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I’m extremely proud of my ability to create stories. An author has the amazing ability to create something that makes the world better, more beautiful. In my case, from just a snippet of a memory from a dream, or a quick glance at an image, or even a simple lyric from a song, I get inspiration to make stories. I see the story unfold in my mind, and I simply write what I see. As Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot once said, "I dream my picture and then I paint my dream." As Carl Sagan put it in the following video: books are proof that humans are capable of working magic. I self-publish my stories. This means that I do everything from concept to reality. I imagine the story and write it. That’s actually the easy part for me. The rest of the process is where the real work comes in. I edit the book with my amateur ability. I read and re-read the story dozens of times. I read the book out loud to either myself or my husband, if he has the time to listen. When I’m happy with how it sounds, I lay out the book in Adobe InDesign. I then create the book cover. I do solicit help from my husband for the blurb on the back cover, as he's good at summarizing, while writing a brief synopsis of my story is nearly impossible for me. After that’s done, I create the files in Amazon’s KDP. Amazon is an evil corporation that takes most of my earnings as an author, but it’s the biggest retailer for books. I might explore other avenues later once all my backlog is published, but for now, KDP it is. After I get everything set, I order an author proof and read the story yet again after months of being away from it. That break helps clear my mind and allows me to see the story from a different perspective. Once I’m happy with it, I publish. I create both physical and digital media. I’ve yet to delve into the world of audiobooks because I refuse to use AI to narrate my books, and hiring a human narrator is too expensive for me right now. Again, maybe it’ll be something I explore down the road.
 I’m currently writing two novels simultaneously. Normally, I focus on one book at a time, but these two books are warring each other inside my head, and I decided to let them both win and work on both at the same time. It’s confusing, but as I delve into them, I let them decide who will get the next chapter written as each morning comes. As soon as I wake and make the trek downstairs, I sit in my chair and let my mind wander. I don’t scroll through social media. I don’t write anything down. I simply sit and let my mind go where it wants to go. It’s been a pleasant way to start the morning this past month. I might just make it a habit. I clear my mind of any worries or fears (and after what I’ve been through these past two years, I have plenty to fear). I imagine my mind a blank canvas, and simply wait to see what image pops onto the canvas first. As I said at the beginning of this post, I visualize the story and then I simply write what I see. I focus on the first image that comes to my mind, and that’s the book that I work on that morning. Thankfully, my mind has cooperated and has mainly produced thoughts of the two books that I’m writing, but on occasion, another story will pop in to say hello. I’ve managed to keep those thoughts in line by writing them down in a journal until I’m ready to write them into reality. I enjoy writing and telling my stories. I like to take my time and introduce the characters properly and let the story unravel at the pace that feels right. Some of my books are longer (180K+ words) and some get to their conclusion a little quicker (80K+ words). I’ve read that in many cases, longer books aren’t great sellers. When I was contemplating sending a book out to a publisher, one of the requirements was that the book be between 50K and 75K words only. Anything longer would automatically be rejected. I like reading longer books. I don’t like to feel rushed. I like the story to gently unfold, not jump right into the action (unless that's the intention of the story). So I suppose it’s a good thing that I self-publish. I can write a story as long as I want without being told that it needs to be cut to fit into some template. One of the two books that I’m working on is a little out of my comfort zone. I remember thinking the same thing when I first began conceptualizing The Arkainian Chronicles. I had, up until that point, kept my paranormal romance stories focused on characters who looked mostly human. But this was the first series that deviated from that. The Arkainians are from another planet, and the story takes place on that planet. I had to create a race of beings that the story was about, a planet for them to live on, a language (or at least some Arkainian words for them to communicate with, a creation story for them to refer to, and a culture in which they lived. Some details coincided with what we as humans can relate to, and some were completely … well, alien. Aside from being outside my comfort zone from a character perspective, the book I’m writing is also going to send me on an unknown journey into a new genre. I had a dream, and that dream is sending me into a genre that I didn’t ever think I would write in. I love romance, and, as I mentioned earlier, I love stories with strong character development. This helps me relate to the characters, so they don’t feel fictional. They feel like real people who could exist in the world. I like stories with a strong plot. If there isn’t a point to the story—the reason the story is being told—what point is there? I know many people think that romance books are simply pornography with a slight plotline. And, I admit, some books that I’ve read feel that way to me as well. But my stories aren’t like that. Sex is a part of life. Putting it very simply, without it, life wouldn’t continue. Babies wouldn’t be conceived and humans would eventually cease to be. Sex is also a pleasurable part of life. It helps us feel the love our partner feels, and it helps us feel connected in a relationship. None of my stories contain meaningless sex, and it isn’t the main plotline of any of my stories. My stories contain sex, but they’re more a mystery book or suspenseful thriller that also contains sex. It isn’t a sex book that has a bit of mystery in it. There is a difference.
