica joins the conversation with a compelling discussion on the myths surrounding AI in authorship, emphasizing the critical thinking and flexibility that AI introduces to the craft. Together, they explore how AI can be a powerful tool for authors looking to expand their storytelling capabilities. Visit our website https://bravenewbookshelf.com to view the full episode notes, links and apps mentioned in the episode, and the full transcript.

[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, where we teach authors how to use AI in any part of their business. Today, I'm joined by my lovely co host Danica Favorite. She is on her phone today because her computer has not been nice to her lately, but which is why we're recording in a different area.

Hopefully it won't look any different to anybody who's watching on YouTube or listening with us today. So Danica, besides having a really gimpy and awful computer, how are you doing? 

**Danica Favorite:** I am good. And so for those of you who have listened to all the episodes and heard the jokes about my computer that was sent back to Dell seven times.

[00:01:00] Yeah it's dead again and we think it's the motherboard, which is motherboard number three in two years. So clearly this is just a lemon and I'm giving up and going to get a new computer. But in the meantime, yep. On my phone, I have like the hilarious setup at my desk right now. I've got my tablet that I'm using kind of as a laptop with a little travel keyboard and a mouse and It does the job.

And I think that is always the good lesson in this world that we live in being so reliant on tech is how can we be more flexible? Even though obviously this isn't AI tech necessarily, it's certainly, Is a good reminder because I think AI is what teaches us a lot of flexibility as well.

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, I agree with that. And it's one of those things where I'm like, I have, so I have a computer. I have an iPad. I have an iPhone and I could go back and forth between them if I needed to. But when Elizabeth, my partner at Future Fiction Academy, when she went to [00:02:00] Germany for the Frankfurt Book Fair, her phone got stolen, right?

And she had to live without it and travel in a foreign country without a phone. And she kept telling me, Oh, it'll be fine. I'll just download some maps and I'll do it like, like it's the 1990s and She came home. She was like, it was really hard. Yeah, it's really hard sometimes to live without technology when, when so much relies on it too.

There are businesses that have QR codes and you have to scan them and like, Oh, it's it's yep. This is the new world we're living in, right? 

**Danica Favorite:** It really is. But I think it is a good reminder, just to everyone, like the thing that saved me is 90 percent of my stuff is automatically saved to the cloud

**Steph Pajonas:** Smart. 

**Danica Favorite:** And like when it started doing the dying thing that 10 percent I immediately downloaded and saved to places that would save it to the cloud.

And that was something I was telling staff before we started recording, I'd been using RaptorWrite for a lot of things and RaptorWrite saves to your local browser. [00:03:00] And If your computer crashes, you lose everything. And so when I noticed my computer was doing the thingies, it said, Ooh, I think I might crash.

I started like, Oh, okay, let's save you all download, save you all to the cloud. And that is really what saves my bacon. And so this is, The gentle loving reminder to everyone to please make sure you are saving, saving, saving and make sure it's saving to something that's going to back it up for you.

You don't necessarily have to save it to the cloud, but definitely have a backup service of some sort that will be backing that up. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Backups are super important. I've got like three running at all times. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I'm like, okay, we'll get there. 

**Steph Pajonas:** We'll get there. Right. We'll get there. So would you have anything you wanted to tell us about when it comes to PublishDrive because we're coming up on the beginning of November here.

**Danica Favorite:** We are, we are. So yes, we are still [00:04:00] doing our 50 percent off sale. And you can go to PublishDrive and sign up for distribution and it will be 50 percent off all annual plans through November 4th.

You have just a few more days to get in on that sale. And I have heard from a couple people that they had some issues with the checkout process. If you do have that issue, just go ahead and send a note to customer service and they will get you all taken care of because such a great deal to get 50 percent off.

I don't think we've ever run this deal before and I don't know when we'll do it again. So really, really great opportunity. And yeah, that is what PublishDrive is up to right now. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Fantastic. 

**Danica Favorite:** You guys are up to some cool stuff at Future Fiction Academy. Again, talking a little bit before the show, there is this course you guys are launching that I'm like, I cannot wait until I have a computer again so I can dig in because I need this course.

