As a writer, do you think AI is cheating? I don’t! I use AI all the time. Watch the video below to find out why I use AI and how AI is beneficial to writers.

Hello my lovely writers. 

I have made the conscious decision to embrace AI, which you may or may not have seen me doing. I know some of you are reticent about using it, you may even be anti-AI and aggressive about not using it, but I wanted to give my argument as to why I think AI is beneficial to writers and is a tool we should all be embracing. 

First of all, the biggest elephant in the room is that it’s here. It’s here to stay and, no matter what people are saying right now, it’s going to increasingly be part and parcel of the way we write and how we create our stories and put them out into the world. It’s going to be a more and more integral part of our authorpreneur journey. 

AI is here to stay

AI is here, it’s there, it’s not going away. We have to accept it. 

One of the things that made me decide to embrace AI is that I remember when Kindle came out and the first ebooks were available on Amazon. I distinctly remember being at my grandparents’ house and having this conversation with my parents and my grandparents about how – and this is my own snobbery here – I didn’t think ebooks would take off. E-publishing was for people who couldn’t get an agent and wasn’t real publishing. 

Oh, how wrong I was. How, how wrong I was. Self-publishing is not a substitute for finding an agent and a traditional deal, it’s an alternative. Now here I am, going down that route myself. I was very slow on the uptake of self-publishing, I missed the golden years of that and now I’m playing catch-up, so I’ve made the conscious decision that I don’t want to make that same mistake with artificial intelligence. I want to be using it. It’s here to stay. It’s not going anywhere, it’s just going to get better and better and more and more used to the point where we can’t tell the difference if AI is being used or not. 

Writing books using AI is a creative endeavour

I want to be part of that. I want to use that technology and those tools that can help me. AI is beneficial to writers and I would even argue that writing books using AI is a creative endeavour. It’s a form of creation. Those people may not be sitting down with a pen and paper and writing their first draft by hand but they are being the creative director of the story they’re putting out into the world. 

They are coming up with the initial idea or they’re brainstorming with ChatGPT or Claude, or whoever it is they use. They’re brainstorming, they’re making decisions, they get to be the creative director on their project. They determine what’s going to be used, what’s not, which direction the story is going to take, how it’s going to be refined, how it’s going to be finessed, the types of characters they want to use, the types of stories they want to use, the tone and the voice they want the AI machine to use. All of that is going to be within their creative control and they’ll be the creative director of that book, rather than necessarily being the author of that book. 

Where I love to use AI

I don’t necessarily want to go down that route. One of the things I love about writing is that hand-to-brain thing of writing my books, that’s what I enjoy. I enjoy that first drafting. However, where I do love to use AI and where I think AI is beneficial to writers is that I can take a plotline I’ve got, feed it into AI and ask, ‘What do you think? Where are the plot holes in this? Where can you see things that don’t match up in this?’ and it will bounce back to me, ‘I can see a plot hole here, here and here.’ 

Sometimes it will come back to me and say, ‘You’ve got something a bit obvious here as well. Maybe you need to think up something a bit more original,’ and if I can’t think of something, I can ask, ‘Can you help me out?’ and it will give me some ideas. 

Sometimes the idea is in and of itself really good and I can incorporate it. Sometimes it’s a great trigger for an idea I can fit in the story. So, as a planning tool, something to plot a story with and see if that plan or that plot has major holes in it, I can use AI for that. 

I’ve also fed my book into AI and said, ‘Can you tell me what tropes are used in this? Can you tell me the tone of this book?’ and asked it to give me feedback on the book I’ve written. That feedback I can then use in advertising and in my ad copy. I can use it in different ways like that as it gives me more insight into the work I’m doing. 

AI is beneficial to writers

Blurbs are such a difficult thing for authors to write and so I use AI to help me with blurbs. There’s a multitude of ways in which you can use AI and I really encourage you not to cut your nose off to spite your face because you believe the old ways are the best. Be inquisitive about AI. You’re a writer, you’re an observer, you’re interested in the world and how it works so be inquisitive about it. You don’t have to incorporate any of these things, you don’t have to use them in your writing, but nor do you get to dismiss that other people are using these tools to help them in a way that works. 

AI is not going away, it’s going to be here for the long haul, it’s going to increasingly be part of everything we do. Don’t miss the boat on this. Don’t get left behind. I know that often we don’t like change. I don’t like change very often and that was why I was reticent to get on board with Amazon but I don’t want to be so far behind the curve this time. I want to try and keep up this time. I want to see how AI can benefit me and how it can be useful to me and help me. 

