justin lesieur dot com slash blog slash the ai conundrum

September 12, 2026

I want to talk for a minute about artificial intelligence, because it's everywhere now, and people sometimes assume that if you're a writer using AI at all, you're letting it do the work for you. That's simply not the case. Everything I write, including the books, the chapters, the scenes, the voice, and the style, comes from me. Otherwise, what would be the point? I'm not doing this for money or trying to churn out content as fast as possible. I write because I love it, and because the stories in my head won't leave me alone until I get them down.

That said, I do use AI as a tool, not a crutch. A hammer doesn't build a house for you, but it makes the job easier. Same idea.

I use AI in my writing in three very specific ways:

1. Organizing my chaotic notes
   When I'm planning a book, my notes look like a conspiracy theorist's notebook; half-sentences, arrows, random ideas, questions, contradictions, and things I swear made sense at the time. AI helps me take that mess and turn it into something resembling an outline. It's not creating anything new or bringing fresh ideas to the table. It's just organizing the ideas I already wrote down so I can see them clearly without spending hours sorting through the chaos.

2. Creating reference images.
   While writing Where's Ronald?, I drove to Estherville and took actual photos to help me visualize the setting. But one of the future books I'm working on is set in a fantasy world. Not exactly somewhere I can visit and snap some photos of. So I had AI generate a few reference images of my characters and the setting. Consider this a visual anchor. If I had the time to draw them myself, or the budget to hire an artist, I would. But I'm at a DIY stage right now, and this is my only practical option.

3. Catching spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes.
   This is the same thing writing software has been doing for decades. It's not rewriting my work or changing my voice. It's just pointing out typos and commas I missed at 4 a.m.

I also want to be clear that I understand the environmental impact these massive data centers have. That's why I use AI as little as possible and only for tasks that save time or fill gaps I can't realistically cover myself. But pretending anyone uses zero AI in their daily life is unrealistic. Phones, apps, search engines, maps, email filters are all AI. The difference is in how you use it.

For me, AI is a tool that helps me stay productive, organized, and stay focused on the part that actually matters: writing the story.

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