**Steph Pajonas:** We just launched it this past week. Actually, it is a little standalone course that's uses Google LM notebooks, which is a new [00:05:00] feature that they have added to all of their AI services in the last couple of months. It's a really cool feature. It allows you to upload a lot of resources and then use that in a chat.

So you can go ahead and like if you have a series of books you can upload your series of books and you can go ahead and ask questions. So it becomes like a story Bible, but also we have this course is focused around character focused marketing. So we teach you how to grab character information from Google LM and use it as part of your marketing for your books.

And so it's kind of a little it's a little deviation from the normal stuff about Google LLM. So I think it's a really fun and interesting. And so we've got it for sale on Future Fiction Academy. You can go to futurefictionacademy. com slash courses. And at the bottom of that page, we have a link to all of our courses on Teachable.

It's much easier just to send you there instead of trying to say the Teachable URL, which is long [00:06:00] and has lots of dashes in it. I prefer this instead. So yeah, futurefictionacademy. com slash courses and you scroll down and you'll find the button that'll take you to all of our courses. 

We have a bunch of standalone courses that includes a course for Advanced RaptorWrite that gives you access to more keys in RaptorWrite.

We have a bunch of stuff in there. 

**Danica Favorite:** And of course, the actual link will be in our show notes. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yes.

**Danica Favorite:** You can always click there. But I'm excited for this because, I remember when Google LM first came out and we tested it, we played with it and we're like, eh, it's not going to be really useful for us as authors.

And now number one, they're improving it. And number two, we're learning more about how to use it. And so it's actually becoming super, super useful. And once I heard how Stacey was using it and what she was doing with it, the light bulb went off for me and I am just ready to dig in. Like I said, I need a computer.

There's just only so much you can do on your phone, but I will [00:07:00] say some friends and I, over the weekend, we were talking about some business ideas and some classes we're going to launch. And because I have Chat GPT on the phone. I just sat there on his couch and I'm like, okay, now what were you wondering?

Okay. Yeah. And you wanted to know like the color scheme. Oh, hold on. Let me ask ChatGPT. And so like, it was, it was just, he was blown away because he's like, wait a second. We just spent two hours and you have the entire business and marketing plan for this business done. And I'm like, okay. Yeah.

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. That's totally possible now. Totally possible. 

**Danica Favorite:** And so like that efficiency with AI is just really amazing. And I will be talking about that at AuthorNation in Las Vegas. I'll be doing a talk on using AI for efficiency. And Steph won't be speaking, but she will be there. Say hello to her.

And then Elizabeth will be there talking about writing fiction with AI. So a lot of great opportunities. There are also some really other fantastic classes [00:08:00] that there's like one whole day that's nothing but like one room is nothing but AI classes. So I think I'm just going to find a place to camp out in that room and be there all day.

Really looking forward to that at AuthorNation. So if you're there, please stop by and say hello. 

And I think this is kind of the segue into what Steph and I wanted to talk about today is, Elizabeth's talking about AI for fiction writing and obviously Steph has finished and written some books with AI.

I keep playing with it and haven't published anything yet with AI, but it will happen at some point. And yes, I will be disclosing that. So if you're reading a book by me, and it doesn't say it was written with AI. It wasn't because I'm walking the walk, if I'm talking about AI, I'm going to disclose when and where I'm using it, but one of the things that we wanted to talk about because we're seeing a lot of this in author groups.

And certainly I'm seeing [00:09:00] it's like a resurgence of people saying that AI isn't creative. AI isn't good writing. AI is lazy writing authors who use AI are lazy. And Steph and I wanted to talk about that today because none of those things are true. And so what we thought would be really interesting to share today is, how we are using AI with our writing to make us better writers because even though I haven't yet published something with AI for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with any objection to AI, by the way. There are other stuff going on in my life that I just am not publishing. But Steph has. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Mmhmm. Yeah. 

**Danica Favorite:** And but we both are actively using AI in all different parts of our process.

And We're really good people to kind of talk about, okay, well, how has AI helped our writing and how have we grown as writers using AI? Because I personally think [00:10:00] I'm a better writer now than I was before I started using AI. What do you think, Steph? How do you feel about your writing? 

