AI is the new COVID-19

I don't know about you, but I'm getting sick of talking about AI.

Not because it doesn't matter — it clearly does.

But honestly, as both an author and a professional book editor, I feel exhausted every time I hear my phone 'ding' with another notification that someone on Threads or Instagram just found out someone uses AI in their book. It seems like every conversation in the writing and editing world eventually circles back to the same two letters. AI, AI, AI.

Because of that ever apparent exhaustion, I've been sitting on this blog post for a while.

I'll say this about AI, and then I'll remain silent: I don't use generative AI in my editing practise. When you chose me as your editor, your work will not be pumped full of AI suggestions. I do not condone AI use in creative works, but neither will I hound you, shame you, or report you. I will simply work with you to make your book the best it can be using human creativity and skill.

I don't really want to talk about policy, or ethics, or the future of publishing. I just want to talk about the actual reason I fell in love with writing and publishing. I want to talk about the magic again. The magic I feel deep within the core of my being when an author creates a new world that I can dive headfirst into.

When a writer sends me a scene that was clunky three drafts ago and now it sings! I love watching someone's voice sharpen over the course of a project until it sounds unmistakably like them and no one else.

And none of that can be done with AI. That goes without saying.

So, in my practice, I want to focus on the positive----the passionate human artistic flare that is at work in every novel I lay eyes on. The sentences. The stories. The people who trust me with them.

— Lyndsay