 Annie Rife is the name that I use for my contemporary romance books. These books all involve human characters, and all take place in or around the current time.
I love variety when I read, and so that translates into my writing. I’ve even begun a young reader’s book involving my daughter and my three dogs. I’ve several chapters written and strive to finish it one of these days. Maybe this year will be the year. It would be nice to finish it before my daughter is old enough to drive! I also wrote a short book for my daughter’s seventh birthday. It was a story that I converted to a coloring book and was about how she met her favorite stuffed animal best friend, Maynard. I still have a stack of them and get them out every so often to read and enjoy.
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I’m an artist. Art comes in many different forms, and so many people can claim the title of artist. Art is not just painting or writing stories, which are the two forms of art that I choose to do. There’s also sculpting, drawing, dancing, singing, composing, designing, decorating, photography. Even sewing and cooking are forms of art. There are more, but those are the ones that come to my mind. Despite the plethora of people who can claim to be an artist, there is one thing that cannot claim the title of artist, and that is a computer.
I enjoy the convenience of researching topics for the various books that I write from the comfort of my living room, rather than have to trudge to the local library and look up book information in a card catalog. I love staying in contact with friends and family around the country by seeing their activity on social media. Those things, I find comforting and enjoyable. What I don’t find comforting is the ease with which people seem to be handing over their humanity to computers. People are using computers to allegedly create art. I have a bold truth to share with you: a computer cannot create. It can only mimic what humans have created. When you use AI to write a story, it’s taking a beautiful human idea and turning it into an abomination of borrowed techniques, styles, and voice. It takes samples of the work other artists have done and mimics it as something unique. But it isn’t unique, no more than pretending to be a character in a story makes you that person in reality. It’s false, emotionless, and a pitiful attempt to make real something that should not exist. The following clip is from the movie Jurassic Park. As you probably know, it was about an island that had on it dinosaurs that had been re-created through the miracle of science. Dr. Ian Malcolm, played by Jeff Goldblum, argued that what had been done was wrong. His argument was about the re-creation of an extinct species, but I argue that it could also pertain to the creation of AI. People rush to see how quickly they can create programs to replace humans, but they don’t stop to think if they should. It makes me weep sometimes to see people posting artwork done with AI. I see videos of AI-generated images being narrated by AI-generated voices reading scripts that were written with the use of AI. Recently, I’ve been inundated on my social media feed from people posting little AI-generated caricatures of themselves and their families. They think it’s cute, and many of the comments are on how amazing it looks and questions on how the commenter can get one as well. But what about the many caricature artists whose work was uncredited in that little AI program generating that cute image of you holding that cup of coffee or your child holding that soccer ball? That AI program had to get the knowledge from somewhere, and it’s important to stop and think of where it got it. It came from the struggling artists who’ve labored for years to improve their skill, the artists who’ve spent their days at fairs doing charcoal drawings for people walking by, the artists who’ve had to work a regular office job during the day just to pay the bills so they can spend the evening doing what their hearts truly love to do. I’ll hazard a guess that the thought never crossed the minds of the hordes of people who’ve recently told ChatGPT to create that caricature that they post to Facebook, Instagram, and Tik Tok.