**Steph Pajonas:** I agree. I feel like I'm a much better writer than I was.

I still have my style, right? I have a style that I like to write in. I really enjoy the style that I have. Even going back and rereading some of my older works, which I have to do every now and then to keep my mind within the universes that I'm writing in. I'm still pleased with the way that I wrote pre AI.

But post AI, post it coming into the world, and me starting to use it. I've just noticed that my writing has leveled up, I guess is the best way for me to say it. And I'm sure I've said that phrase many times on this podcast. So I should put it on a button or something. I don't know, probably.

But yeah, I've noticed that the things that I was lacking in when it came to my prose the first time around, which was usually like descriptions and I know that you've [00:11:00] struggled with this too, right? So I have trouble with descriptions. I would always, find like maybe one or two things to describe about a certain scene, if my characters were walking through a garden and it was spring, and because I read a lot of Japanese inspired stuff, I would focus on like the cherry blossoms in bloom and whatnot.

I would generally, fall into the trap of writing, sight and maybe , like the feeling of the wind on your skin or these sorts of things. When it came to my descriptions, I would stick to like one or two senses. And I've noticed that with AI, I'm able to tap into all five senses for these kinds of descriptions and my text just got so much better.

It just became more alive because I was able to look at the parts of my writing where I was weak and bring it up. So that's the first place that I've noticed where AI makes me a better writer. It's giving me [00:12:00] access to parts of writing that I wasn't tapping into before.

There are other things that AI is really good for. It has become a way for me to understand my story before I get started. And for me, that was probably my biggest stumbling block when it came to any kind of writing, because I was always a pantser and I had an idea. I was like, I have an idea. Let's start writing it and then write myself into a corner and shh. not really be able to get myself out of it. So I find that AI is helping me with all of these parts of my process that are weaker. It hasn't taken over the writing. I'm not getting it to do the majority of my writing. I'm basically getting it to Make me almost into a super Stephanie, giving me the superpowers.

**Danica Favorite:** Ultra Awesome Steph Pajonas. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Ultra Awesome Steph Pajonas. This is the fun parts of AI that I've been using for making my writing better.

What it it's also good at is like being able to [00:13:00] look at writing that comes out of the AI and knowing that maybe it's not so great. Right? So we see that a lot, right? So I'm like, okay, I'm going to prompt for this scene and I'm going to give it some information and blah, blah, blah.

And then I hit go. And it writes it and me. My analytical abilities have gotten sharper because now I'm able to look at it and be like, hmm,I'm not keen on that or let's try again because this is not hitting the notes I want it to hit. So the analytical side of AI and where it has brought me has been really great, too. And I feel like the same has happened for you, too, because we've talked often about this, right?

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, we talk a lot about it. Because I think for me, the biggest thing that I have found AI has helped me with. And this is why I just laugh at people who call AI writing lazy is for me, it's really improved my critical thinking skills. And [00:14:00] so you talk about the analytical thing about writing is knowing what is and isn't good writing.

And that's something only we as authors know. As an author, you put that author hat, you put that critical thinking hat of what is good writing, what makes good writing. And before I would say, Oh, I just know. And I still have that, Oh, I just know. But now that I'm working with the AI, I can be a little more concrete about saying, okay, this is why this isn't good. This is what this needs. Being able to speak more to that in a way that makes more sense. And also in communicating with the AI, like I was telling you, I've been using the prompting for Raptor, which helps you basically a whole book machine. And what I was finding is I think at the time of computer crash, I was, I was working on chapter seven, chapter eight of this book.

What I found starting about chapter [00:15:00] six, the prompt was going off the rails. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Sure. 

**Danica Favorite:** And I was like, okay, wait, why is it not doing what it did for the first five chapters? Why isn't it doing this? Really having to think through what's changed in what I'm doing, what's changed in the prompt. And sometimes it really is just we're at the limit of the capability of the AI.

Going back to the AI saying, okay, wait. Here is the prompt. Here is what I want to get. Here's what you've been giving me. Tell me how I breached this gap. It is a conversation.

