Jane Friedman's Blog: Jane Friedman, page 7

Links of Interest: July 30, 2025

The latest in bookselling, AI, and culture & politics.

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Author Promotion Versus Book Promotion: Why You Need Both

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Today’s post is by author, attorney, and managing editor for Amble Press, Orlando Ortega-Medina.

When I speak to authors about promotion, I often find a common point of confusion: they conflate book promotion with author promotion, treating both as one and the same. In reality, they serve different purposes. And if you want your work to reach the readers who will value it most, you need to be thinking about both.

Book promotion is a sprint

Book promotion is what most writers think of when their manuscript is ready to launch. It’s a time-bound campaign that focuses on getting your book into the hands of readers, reviewers, booksellers, and media outlets. A strong book publicity push typically includes:

Targeted review outreachMedia appearances timed to releaseVirtual or in-person eventsSocial media teasers and campaignsPaid promotions or giveawaysARC (advance review copy) distribution

This kind of promotion often ramps up three to six months before publication and extends a few weeks or months after launch. It’s focused, strategic, and fleeting.

Author promotion is the long game

Author promotion, on the other hand, is an ongoing investment in your identity as a writer and public figure. It’s about building an audience that’s interested in your perspective, not just your latest release. It involves:

Publishing essays, op-eds, or thought pieces on topics aligned with your workParticipating in panels, podcast interviews, or community discussionsMaintaining a professional presence online (website, bio, author photos, etc.)Sharing useful or personal content on social mediaEngaging with readers, influencers, and fellow authors year-round

Author promotion doesn’t stop when the launch buzz dies down. In fact, it’s most powerful when you’re not promoting a new book, because that’s when readers get to know who you are without a sales pitch. Think of it as planting seeds for future harvests.

Why the difference matters

Here’s the reality: If readers, journalists, or podcasters don’t know who you are or why your voice matters, they’re far less likely to care that you have a book coming out. Book promotion without author promotion is like shouting into a void. But when you’ve been steadily building a presence, such as sharing your voice and connecting with your audience, your next book doesn’t just appear, it arrives with anticipation.

Where publishers fit in

Book promotion is typically a collaborative effort between the publisher and the author. We’ll work together to position the book, coordinate outreach, and provide resources where possible. But author promotion—your public identity, your ongoing visibility, your relationship with readers—is entirely yours. No publisher, big or small, is going to build your brand for you.

From my experience as a managing editor at a small press, we receive a steady stream of submissions—some of them genuinely well-written—from authors whose platform consists solely of writing classes, contest wins, or a stated love of writing. But with no website, no social media presence, no previously published work, and no indication of an effort to be known as an author, it becomes incredibly difficult for us to justify taking the financial risk. As a traditional for-profit publisher, our continued existence depends on book sales, and that means working with authors who are already taking steps to engage with their future readership.

That said, once in a blue moon, we come across a manuscript so exceptional that it simply must be published—regardless of the author’s platform. But these cases are the exception, not the rule.

Do-it-yourself author promotion tips

You don’t need a massive budget or platform to get started. Here are a few practical steps:

Build a simple website with your bio, photo, links to your writing, and contact informationPitch short pieces to outlets aligned with your book’s themes or your backgroundEngage with niche communities where your work resonatesStart a newsletter or Substack to connect with readers directlyBe generous online: share your journey, spotlight others, and add value to the conversation.

The key here is consistency. A little effort every month compounds into meaningful presence over time.

When a professional PR firm might be worth it

Once you’ve started laying the groundwork on your own—building a website, engaging with your community, and finding your voice—there may come a point where you want to expand your reach. For some authors, this is where a professional publicist can help.

That said, hiring a PR firm is not essential, and it’s certainly not within reach for everyone. But if you have the resources and a clear goal in mind, the right publicist can help shape your story, pitch to appropriate outlets, and open doors you might not access on your own.

At Amble Press, we’ve seen both sides: authors with little to no platform who’ve struggled to connect with readers despite glowing reviews, and others with modest but focused efforts—think a niche blog, a targeted newsletter, or consistent social media presence—who gained early traction and media interest.

The takeaway? Do-it-yourself promotion is not only possible—it’s powerful. A PR firm is just one tool among many, not a requirement for success.