You know yourself that, with writing and being an authorpreneur, there are a lot of hats to wear. Not only are you the writer but you are the marketer, the business person and the CEO. With all of these things we have to do and all of these hats we have to wear, if I can use an AI tool to help me with some of those to help me along the way and use AI as a critique partner, a sounding board or as a way to brainstorm, I’m all for it. If AI is going to help me write a better story that readers will like and want to read, I’m going to go for it. 

Using AI is not cheating

I know some of you are resistant and some of you are nervous about it but I do encourage you to be inquisitive about AI. Open your ears, have a listen, see what other people are saying and see what other people are doing. How could you use this tool to make your life better without feeling like you are cheating, without feeling you’re losing your integrity? 

Remember, even if you choose to write your book using entirely AI, you’re still the creative director. It’s still your name on the page and it’s still your ideas that are coming to the forefront. 

This is a fun new era. It’s going to change everything and that’s really exciting. We’re just going to write in different ways, tell our stories in different ways and use these new tools to help us do that. 

I hope you can see where I’m coming from. I hope it’s going to give you a little bit of encouragement to be open to AI and see where it goes and see how you can maybe use AI to enhance your own authorpreneur life. 

Emma xx 

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!

Writers are storytellers. We just need to tell the story. Watch the video below to find out how looking at photos of my cats got me thinking about the similarities between cats and writers and how they can teach us to just tell the story.

Hello my lovely writers, how are you? 

This morning, I was looking at photographs of my cats, as cat lovers do, and thinking about how beautiful they are, just as they are. Cats don’t try to be something they’re not. They don’t put on airs and graces for the family or the other cats with whom they live. They simply are. They simply exist. They do their thing. 

Writers are storytellers

That got me thinking about writers and how we need to just do our thing as well. We don’t need to try to impress anybody. Writers are storytellers and we have our own unique story to tell. We’ve just got to tell the story. Just telling the story – that was one thing a theatre director of mine used to say. He’d say to us when we were in rehearsal, ‘Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t try to make this part or this play be something it’s not. You’re just telling the story. Keep it simple.’ It’s a phrase I come back to a lot in everything I do. I keep saying to myself, ‘Writers are storytellers. Just tell the story. Keep it simple. Don’t overcomplicate it. Don’t worry about things you don’t need to worry about. Just tell the story.’ 

Unlock Your Creative Block

If you need help just telling the story, check out my course, Unlock Your Creative Block and see how you can come and work with me. I’ll help you unlock the creative blocks you’ve got so you can break past writer’s block and tell your story. 

Emma xx

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!

Trust the process. That’s what my physiotherapist said to me and it occurred to me that we, as writers, also need to trust the process.

Watch the video below to find out why.

Hello my lovely writers, how are you? 

I’m just back from physio and my physiotherapist gave me a timely reminder and a bit of tough love, just gently, by reminding me that the physio exercises I’m doing and what I’m working towards – which is getting rid of these headaches – takes time. 

It’s a marathon, not a sprint. 

I’ve got to start small and steady and just keep building up on it. 

I said to him, ‘But I get scared. I’m scared that if I do this exercise, I’m going to get a headache and it’s going to make things worse and then I pull back from it because I get scared.’ 

The magic words he said to me were, ‘You might bring on a headache but you need to do the work in order to strengthen the muscles.’ He said, ‘You’ve got to trust the process.’ 

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

I laughed because I thought that’s exactly the same for writing. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You start small and steady and you build yourself up. It’s going to be painful at times.

You have to go through those painful times, those difficult times, when the words aren’t coming, when you feel you’ve got no ideas or you don’t know what’s going to happen next in the story. 

You’ve got to do it anyway. You’ve got to push through it because that’s how your writing muscle gets stronger. 

Writing is a muscle, just like a physical muscle is. Your writing muscle gets stronger by getting your butt in the chair or wandering around dictating, however it is you get your words down. You’ve got to do it even when it feels difficult, when it’s hard work and you don’t really want to do it. If you can push yourself through, you’re going to get stronger and stronger every time you do it. 

Trust the process

Trust the process, just like I’m trusting my physio and the process he’s putting me through. That’s how you get stronger. It’s the same for your physical muscles as it is for your writing muscle. You’ve got to keep going. 

I’ll say it to you as he said it to me, trust the process. Are you trusting? 

Emma xx

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!

Life moves in cycles, it’s true. Sometimes things are going well for us, sometimes things are going wrong but we just have to keep on going until things improve and it’s the same for our writing.

Watch the video below to find out why.

Hello my lovely writers. 

I wanted to talk to you today about something somebody said to me, which is, ‘Life moves in cycles.’ It’s a great phrase that my friend’s father used to say to them.

Life moves in cycles. 