And even when I was talking about this business plan that I helped my friend write over the weekend, it wasn't just give me a business plan for this. It was, okay, here's our idea. What do you envision for this piece? Okay, great. We like X. We don't like Y. Give us more of X. Okay, great. We like this piece of it. Give us more of this piece, less of that piece. 

It was amazing. [00:16:00] I blew my friend away because as soon as I gave that prompt, my friend was like, Oh my God, this is exactly what I had in my head. How did you get it to do that? Part of it is me understanding that communication skill and that critical thinking to be able to say, okay, here's the baseline idea.

Now let's refine it. Now let's refine it some more. And understanding the cues that the AI needs to come up with the right answer. That's something that we as writers are very skilled at doing at a baseline level, and then to be able to communicate that to an AI who doesn't understand the nuances of what it means to be human.

Taking that and making that a step further is really what makes it shine and that's going to be the difference between stuff that you look at and say, Oh, that's totally AI generated and stuff where you're like, Well, is it because it's really teaching me to think through things.

So like you were saying about the story process I am a [00:17:00] plotter, but there are places where the plot falls flat sometimes, and I know this, like we all have that saggy middle or places where I don't know how to get from point A to point C, where is the point B, and to be able to sit down with the AI and say, look, here's what I have.

and help me envision things. It's not telling you what to do. It could, you could just take what it tells you and it would be perfectly fine. But then as the author, as someone who is the creative and knows how to critically think through a story, having that deeper level of, okay, this is really great, But here's what we really need.

And the example of this, again, the story that I'm working on, the AI gave me a perfectly reasonable plot. And it was fine. I was writing it and I was working with it. But then, as I'm working with it and playing with it, I was like, wait a second. Here I am writing chapter seven. I realized, okay, there's a dark moment. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Hmm. 

**Danica Favorite:** But I want to [00:18:00] make it darker. I talked to the AI about making it a little darker, but it wasn't getting there. And then me, I went, Oh my gosh, here's how we are going to just completely blow things up between the hero and the heroine.

Because for me, that is what I like my dark moment to be. I want all hope to be lost. And the AI doesn't understand how all romantic hope gets lost. If you tell it all hope is lost, the AI is going to say, Okay, they just died. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Or it's gonna come back at you and say, can we keep this positive? Let's change it so that, they're actually totally fine.

And you're like, Nope, that's not what's supposed to happen. 

**Danica Favorite:** Right, right. Yeah. So the AI is not a sadist. I've had this conversation with people a few times now. Because I would have never thought I was a sadist. I am a sadist. It is now recorded for posterity. I am a sadist. And, but as a writer, you have to be, you have to come to that place of really [00:19:00] torturing the characters and the AI is not willing to do that.

So you really have to kind of push it to be like, no, no, no, no, no. You have to be mean. And the AI doesn't understand that because really the AI does want to be nice and it wants this happy, do this together, we'll get through it together. And And, and there is some of that because that was, again, where that critical thinking piece comes in where they're trying to save the world kind of thing.

And together we can do it. And as the writer, as the person who is guiding the story, I had to make that decision of, okay, yes, technically the whole let's do it together is an AI thing. But this is what my story needed. And this is where I, the author, was guiding the story. And so guess what?

I left it in. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. And sometimes, sometimes it has good ideas. 

**Danica Favorite:** It does. 

**Steph Pajonas:** You can roll with it. 

**Danica Favorite:** Like I said, like that's where that critical thinking comes in. And I'm learning to think about my story on a deeper level because I'm a [00:20:00] plotter, but I don't know story structure or I didn't prior to using AI.

For me, it was just all instinctive and it all worked out. And I've put previously published books into an AI and I pretty solidly follow some plot structure stuff there that I just did instinctively. 

But now I know, okay, wait a second. I had these stories that weren't working. Why weren't they working? I can look at it by a plot structure framework now and be like, Oh, I missed this turning point. And the story needs a turning point right here. It's that learning and that working with the story that I think makes me so much better at telling a story, because now I know how to communicate that.

It's so obvious with the AI writing because you have to take a look at that and say okay where's it going wrong. I think because it's not 100 percent yours, it's not as precious. it's easy to say, yeah, this is garbage, get rid of it. Or you can say, okay, this is [00:21:00] pretty good.