Final thoughts

The best time to start building your author brand was yesterday. The next best time is now. Don’t wait until you’re a month from launch to start thinking about how to reach readers. Whether you DIY it or bring in professional help, remember that readers don’t just buy books—they buy into people.

And if you’re not showing up, someone else will.

The Villain Is the Hero of Their Own Story

Photo by Gabriel Meinert on Unsplash

Today’s post is excerpted from The Villain’s Journey: How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate by Debbie Burke.

As Christopher Vogler and other wise authors have observed, villains are the heroes of their own stories. Villains and antagonists have their own goals, needs, and desires to fulfill. They feel justified that the path they pursue is the right and righteous one. From their point of view, the so-called “hero” of a story is their opponent or enemy.

The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler is the classic textbook for screenwriters and novelists that explains the Hero’s Journey. Since villains usually consider themselves heroes, they can also go through the same stages heroes do, with some important variations to be discussed a little later.

Here are the 12 stages the hero goes through:

The Ordinary World: the hero is seen in their everyday lifeThe Call to Adventure: the initiating incident of the storyRefusal of the Call: the hero experiences some hesitation to answer the callMeeting with the Mentor: the hero gains the supplies, knowledge, and confidence needed to commence the adventureCrossing the First Threshold: the hero commits wholeheartedly to the adventureTests, Allies, and Enemies: the hero explores the special world, faces trials, and makes friends and enemiesApproach to the Innermost Cave: the hero nears the center of the story and the special worldThe Ordeal: the hero faces the greatest challenge yet and experiences death and rebirthReward: the hero experiences the consequences of surviving deathThe Road Back: the hero returns to the ordinary world or continues to an ultimate destinationThe Resurrection: the hero experiences a final moment of death and rebirth so they are pure when they reenter the ordinary worldReturn with the Elixir: the hero returns with something to improve the ordinary worldVillains follow similar stepsThey live in their ordinary world, although that world may be one of debasement and/or crime. What is your character’s ordinary world? Poverty, abuse, boredom, etc.?They are called to adventure. The adventure may be an illegal act, like knocking over an armored car, stealing jewelry from wealthy socialites, or kidnapping for ransom. Or the sleuth-protagonist begins chasing them. What is your character’s call to adventure?They may be reluctant at first and refuse the call.They meet a mentor who influences or trains them in the intricacies of crime, teaching ways to avoid getting caught. Does your character meet a mentor who guides them into villainy? Describe the mentor.They cross the first threshold into the special world by breaking the law. Now there is no turning back. What is their first crime? Or their first action that results in becoming a criminal?They meet others in the special world who are enemies and obstacles to achieving their goal. They may find accomplices to help them attack their enemies. Does your character have enemies? Who are they? If they have allies, where do those allies come from?They approach the innermost cave, prepared to commit the heist, assassination, terrorist attack, etc. As your character faces this brink, what do they feel? Are they afraid? Reluctant? Eager and excited?They meet their opponents in a showdown where they either achieve their goal or they fail. What is the outcome of your character’s showdown?

Starting with Step #9, the villain’s journey may take a different route that leads to a dead end for them. When the hero defeats the villain, good conquers evil. The villain is vanquished by death, capture, incapacitation, imprisonment, or other punishment for their crimes. Game over. They receive their just deserts.

When the hero wins and the villain loses, readers and audiences cheer. They love to see bad guys and gals pay for the wrong they’ve done. They’re reassured that justice can prevail and safety and security can be restored. Understandably, this conclusion is the most popular in commercial fiction.

However, for the villain, Step #9 may not lead to a dead end. Instead, the villain may vanquish the hero and seize the reward. In Step #10, the villain then returns to their ordinary world or ultimate destination with the prize. They are likely to skip Step #11, resurrection. They do not experience spiritual death nor enlightenment. They are not purified by the experiences they have on their journey. They remain unchanged, although they usually wind up richer and/or more powerful.

Many villains skip Step #12 altogether. They are selfish about the reward, either keeping it for themselves or possibly sharing with criminal cohorts. This ending occurs in noir fiction and, although depressing, can be satisfying. An example is the 1974 Oscar-winning film Chinatown. Villain Noah Cross remains wealthy, powerful, and untouchable. The battered detective hero Jake Gittes is told by his partner: “Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.” In other words, nothing can be done to change corruption because the controlling hierarchy is inherently corrupt.

