AI Had Nothing To Do With It

An Eleven Year Process To Rewrite a Ten Book Series

Rewriting A Ten Book Series

In 2013 I joined in on my first NaNoWriMo. The project had no real title but I knew the story already; I’d been thinking about it for years. At the end of the month, working only Thursday through Saturday, at night because I worked the overnight shift every other day of the week and slept during the day I managed to write a 78,000 word novel. For a year I worked to clean that story up the best I could, and the next November I submitted it to a small press as Warrior’s Scold. 

Rather surprised to have that publisher respond almost immediately, I accepted their offer with an advance and started what became a six year journey that left me with a series of 10 books, collectively known as The Worship Series.

But because the series was something I often wrote in between all the other books I was writing, the story was “choppy” and didn’t always flow. Still, it was very popular with readers. One where I often heard they re-read it over and over, as I often would.

The difference though, was I would re-read and use the mark-up feature in my Kindle Reader to edit, change, and add story details I wished I had put into the books. For years I would make the request of my publisher to allow me to re-write the series. Always, the answer was a firm “NO”.  And so I satisfied myself by rewriting it only for me.

The Chance I Couldn’t Pass Up

Here I was, a decently successful author, several Romance Awards as well as a USA Today Bestseller under me and I was still just not happy with the published versions of the series. In 2022 I asked one more time if I could rewrite the series, but was told no, so I sued to get my rights back from the publisher.  With success.

By 2023 I had back all of my titles and for the need of having some income to help support the cost of self-publishing I made the choice to publish all the books in my backlist that needed little to no revisions. I also had to learn HOW TO PUBLISH. 

With great support from the writing community and friends who had working knowledge, I was able to start getting that back list up, and as I was putting up books under my own imprint, I was also writing on The Worship Series. Incorporating all the new ideas that I had been cultivating since 2015. I knew I wanted the entire series completed before I started to release. I didn’t want to risk missing plot elements or story flow, by publishing as they were finished.

The story I had always wanted to tell, was now mine to tell.

Let The Writing Commence

Starting with the base story that was the original series, and my notes from my Kindle Reader, I began the crafting of the books I actually wanted to write.

And to say this was not without some major setbacks, would be an understatement. As a matter of fact I had the first 72,000 words of book one written and I managed to overwrite the document completely without it having a backup. I started again from scratch and, YES, I backed that baby up everywhere.

By the spring of 2024 I had six of the books written, and a good idea how this process would transform the original ten books into a much larger series. Setting my goal on having the story finished by Spring of 2025.

But as it does, life happened. And at least I can say life happened in a mostly blessed way. My only child got married, bought a house, and then announced she was giving us a grandchild. The wild preparations gave me far less time to write, which I couldn’t ever regret losing. 

Sadly, though, in November of 2024 I lost my very special little dog, and the heartbreak of that put a major crimp in my ability to write. My office was simply too quiet without him in there with me.  I spent months avoiding the space and therefore neglecting writing. By then I had only about 11 books written, had only a rough outline of the largest plot point which was left out of the original series finished and no real motivation to write anything other than a Facebook post featuring memories of my beloved ‘pup’. 

Still, I am a writer, and writers MUST write. I dug out an old laptop and sitting anywhere but in my office, I started again. Now into the second year of these rewrites in early 2025, I managed to get 4 more books written, find a cover artist who understood my vision and, by taking in a renter in my house, was able to start paying for both covers and edits.

Book Cover Wrap by Jessical Larson Designs

The End In Sight

It’s now 2026, I have all but the last few books completed. They are outlined and what from the old series that is being used has been set in while thousands upon thousands of new words are going down.

If all goes well; knock on wood, fingers crossed, I should have the last books completed, through edits and with covers by Summer 2026.

The release though has started. Book one will be available come the end of February 2026, and each subsequent book will follow every 3 to 4 weeks. Which brings me to why I decided to write this post.

A.I. Had Nothing To Do With It.

It has become far too common for not only readers but other writers to accuse an author of using AI to write, either in part or in whole, the books they release. 

Many of the “give aways” of A.I. written books, according to those who claim to be able to spot it, are things like the use of em-dashes, advanced vocabulary use, cover art, and yes rapid release of books.

It doesn’t take anything for someone to call out a book as A.I. generated and to have the book and the author’s reputation completely shredded by the implication. Even when every author actually knows that there is a difference between Gen A.I. which through prompts CAN write an entire book, and the actual use by authors of things like grammar and punctuation which has been in use since all writing was done on pressed tree bark with a peacock quill, a dictionary and thesaurus (of which I personally have more than a dozen), and paint, Canva used in conjunction with a site which sells licenced cover art.

I pay for an editor, I have dozens of reference books to help with grammar and spelling and sentence structure, and I have beta and alpha readers who help make my works as nearly perfect as it can be made. I have hired a graphic artist who listened to my ideas on the vision I have about my covers and works with me to create those in ways she understands is both original and legal. 

Most importantly though, I have LEARNED through this entire process from NaNo to NOW, that to make a great series which contains not a single stand alone book, ALL the books need to be written before they are released. And when releases come, they must come FAST. 

This is what I am doing. No part of this series used A.I. in its development, No book was fed into Chat-Gap or whatever it's called. At best what might be criticized and cause an eyebrow to raise is if it was fed into one of those plagiarization detectors and found to have a large plagiarized content.  Which OF COURSE these books would have as they are rewrites of my own works, published previously.

Every Book Has Been From My Heart

I’ve lost sleep, I’ve lost hair, and I’ve lost time with family and friends to get this series out, because THIS series means that much to ME. 

Don’t think for a minute I cheated myself out of this process. Eleven years in the making. Every word, my own. A story I love and hope those who read it do too. The kind of story I wanted to read from the moment I discovered romance as a genre. 

It's all mine and now I’m sharing it with everyone. No A.I. involved 

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