Let me ask you this: would you form a meaningful and lasting friendship with an AI-generated person? Would you take your child to an AI-generated doctor to perform surgery on him or her? Would you trust an AI-generated person to interview you for a job and make the decision on whether to hire you or not? To some, this isn’t a dilemma. For me, it is. Because those things that I mentioned require instinct, emotion, and humanity. Without emotion, life is stale. I repeat: a computer does not have emotion.  I don’t want to read a book written by something that doesn’t have a heart to weep at the words. I don’t want to buy artwork from something that doesn’t have eyes to see the breathtaking beauty of the colors in the sky at sunset. I don’t want to eat the food prepared by something that can’t taste the nuance in flavor that adding a pinch of salt can do for a meal. I don’t want to support something that doesn’t understand the contextual difference between longingly looking into the eyes of your lover, and logically looking into why your car engine isn’t working properly. "AI art is not progress, and it’s not inevitable. It’s theft, pure and simple." And if the fact that this artificial art lacks that which makes art beautiful isn’t enough of a reason to not support it, think about all the people who are losing their livelihood to something that you think is cute and a bit of fun. This loss of livelihood includes more than the many artists who actually do the art that AI is being used to replace, but also includes other professions as well. My husband is an editor. His job is being threatened because his company thinks it can save some money by using the AI program Grammarly to do online editing instead of having human freelancers to the work.
When it started out, it was easy to pick out an AI-generated piece of art. For pictures, the person in the picture would have extra fingers or an arm that doesn’t quite fit. Websites that were AI-generated scams were moderately easy to pick out and avoid. Ads that were written by a computer were obvious in the inability to use the correct context of certain words, or, if there were vocals, the inflections or words were often mispronounced. But as times goes by, humans are “training” AI programs to be better. As if stealing the hard work of actual artists isn’t bad enough … as if taking away the livelihoods of other human professionals isn’t despicable enough … as if flooding the market with crap that makes it nearly impossible for actual art to be seen isn’t unethical enough … now, it’s hard for people to tell if something is fake or not. This leaves people open to scams and fraudulent activity that can further rob them of both their money and their dignity. And as if all of that isn’t horrible enough, I think the worst thing that AI has done is devalue trust. I can’t trust that what I read is honest because there’s no requirement to label a book or anything as written by AI. I can’t trust that a photo is real because it’s so easy to alter and change an image with AI, and there’s no requirement to label it as being altered. I can’t trust that anything on the internet is legitimate because it could have been written and posted completely without the involvement of a human being verifying the accuracy of it.
The subject of AI has come up many times in the different groups that I engage in on social media. I’m part of several independent writer groups, and the topic inevitably comes up about using AI to design a book cover or to pay a professional to design the cover. Another topic is whether to use AI to edit a book or pay an editor to do the work. I admit that making a profit on a book as an independent author is nearly impossible. The market is so flooded with new books that just getting a few books sold is cause for celebration. Deciding on whether to pay a professional at a higher cost or have AI do the work for pennies on the dollar is an ethical dilemma, to be sure. I guess it comes down to the individual person’s conscience. I’d rather do all the work myself than have AI do anything related to my book. And, in fact, I am the one who does everything. I not only write the book (completely from my own ideas, not with prompts from AI bots), I’ve taken the time to learn the software to design my own covers and layout the book in the format needed for publication. I edit the book myself. I read and re-read and continue to read even after the book is published. I continuously update the print and electronic versions when I notice an error that slipped through my amateur editing process. I do everything from start to finish, and that process works for me. Being an independent author is not for the weak, or for those looking to make millions, or even those hoping to earn enough to pay the monthly rent. But the pride that I feel at having my books on the shelf is worth the work. I currently have sixteen books published and continue to write. I love sharing the stories in my head with anyone who wants to read them. I just can’t imagine feeling that same sense of accomplishment if I had allowed some impersonal AI program write my stories for me.
In all honesty, now that I think about it, I’m not sure an AI program could keep up with my brain. At a minimum, I think it might short-circuit with the many characters and stories that I have checking in to The Noodle Motel (See the blog post: It's Getting A Little Crowded In Here). Luckily, I’ll never find out.
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February 2026
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