The Usual Suspects, a 1995 film directed by Brian Singer, features an elaborate con job where investigators are sent on a wild goose chase seeking the elusive crime boss Keyser Söze. The complex revenge plot winds through twists and turns with a shocker ending that reveals all assumptions were illusions, not reality. The real villain convinces everyone he doesn’t exist and walks away, successful, cynical, and satisfied. Viewers of the film were also satisfied. The film won two Oscars, including Best Original Screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie.

Another ending variation for the Villain’s Journey is Conversion and Redemption. This ending is rarer but is immensely satisfying to readers. In Step #11, the villain has a revelation that the way they have lived is wrong. They endure spiritual death and rebirth, resulting in purification and resurrection. They are changed and redeemed. In Step #12, they share their wisdom with the community. The classic redeemed villain is Ebenezer Scrooge from A Christmas Carol, the 1843 novella by Charles Dickens.

Bestselling mystery and romantic suspense author Allison Brennan offers an additional take on the journeys of heroes and villains: “Everyone talks about the heroes and their backstory and conflict, but they often forget that the villain needs it all and more—we need to figure out how they became so evil.”

How will your villain end their journey?

Do they fail?

Do they succeed?

Do they come to a realization, and change?

Note from Jane: If you enjoyed this post, be sure to check out The Villain’s Journey: How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate by Debbie Burke.

New agent at Ampersand (UK)

Abigail Fenton will join Ampersand as an agent in September; she was previously editorial director at HQ Digital and a freelance editor.

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Romance book event directory

Romancing the Data has launched an event directory to help authors and readers find events in the US, Canada, and online.

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Aethon Books and Vault Comics partner on a new imprint

Together, they will bring Aethon’s biggest ebook and audiobook titles into print.

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Another publisher collective: United Publishing Group

United Publishing Group brings together Forefront Books, Histria Books, and Unicorn Publishing Group in the UK.

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Links of Interest: July 23, 2025

The latest in trends, culture & politics, libraries, and AI.

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Username or E-mail Password * function mepr_base64_decode(encodedData) { var decodeUTF8string = function(str) { // Going backwards: from bytestream, to percent-encoding, to original string. return decodeURIComponent(str.split('').map(function(c) { return '%' + ('00' + c.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).slice(-2) }).join('')) } if (typeof window !== 'undefined') { if (typeof window.atob !== 'undefined') { return decodeUTF8string(window.atob(encodedData)) } } else { return new Buffer(encodedData, 'base64').toString('utf-8') } var b64 = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=' var o1 var o2 var o3 var h1 var h2 var h3 var h4 var bits var i = 0 var ac = 0 var dec = '' var tmpArr = [] if (!encodedData) { return encodedData } encodedData += '' do { // unpack four hexets into three octets using index points in b64 h1 = b64.indexOf(encodedData.charAt(i++)) h2 = b64.indexOf(encodedData.charAt(i++)) h3 = b64.indexOf(encodedData.charAt(i++)) h4 = b64.indexOf(encodedData.charAt(i++)) bits = h1 << 18 | h2 << 12 | h3 << 6 | h4 o1 = bits >> 16 & 0xff o2 = bits >> 8 & 0xff o3 = bits & 0xff if (h3 === 64) { tmpArr[ac++] = String.fromCharCode(o1) } else if (h4 === 64) { tmpArr[ac++] = String.fromCharCode(o1, o2) } else { tmpArr[ac++] = String.fromCharCode(o1, o2, o3) } } while (i < encodedData.length) dec = tmpArr.join('') return decodeUTF8string(dec.replace(/\0+$/, '')) } jQuery(document).ready(function() { document.getElementById("meprmath_captcha-6881deabd7d6f").innerHTML=mepr_base64_decode("NyArIDIgZXF1YWxzPw=="); }); Remember Me     Forgot Password

The Secret to a Writing Career May Boil Down to Sheer Grit

Today’s post is by author and book coach Amy L. Bernstein.

Generally speaking, writers have an unlimited appetite for discussing writing. The craft itself, of course, but also contracts, marketing and publicity, agent-shopping, advances and royalties, finding trusted beta readers, and so forth. Put half a dozen writers together in a room and hours later, they’re still going at it, with plenty left to say as long as the drinks and snacks hold out.