Let's build on this. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Mm hmm. I find that the AI is definitely making me a lot more analytical. Things like sentence structures. I'll sometimes get something out of the AI where it's a lot of long sentences all at once and I'm thinking, oh, this is just, it's bogged down.

It's not flowing well. So I have to go back to the AI and tell it how to write the way I want it to. So I have to say things like, please use a mix of longer compound sentences with shorter simple sentences. Don't just throw a bunch of long sentences together and then don't just throw a bunch of short sentences in.

If I look at a bunch of dialogue and every piece of dialogue is tagged with, he said, she said. They yelled, whatever it may be, I have to be able to go back to the AI and say, okay, well, your dialogue is stilted and you've attributed most of this dialogue. Give me unattributed dialogue. And you have to be [00:22:00] able to know those terms, like unattributed, in order to go back to the AI and ask for the things that you want.

This is absolutely a skill. And it's a skill that almost all authors have, and they just don't even realize it sometimes. You have this skill to talk to the AI and to get the kinds of things that you want from it. But you have to know that That this is something you actually have to ask for.

It's not something that just comes easily. You have to ask for it. So definitely AI is making me a better writer in that sense. I'm understanding the analytical nature of writing, understanding pacing and, the way that prose is put together, the way dialogue is put together so that I can actually ask for the kinds of stuff that I want from it.

Yeah, I find that that's really the key to writing well with AI. 

**Danica Favorite:** It is. And like you were talking about earlier with the description because as we've talked about, I'm terrible at description. I don't like doing it. [00:23:00] It's just something that as a reader doesn't even appeal to me. And so I don't think about it as a writer.

Because it's not my preference as a reader. I understand that other readers really enjoy that. And most of my readers would prefer more description. The AI actually gives way more description than I would. 

And I think in some cases it gives way more description than is appropriate. Like sometimes it just gets really over the top with description, but it's really helping me learn to describe things better because I can say, okay, these descriptions I like, these descriptions I don't like, why?

Again, it goes back to the critical thinking. Okay, why don't I like this? Why is this a good thing? Then to be able to put my head around that and do my own writing because I still do like to do dictation. I still have my appointments that I go to an hour each way, twice a week, have my phone out and I dictate.

And like, even as I'm [00:24:00] doing those descriptions now, the descriptions that I'm doing are so much better because I've analyzed probably thousands of descriptions from AI at this point. And I can say, this is what I don't like. This is what I do. Like, here's why. And then in my prompting, when I am doing AI writing, I can say right in my prompt, Hey, this is what we want for a description.

Here is an example of good description because AI works better if you give it examples of good prose. So I can say, I want descriptions like this and you're going to get better results. But it's all about how to communicate that and learning actually what is a good description. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I agree. I like the fact that AI has been challenging me. it's not the push the button and get a book that everybody thinks it is, right? So it's been challenging me to be better at what I do. Honestly, I feel like a lot of [00:25:00] people don't realize that the human behind the book is something that readers do connect with.

They're gonna connect with the person who has written this work now obviously there are plenty of ghost writers out there. There are plenty of authors who are sort of untouchable. But when, even when you're using these tools, you're still the human behind it, doing the critical thinking, doing the analytical thinking, and It's your vision that you're bringing forth, even if the AI is helping you write descriptions.

So it's really important for us to emphasize the fact that we're using AI as assistance to get the story out. And that we're making decisions as the human beings that are making that story really come to life, however, it is being written, whether it's, the AI is just helping you brainstorm, or it's helping you write that first draft, or it's helping you edit because your critical thinking, your [00:26:00] analytical thinking is definitely what's going to make that story shine.

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, I completely agree. Because ultimately, like a Steph Pajonas book and a Danica Favorite book are completely different. Neither one is better or worse than the other. We're both great writers. And we both have really good ideas. But if you say, okay, let's write a book about a cat in space.

And I say, I'm going to write a book about a cat in space. We're going to write two totally different books. Even if we gave the AI the same prompts, number one, the AI is going to come up with completely different ideas. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Sure is. 

**Danica Favorite:** Because it's not a plagiarism machine. It's not copying from another book. It's saying, Hmm, let me think here.

