It was another Killer year at Killer Nashville--a writing conference that takes place in my own back yard. This year I focused more on craft and building community than giving my work to editors and agents. I already know where a lot of my issues lie.

This year was also different in that I was a panelist for "Using AI Ethically to your Benefits." The topic was hot and juicy! We had a panelist who was a retired lawyer on the panel too. The best stories come from conflict and it was a bit spicy.

On the spectrum of "Never touch the evil that is AI" to "It's my best friend" I was definitely leaning toward friendship bracelets, but I was about the only one. There was another creative who encouraged the use of OpenAI since it so far has been shown to have sourced its training materials ethically.

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Aug 30, 2025

I wonder if people thought photography would render painters useless. Why bother with hand created images when you could simply take a color photograph? But photography expanded "imagery" into a more versatile tool allowing for photo IDs to be quick and cheap and crime scene details to be simple to document. One could say photography became something separate from artistry. It did, however, also make  a mark in the creative world becoming its own medium beside acrylic, charcoal, and other methods of art. It enhanced art without replacing art and was also a useful tool. I think of AI for authors in the same way.

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Jul 21, 2025

AI is all the rage, and it's turning into quite the sore subject, especially among authors. Is it really your work if you used AI to write it? What can it actually do versus all the hype? As someone who has worked in the technology industry trying to market AI's true value to the business, and advocate for its shortcomings so the analysts aren't stuck with impossible tasks, I have opinions about it. As an author, I also have opinions, so...let's go! This week we'll talk AI in general, and next time we'll talk about it through an author's lens.

First of all, people throw around the term AI like they throw around "robots"--it is a very broad term. Imagine someone calling your dishwasher a "robot." Would that be true, exactly? Or if they called your Tesla a "robot?" That's many times what we run into when people say something is "powered by AI." Exactly what do you mean when you say "AI?"

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Jun 10, 2025

Science fiction has tricky rules. You're making up science or imagining what it could be capable of by pulling the information out of thin air. The audience understands that it is fiction. But if you don't explain enough then it doesn't sound like science.

So you do your research and understand the where the math ends and the make-believe begins. Now your editor is asking "how" and "why" the make believe does what it does and you just want to say, "You got me! It's all pretend! I made it up!" But science fiction isn't about proving your story is plausible to physicists who know it is not. Writing is ensuring that the underlying logic is consistent. But how deep does that logic need to go?

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Feb 14, 2025

When I learned my baby I was nursing had a soy allergy, I thought it would be easy to cut soy out of my diet. I'd just reduce the quantity of Pad thai I ate, no problem. That was before I understood the food science genius that is soy.

Soy is everywhere. If you doubt this, pull out your snack drawer and start reading ingredients. Just skip to the end where the allergens will be listed in bold. Love Oreos? Contains soy. Like eating anything at Sonic? Soy. It's all because it's just such an amazing ingredient.

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Dec 3, 2024

Sometimes I am discouraged and think, "How can I possibly add 'author' to my identity when it is already full with technology professional, mother, wife, and the small tasks and titles that draw on my attention like grocery shopping and remembering to call my mother?"

We only have a finite quantity of time and energy to spend, so how should we optimize it and keep all the plates spinning?  The gold standard in this space isn't a blogger or influencer, but rather the husband and wife team of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.

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Nov 2, 2024

This website was created September 2, 2023.  This will be where the latest blog posts will live before being archived into the blog archive pages either under "the craft" or "the life."

Sept 2, 2023