You might have noticed in your own life there are cycles when things are going well and cycles where things don’t feel like they’re going our way and everything feels a bit tough. It makes me think of that phrase, things come in threes, when bad luck seems to come in threes and you think, ‘Okay, that’s the third thing that’s gone wrong this week. Surely that’s it done now.’ 

Life moves in cycles and so does your writing

Everything goes around in cycles and it’s the same for our writing life. I will bet that, throughout your writing career, your writing life, since you started wanting to do this, even as a hobby or just for fun, there have been cycles when you have been so prolific and so enthused, when the muse has been with you and there haven’t been enough hours in the day to get all the words down. 

Then we come around to that other side of the cycle where we dry up. There’s that feeling of being stuck, what some of you would probably call writer’s block. That real feeling that nothing is moving, nothing feels right and you’re very critical of your own writing. You’re critical of the story, you’re critical of your characters, of everything. 

Even when you’re published and you’re building a career and you’re maybe writing a series of books, there are still cycles within that. There are going to be cycles where you are loving the series you’re writing and cycles where you’re a bit bored with it and you want to start a new series. 

Within one book, there is a cycle. There is a cycle at the beginning when you’re super-excited about it and, if you’re a planner, you’re excited about putting that plot together, and that feels really exciting.

If you’re a discovery writer, you’re just diving on in there and that feels amazing too. You’re loving what you’re doing and what you’re writing. 

At some point, you will begin to hate everything about your book

In every manuscript, for every writer I know, there comes a point, usually 70/75% of the way through the book, where you hate it. You hate the story you’re writing, you absolutely hate it. You wish it was done or you wish you’d never started it and you’re very tempted to start another book. Shiny Penny Syndrome comes in and you just want to move on to the next thing. 

That is a normal part of the cycle as well. You come out of that eventually but you’ve got to be persistent. This is where tenacity and your resilience comes in. You come through that part of the cycle of hating the book you’re writing and then you start to love it again. 

By the time this book is ready to go to an editor or go out into the world, you’re feeling happy and proud and content and excited about the hard work you’ve put in and about the story you’ve created out of nothing and the characters you’ve developed out of nothing. It’s a really magical part of the cycle. 

Then you’ll start the next book and you’ll have that same excitement again.

Then you’ll have the other part of the cycle where you’re not loving the book you’re writing and on it goes and on it goes. 

Life moves in cycles and your writing moves in cycles, just be aware of that. Even if you’re feeling rubbish about the book you’re writing right now, keep going. Dig in, dig deep, show your resilience, show your tenacity and keep going until you get through that part of the cycle and into the bit where you enjoy the book again. 

I hope that is helpful and will keep you going through the cycle. 

Emma xx

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!

Do you get those little voices in your head? That inner critic critising everything you do?

When I found out our inner critic never goes away, it was a huge relief!

Watch the video below to find out why.

Hello my lovely writers. I’ve been thinking about how those little voices in your head are ever-prevalent. I had a few of those inner critic voices in my head this morning, criticising me about something. I shook my head at myself thinking, gosh this never goes away, does it? 

The inner critic never goes away

The inner critic never entirely goes away.  I thought this would be worth sharing with you because we often believe we can master those voices in our head, that we can eradicate those voices and, once we’ve done that, there’ll be no stopping us and we will be ready to go. Everything will be possible. 

But what I’ve realised over the number of years I’ve been working on my own mindset is that the inner critic doesn’t go away. This was a really big learning for me and I remember specifically being in a training where this was made apparent. 

And do you know what? 

I found it to be a huge relief that the inner critic never goes away, and I hope it will be a relief to you, too. If our inner voice is here to stay, it means you can stop striving to get rid of it. You can stop striving to eradicate those voices from your head and putting off your writing before you start doing something. 

Unlock Your Creative Block

When I understood this was part of human nature, I could learn to manage those voices, to console those voices and quieten them. That felt much more doable.

If that makes sense to you and feels good and achievable, I’d love to help you manage your inner critic.

I’ve created a lovely online programme called Unlock Your Creative Block, in which we delve into how to quieten those voices in your head, which will then allow you to do all the things you want to do, including writing a book. 

If you know you need to master what’s going on in your head before you can write your book, join me at Unlock Your Creative Block. 

I’ll see you there. 

Emma xx

Emma Dhesi

Emma Dhesi is a Certified Author Accelerator Book Coach and bestselling author who helps writers let go of perfectionism, self-doubt and writer's block through her signature programme, Unlock Your Creative Block.

She is the host of the YouTube Channel, Emma Dhesi, where she interviews debut and experienced authors alike.

Through her 1:1 coaching programme, Emma helps new authors start and finish their first novel.

Emma provides personal written feedback on their pages and guides them through the emotional rollercoaster that is writing a novel!