Cat in space. Okay. So here are all the things I know about cats. Here are all the things I know about space. And each one of them, there's about a million different variations of that. Boom. Here's one possible combination. And Steph is going to look at that and say, Ooh, great. I [00:27:00] like that, but I want to change it to have it be a tabby cat because I want a book about tabby cats and I want tabby cats to rule the universe.

And I'm going to say, I love that this is a tabby cat, but I don't want a tabby cat. I want a ginger kitty because I love ginger kitties. I guess they're kind of similar, but 

**Steph Pajonas:** No, no ginger cats get in a lot of trouble, the orange cats, right?

**Danica Favorite:** Yes. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I see them on social media. 

**Danica Favorite:** I have a ginger tabby or I had a ginger tabby. But anyway, I'm like, but I want to write about the ginger kitty who gets in trouble and they are not going to rule space. They are going to be the ones who cause trouble in space. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yes. 

**Danica Favorite:** And suddenly, we've both twisted that into different things. And of course, like, they're going to be completely different stories. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah. 

**Danica Favorite:** And I love that because there's still that author uniqueness [00:28:00] that comes into it. And I think about Elizabeth did this whole thing, I think it's on YouTube, No Sleep Till Brooklyn. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yes, I believe it is on YouTube. It's an insta love, maybe look for insta love on Future Fiction Academy YouTube.

**Danica Favorite:** And so anyway, she decided she was going to write this insta love romance all in one sitting which she did, but it was in a zoom meeting with all of us. And it was so cool because as she was going through saying, okay, well, here's what the AI said. How should we change it? What should we do? And out of all the authors in that Zoom room, every single one of us had a different vision of where the story would go.

And Elizabeth's like, wow, this is taking way longer than I thought it would, because I didn't realize the AI would spit out one thing and all of us would have so many different ideas as to what to do with it. And I think to me, that's what shows that creativity and [00:29:00] ownership of an author to be able to drive that story and that vision because, yeah, some people are going to look at that and say, I want them to do this or no, I want them to do that.

And one of the things I remember from that session is it was set in Colorado and I'm from Colorado. I live in Colorado. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, guys, this does not happen in Colorado. You are like, not talking about people from Colorado. Some of those choices actually that I'm like, no way, never in Colorado, Elizabeth kept it. Because to her, that fit the vision of her story. And that's valid. That's a valid authorial choice. And I completely respect that. 

That's where we as authors have that power and get to vision the story.

But in my opinion, that makes us better writers, because it really gives us that opportunity to look a little bit beyond where we could see a story and where we could imagine something. 

So the story that I'm writing right now with AI [00:30:00] is completely not in my wheelhouse. It's not something I would have done. But a certain someone, friend of mine, Mrs. Jill Cooper. 

**Steph Pajonas:** She's an enabler. 

**Danica Favorite:** She is an enabler. Jill is an enabler. Calling her out. She also did a great episode with us so do go back and listen to that, but she challenged me to write the story. And so even though I blame her and I give her a lot of crap about it.

I'm really grateful because it's stretching me as a writer and it's making me grow. I think without AI, I never would have done that. I never would have approached the story. I would have been like, Oh yeah, that sounds fun, but not for me. I don't even know how to write this. And so what I did was when Jill said, you have to write a book in this story world. I immediately went to AI and I said, okay, I have to write a book in this story world. How do I do it? 

And like, and what are the things I should think of? And it came up with ideas in terms of story world rules that I wouldn't have thought of because I've never done [00:31:00] something so completely outside my wheelhouse.

And for me, that's where I'm having fun because I'm learning and growing and thinking about things I don't think about as an author. We need to because if we're not growing, we're stagnating. I want to keep growing. I want to keep learning. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, I feel like this is going to be a great place to wrap up our conversation because I want to challenge people to go out there and try something a little different using AI.

I certainly have stretched my Stretched my genres that I'm willing to write in because I finally have a brainstorming buddy that has all of this knowledge of literature and the world and whatnot to help me and guide me through genres that I'm not necessarily all that familiar with. It's giving me an opportunity to try something new, to stretch myself and do different things.

