WRITER'S RETREAT AND AI

Thoughts After a Wild Journey

I never thought this would be my life.

But somehow, I was fortunate enough to become an extreme horror author and find success. Slowly, over the years, I learned that these authors—whom I idolized before beginning my own journey—were not just independent entities. They were part of a unique community.

Up until a few days ago, I’d only done one prior writer’s retreat. It took place in upstate New York with Daniel J. Volpe. We spent several days writing our soon-to-be-released novels, Through the Eyes of Desperation (The Red & Black Versions). I must say the experience was really cool. To—for the most part—shut the phones off and just hang out in a cabin and write was something special. I believe we each came away from this with close to 20-25k words written.

At the time, we thought the books were done. But boy, were we wrong. Just because you get to the end of a book, doesn’t mean it’s finished. My book grew from about 30k word count to close to 72k. Dan’s was very close to the same.

There’s something about setting out to a destination under the premise that nothing else with happen but writing, drinking, and plotting. I encourage any writer to do the same should they have the opportunity or means. Particularly with collaborations. The project Dan and I worked on isn’t a normal collaboration. We were writing separate novels in the same world with moments of overlap and Easter eggs tied in. This would’ve been extremely difficult to execute without the face-to-face. Getting the story churned out in the manner we aspired to just couldn’t happen without the cigarettes and fine boiled ham we ingested that weekend.

1st Writer's Retreat with Daniel

So, when Shane McKenzie pitched the idea of going to a lake house with five other writers, how could I say no?

While at the time we hadn’t announced it publicly, when Shane came to my house in the summer, he pitched a story of his. Ironically, I pulled out my phone and showed him I had a note that was the exact same concept. At that point, we knew, we had to write it together. It wasn’t even like we chose that path; it chose us.

When Kristopher Triana and I headed down on our hell flight to Austin, TX, nothing could’ve prepared us for such an awesome experience. Meeting Wrath James White, Judith Sonnet, Lucas Mangum, and Shane McKenzie, we knew it was going to be a special trip.

Everyone did well on this trip. We had people finish projects, explosive word counts, multiple collaborations, and conversations until the crack of dawn. There were laughs, group dinners, stories of old and new. As an author who didn’t have the privilege of meeting some of the legends in our genre, listening to Wrath, Shane, and others offer stories of their interactions is something I cherish. I’ll never get to meet Dallas Mayr, but there’s something comforting about listening to others talk about him.

We had a great group that spans many different eras. The variety and experience are truly priceless.

Special thanks to Wrath for being the legend presence in the group and telling us horrifying stories (Shane believes you gave him nightmares). I’m looking forward to what you and Kris are cooking up and also the solo piece you’re working on sounds like something special.

Judith and Lucas, it was great to spend time with you both. Major congrats to Judith for easily achieving the highest word count of anyone at the retreat. Lucas, you were the one to finish a project! Amazing! Sounds like it’s going to be a special story.

Kris, we almost lost our shit at the airport. After two canceled flights and endless amounts of bullshit, we somehow made it home (never again). Also, I’m glad we saved those dogs with Shane—wish they went home with a kinder owner thought…

Shane, what can I say. We tore that story apart and fucked it five ways to Friday. But the violence was necessary. Due to the mass of connective tissue involved with our collaboration, got very little sleep. We set ourselves up nicely before we left—close to 10 hours of conversation—but that wasn’t anywhere near enough. But all the difficult conversations are going to unleash something special. That much I’m sure of.

Capping off our retreat with a nice dinner was awesome.

Going to the museum of weird shit when our flight got canceled made for some great inspiration.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Until next time, just know, you guys are not just all amazing writers, but human beings!

WHAT I THINK ABOUT AI…

I’ve said this before, so I’d like to preface with it. I’m not here to tell you how to think. I’m not here to influence you one way or another. It’s just not my thing. My writing—and public presence—is supposed to be a form of escape for my readers. Nothing grosses me out more than watching people sit around and hammer others over the head with their beliefs. I’m not here to ever make you feel alienated. And just because I might not see eye to eye with some people, doesn’t mean I hate them.

Some people think that it’s a person’s duty to take a rigid stance on every issue—you’re on one side or the other.

They wanna kill you or worship you.

In a world as rife with misleading information as a corpse is maggots, in my humble opinion, that’s a fool’s perspective. One that, if everyone followed, would divide the population to the max. An outcome that I believe is a carrot that’s constantly being chased. The Illusion of Choice wasn’t just a book I wrote, it’s life.

Now, how does AI play into this?

Unlike most of the other issues, this one directly affects not only my career but the world as we know it.

I want to make it crystal clear to my readers. I will never use AI in any capacity to generate my content.

But what does that mean exactly? It means that my writing is me and ONLY ME. My editors are human beings. Do I use spellcheck software? Sure, but that is to assist in refining the work I’ve done, NEVER TO CREATE CONTENT.

The audiobooks you get will ALWAYS be read by a human being. No robot voiceovers just because it’s free.

My covers, logos, and illustrations will always be drawn by a human.

I understand some authors may not have the capacity to afford hand-drawn covers, pro editing, etc. Guess what? If you want it bad enough, you’ll figure it out. You’ll stop going out to eat, or smoking cigarettes, or cancel your cable/streaming services. And instead of putting these ridiculous AI covers on the front of your book that most people laugh at, you’ll work hard and save.

Above is some AI art. Hopefully, people won’t let that become their legacy.

I know AI’s easy. But, in my opinion, art isn’t supposed to be easy. It takes hard work and thoughtfulness for many years to get anyone to give a shit. Some of the most amazing artists die never getting any recognition. AI isn’t going to get you there. It’s inhuman. It’s a caricature of humanity.

I hope those using this kind of garbage will stop taking the shortcut. Otherwise, we’re drawing closer to oversaturation the likes of which we’ve never seen before. I plan to revisit this topic with another non-writing-related AI post in the future.

To those using AI like a crutch and grasping onto the illusion that you’re a ‘creator’ because of this, stop being a blood-shart. Use your own imagination. You’d be surprised what you can come up with.

UNTIL NEXT TIME… KEEP IT 100% HORROR!

Aron Beauregard is the TWO-TIME Splatterpunk Award-winning author of such atrocities as The Slob, Playground, All Smiles Until I Return, Modern Hysteria, Yellow, and countless others.

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