But one topic we don’t discuss nearly enough in my view is the role that grit plays in predicting and shaping who will succeed as a career author (that is, become happily and serially published) and who will walk away from it all, possibly heartbroken and defeated, or at least having decided there are better and certainly more lucrative ways to suffer.

Our species would never have gotten this far without a large dose of raw grit, which we can thank for enabling us to solve problems (hunting woolly mammoths, heating frigid caves) and to persevere in the face of daunting odds (draught, floods, war, famine).

About a dozen years ago, the concept of grit was revived for the modern age by psychologist Angela Duckworth (author of Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance), who described it as “a facet of conscientiousness defined as passion and perseverance for long-term goals.”

The short-hand term for grit might be stick-to-it-ive-ness. It’s a quality every writer needs to meet short-term goals, such as finishing or revising a book chapter, as well as long-term goals, which include weathering dry creative spells and bouts of rejection.

Grit is not a function of intelligence

Since Duckworth burst onto the scene with fresh insights into what grit is, who has it, and how to get it, many researchers have delved into the topic and produced new insights. One study from 2022, for instance, offered the encouraging news that “high grit people do not necessarily have a greater cognitive capacity. Rather, they use it in a different way.”

Simply put, a writer’s capacity for grit (or anyone’s) isn’t tied to how smart they are, but rather, how they manage and regulate emotions and responses to external stimuli.

Think about this: Really smart people don’t necessarily succeed because they’re smart but because they pay close attention to what’s going on around them and tend toward mindfulness over impulsivity. Researchers refer to this as a “cautious profile of control.”

Not every writer fits this profile, of course. Think of Hunter S. Thompson and his long cocaine-and-alcohol-fueled benders, to name just one scribe who behaved impulsively and perhaps not entirely mindfully.

But let’s not miss the larger point here, which is that grittiness is a deeply useful social construct that operates like the low hum of your refrigerator motor; it’s always there in the background, doing its job, keeping the machine running at a steady rate. Because these days, any writer pursuing a career based on creativity must also grapple with the business end of the business, so to speak. It’s hard to do that without leaning into—and making a point of developing—the kind of gritty perseverance that sees you through the tough times and uncertainties every writer faces.

Another fairly recent finding about grit that writers should welcome is the idea that “perseverance of effort predicts … success more reliably than consistency of interests.” The subject here revolved around academia, but surely we can extrapolate to the writing community at large. My takeaway is that it’s fine to flit from genre to genre, fiction to nonfiction and back again, books to essays, as long as you remain consistent in your commitment to your writing practice and all that goes with, i.e., the ups and downs.

Writers planning for a serious career need to take grit seriously as a part of their survival toolkit. Research suggests several factors to consider as you build your grit muscles. (I want to acknowledge that writers who identify as neuro-atypical, neuro-divergent, diagnosed with ADHD and more, may need to adapt some of these tactics, and draw upon others, to align with the way their own brains operate. Thus, what follows is a generalization.) These factors include:

Practicing a growth mindset

Writers often fixate on outcomes well outside their control, ranging from landing an agent to winning a literary prize or writing a bestseller. Setting such pinpoint goals often leads to disappointment, burnout, and a sense of failure. The flip side is to adapt a growth mindset that prizes effort for its own sake, learning, embracing challenges, and seeing failure as an opportunity to grow. Think of your writing career as a living, breathing entity that requires care and encouragement, not repeated head-bashings. Grit involves a flexible attitude, not a rigid one.

Maintaining self-control

Writing can certainly feel like an emotional roller-coaster, between the creative act itself, the submission process, and everything that leads up to a publishing deal—followed by tussles with an editor who you believe is out to maul your copy. But you’re not well-served by allowing strong emotions to get the better of you at any stage of the business. Tears one day followed by champagne the next is no way to sustain a career. Make the pursuit of an even keel your goal. It’s an essential component of grit. And remember that a writing career spans years and your sense of success, failure, and self-worth cannot be measured in weeks or months. When you turn 90, then you can assess.