And I feel like even that makes me a better writer as well, because I'm able to tap into different [00:32:00] worlds, different ideas, and that immediately makes me grow.

The other great thing about AI is that because it is a way of shortening our workflows or making them a little bit faster, a little bit more efficient, you're able to have more time to try these things, right?

We've often said that AI is great for the fact that it is giving us back time to do things that we love and something that we love is to generally writing. It's getting out there and doing more writing. And now we have the ability to try out new pen names, to try out new genres, to try out new story ideas that we didn't have before because AI has given us back this time to do it.

**Danica Favorite:** It has. And I think the thing I want to add to that is that one of the things that's important to remember is you might say, well, I don't want to write anything different. 

And certainly, like the idea that I don't really want to do anything different I'm happy with where I'm [00:33:00] at, or at least with the story ideas in my hopper I was happy with what I had and frankly I didn't have enough time to write what I already had.

But in pursuing this other idea, what I have found is that it's unlocked some of the places that were previously locked up and stuff that I was already doing. And so where you might have writer's block on your typical genre, your typical stories, I'm off having fun with something else. And then suddenly I just solved the plot point I was stuck on in this other book.

I'm And when I go back and write that other book, all the other stuff that I've been doing translates to this other book because it isn't just about writing the thing, it's about the growth as a writer that I've done. And so, that growth you take to all of the other work. I'm taking that to all of the stuff people are used to getting from me.

Wow, this story is so much better. And I did it [00:34:00] 100 percent without AI assistance. Because I was on this other side doing stuff that was AI assisted, and I don't know if that logically makes sense, but it was kind of that connection. 

**Steph Pajonas:** It makes sense to me. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, okay, because I think that's really important to realize is that it really is about growing as a whole writer and growing in a lot of other areas, and again, you can just play with it.

And it's still going to help you.

**Steph Pajonas:** Sure. I'm glad that we've picked up AI because it is definitely making us better writers. And I'm hoping that everyone out there who's listening is, is feeling either the same way because they've been trying AI or they're challenged to go out and try some AI and see how it levels them up as well as writers. 

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that doesn't mean that you have to take on AI writing or move your whole process to AI writing or any of that, but it's an idea to consider just in terms of what can I [00:35:00] learn from this rather than getting out your pitchfork and all of that. Think about, okay, what can I learn?

And I think the world just completely opens up. And I love some of the authors that we've seen who started out, oh no, I'm never gonna use AI. I hate AI. And now suddenly they're opening up. They're looking at it from the perspective of how can I learn and be better?

I think that's what makes all the difference. 

**Steph Pajonas:** I agree. Well, I think it was a good conversation. I like talking about all the things that AI is doing for us. So to finish off here today, don't forget about Publish Drives sale because it is ending soon. You don't want to miss out on it if you were thinking about trying it out.

And once again, this is like, October 2024. So if you're listening to this far into the future, you've probably missed it, but it's, it's okay. Definitely come check out publishedrive. com. And we will have the episode up on the website. We'll have the transcript. We'll have a blog post that we produce with all the links that we've talked about [00:36:00] today.

So come check us out at bravenewbookshelf. com. 

And we also would love for you to come like our Facebook page, we're at Brave New Bookshelf there, and we're on YouTube at Brave New Bookshelf as well. So come check us out in all these places. Do you have anything left to say, Danica, before we sign off?

**Danica Favorite:** Yeah also just a reminder of the great classes you guys have, because their classes are evergreen. And the one thing we haven't made a big deal of is that we do have an evergreen coupon code for people who listen to Brave New Bookshelf. So, even if you miss the sale and you can't get that 50 percent off, we do on the website have a link you can click and you can still get a discount on PublishDrive services.

So always keep that in mind if now's not the right time or you're listening to this far in the future, there's still some opportunity for you. 

**Steph Pajonas:** Yeah, come to the website bravenewbookshelf. com and click on the Our Sponsors link at the top and you'll find coupons there for both PublishDrive and Future Fiction Academy.

[00:37:00] Okay. Great. 

**Danica Favorite:** Awesome. 

**Steph Pajonas:** So everybody, thanks for listening in and we'll see you again next time. All right. Bye. 

See you. 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.