Remaining focused

Be grateful to your brain’s prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for executive functions including planning, decision-making, working memory, and impulse control. This is, in part, the biological basis for grit. In the face of challenges, these capacities can help you remain focused on crucial tasks as you work to avoid spinning out emotionally and/or losing the ability to concentrate. If you want help getting in touch with the power of your prefrontal cortex, check out Breathe. Write. Breathe. by Lisa Tener; Do You Feel Like Writing? by Frankie Rollins; and Creative Resilience by Erica Ginsberg.

Responding to stress

As professions go, writing may not be as stressful as, say, open-heart surgery, but it’s up there. But stress isn’t all bad. Some people with a severe peanut allergy can acquire a healthy tolerance for the stuff by frequent, short-term exposure to increasing amounts. Being gritty means tolerating stress, sometimes lots of it. Avoiding stress is rarely the answer to managing it. Rather, think of your ability and willingness to handle stress as part of your stress inoculation strategy, which begins by understanding your stress triggers and responses and reframing stress as a solvable challenge. Learning to handle stress with healthy coping mechanisms sure beats freaking out every time something doesn’t break your way.

A personal grit story

Looking back over the last decade of my own writing journey, I see now that I have grit to thank for anything I’ve accomplished as a writer. Grit—not talent, not luck, not connections—has sustained me through a crushing load of rejections, a publishing deal gone bad, years of intense self-doubt.

Grit is the pillar that remained upright when the foundations crumbled around me. And I clung to it. I chose to persevere, no matter what.

I recently signed a contract for my third traditionally published novel after more than two years of fruitless pitching. I was on the cusp of giving up. But the gritty voice inside me wouldn’t let me—and I’m so glad I listened.

As I write this, another rejection has dropped into my inbox. But that’s okay. Because the definition of grit is to put one foot in front of another every single day, to keep creating, even as obstacles arise and foundations crumble.

The artist’s life is bumpy and unpredictable. By tapping into your inner grittiness, you’ll give yourself and your career a fighting chance to blossom for years to come.

Using AI to Explore Scientific Realism and Build Story Bibles for Fiction Writing

Photo by Romain Kamin

Today’s post is by author Tuesday Kuykendall.

I’m a retired materials scientist and an avid physics geek. I love robots, computers, and artificial intelligence. I was reared on Star Trek (Spock and Data are my favorites), 2001: A Space Odyssey, Philip K. Dick, Isaac Asimov, Carl Sagan, and the early excitement of the US space program. Science and science fiction are welded to my view of the world.

Most of my stories include AI characters. Not so much as subject matter, but because I can’t imagine a future without them. My themes cover topics about what defines intelligence, non-human sentience, and what consciousness means. (That sounds more serious than it is—my fiction is meant to be fun!)

I would never use AI to write for me. I embrace the hard part of writing. A search in my thesaurus or dictionary for just the right word or phrase, writing and rewriting a scene until it feels right: I love that. The thrill of creating something new would be ruined for me if I turned any of it over to a software program.

I’m what’s called a pantser, or I write by the seat of my pants. I have found that outlines, story maps, cards, sticky notes, etc, end up interrupting my writing more than aiding it. Often, once I’ve completed an outline, I will lose interest in the story. But I can go down long rabbit holes and spend way too much time on things like making pretty charts, creating word maps, or doing research.

I usually have a vague idea of where I want to go, but I like to let the story tell itself, especially in the first draft. It’s after that, when I do the editing, rearranging, researching, fleshing out scenes, that I focus on the mechanics of the thing. And that’s where I find AI of value. (But see caveat at the end of this article.)

Scientific realism

I make up a lot of science-y sounding stuff. But I want it to be grounded in real science, real physics. AI evaluates my ideas and lets me know if it’s feasible or ridiculous. If it’s way off, AI will make suggestions for making my ideas more realistic. I also use it to summarize complex scientific papers (like quantum computing) for me in layman’s terms.

In the example below, I wanted to know if the concepts and devices I created for a book about a small group of survivors living on the moon made sense. One of the primary protagonists is a quantum computer AI (CIMON, a real computer on ISS) and the MAVs are part of the space vehicle systems I imagined. Here is an example of ChatGPT’s answer when I fed in the paragraphs I’d written and asked it to evaluate feasibility.

ConceptAccuracyNotesQuantum AI Mostly FictionalCIMON exists, but quantum AI is not yet a reality.Life Support & Oxygen Management AccurateGood understanding of space station logistics.MAVs as Earth-Moon Shuttles Plausible with advanced propulsionA nuclear or hybrid system would make sense.MAVs with Atmospheric Capabilities Uncommon but possibleMost space-to-surface vehicles aren’t both atmospheric and deep space-capable.Digital Library & File Sharing AccurateAstronauts do bring personal media to space.Psychological Effects Highly AccurateRealistic astronaut behavior in crisis.

In another book, my protagonist is a homeless woman named Jane who has amnesia. She and her companion are surprised when she demonstrates medical skills. I wanted to put her in a situation where she automatically knew what to do, but I don’t have any medical knowledge to make that sound realistic. I asked Claude to suggest some scenarios and provide the proper medical terms. This is its (abridged) response:

A diabetic emergency would work perfectly; common, dramatic, but manageable with basic medical knowledge.

Scenario: Someone in the town collapses, sweating, confused, shaky hands. Could be low blood sugar (hypoglycemia) or high blood sugar (diabetic ketoacidosis)…[that Jane solves]…

Suggested terms and symptoms and their meanings:

Sweating, confused, shaky handsLow blood sugar (hypoglycemia) or high blood sugar (diabetic ketoacidosis)Blood glucose (not “blood sugar”)Glucose gel, orange juice, anything with simple carbsCheck pulse, “tachycardic” (fast heart rate)Fingernails, skin – “Poor Perfusion”Elevate legs

I will do some fact checking to make sure the AI didn’t make up something stupid. But this information helps make the scene authentic.

Story bible and technical documents

I’ve used Claude to help create my story bibles, which include documents that lay out basic concepts, like where the story takes place, when it happens, what are the technologies and what are the rules. Consistent rules in world building are critical in science fiction and fantasy.

All the information I share comes from me. I create my own character profiles, specifics about the world I’m building, technology, and relevant draft passages, then feed that data into the AI.

Here’s an excerpt from a document describing a quantum computer in the future. Remember, these are my inputs and ideas. AI organizes it and provides a reality check. It made a few suggestions and clarifications for how a quantum AI might work if it were real. How, or if, I use that information in my book will be up to me.

Fundamental principles

Node Definition: Quantum resonance cavities are pockets of spacetime that maintain quantum coherence long after the extinction of quantum computers.Detection Method: Exotic, short-lived particles behaving as entangled pairs within quantum foam background noise, created by these resonance cavities.Energy Correlation: Older nodes produce weaker quantum signals requiring more computational energy to access and amplify, similar to tuning distant radio stations.

Once it’s finished, I put the bible alongside my chapters in Scrivener so that I can refer to it while I’m writing. It keeps the world I built coherent, and I don’t have to keep going back and forth through chapters to double check myself when I forget something.

I do not recommend writers do this work with free AI tools.

If I were writing nonfiction science content (something I had to do for years), I would be extremely careful using free tools, if at all. The risk of misinformation or made-up facts is too high.

The quality of AI results is dependent on the quality of the prompts it’s given and the data it was trained on. I often find that I have to go back and forth with it several times before it gives me helpful feedback. If you don’t ask the questions correctly, you might get a lot of information you don’t want, need, or understand. It is important to remember that whichever model you use, it’s designed to provide an answer that you will like. However, specialized AI tools in medicine and other technical fields are honed for accuracy but rarely made available to the public.

There is an aspect of AI prompting that I don’t think gets stressed enough in many of the discussions I’ve read on the topic. When you’re in a chat, the chat itself provides context and your questions are all informing the model’s answers. If you see weird responses, review your prompts to see where it might have gone wrong, then close the chat and start a new one. If you’re in ChatGPT and there is a chat session that’s wonky, I would recommend deleting it so the model doesn’t continue to draw from it.

AI is a beneficial tool, but it is only as good, and as ethical, as the people who are using it. The companies who have created these tools for public use continue to refine them. They claim to be trying to make them harder to use in nefarious ways. I believe writers and other artists have an opportunity to help shape the future of AI. We can provide feedback, input, and hold the companies accountable for how AI develops. In order to do that, we need to understand it and in order to understand it, we need to use it. I hope this helps provide some insight into ways a writer can use new AI tools to support their process.