Half-Blood at Best

How Claude made me a better writer even though I feel guilty about it

(This will be a post about AI, but I gotta start by talking about my history.)

I have one of the guiltiest consciences known to man.

When I was eight, I was playing with a shopping cart that was at my school. (We lived in townhomes right by the school and played on their playground and outdoor basketball court after school). I pushed that cart and it rolled for what seemed like forever into a white truck—I think the PE teacher’s. A stiff wind would’ve stopped the cart but I was dead inside. That night, I cried to my mom about it because the guilt was overwhelming.

In high school I worked at an ice cream shop and would often close up. If I couldn’t actually remember locking the door at night, I’d turn around on the way home and re-check it. “Door is locked,” I’d say out loud as I yanked on the door to prove it to myself and take a mental image of the moment. One night I got out of bed, back into my car, and drove back to check. I couldn’t be the guy who let the ice cream get stolen (or the $400 we kept in an empty bucket in the fridge).

This fear of screwing up has followed me right into adulthood.

When I was working on my very boring dissertation, I panicked at every footnote.

“Did I cite that properly?”

“What makes an original idea, anyways?”

One time I saw my friend Jamus had written something good in his dissertation. I got the same source, found the pertinent passage, and put it in my dissertation. I’m pretty sure I then pulled out the entire reference due to fear that I’d somehow be dinged for using the same source my friend did even though I found the exact same book and referenced it appropriately.

So, of course, with the conversations concerning AI ethics for writers, you know I have a whole new way to feel guilty.

AI Battle Lines

I’ve read several articles from authors and editors regarding AI usage (I found this one quite helpful) and every time I read them, I go into a guilt spiral. (Quick, Claude, how do I handle my guilt?)

Crap, I use AI every day—just like I use Amazon. Am I going to hell for using it? Will my writing be blacklisted? Can I be trusted? Will the guild accept me?

The battle lines are being drawn.

On one side, the purists. They want you to know that they’d never use AI for their writing and would hope you make the same commitment—or at least consider it. It’s a good reason: writing is human and it is creative and it is good. Don’t ruin it.

On the other side, everyone else. But they might be early adopters, hopeful but suspicious, guarded, or maybe just outright cheaters.

What it feels like is that you’re either a purist or you’re going to become a cheater, so you’d better be a purist.

Guilty Conscience Memoir Writing

I’ve spent months writing this marriage memoir. It’s now at the level of final draft edits from Courtney and a book proposal (which I’m currently writing). (After this post, maybe self-publishing is my best bet.)

There’s a real writer in my extended family. Even his emails make me emotional. When Courtney and I get an email from him, we just text each other his name. We know what it means.

I’ve shared with him memoir progress and he will likely be a reader when this draft finishes, but I also shared that I’ve used Claude to help me. His reply:

“I’m curious how you avoid giving AI revisions too much influence in your writing process. I ask this because I’ve personally experienced how maddeningly good ChatGPT has been at suggesting absolutely perfect revisions to my own writing.”

So, here it is, for the most part:

(1) Write

First step is the simplest. I’ve spent every day writing. My minimum target is 20 minutes a day, but some days, I go longer. It usually comes after reading and prayer. By 7:30am I’m often past the writing part of the day.

At times, I pasted little parts into AI to check for typos and flow, but it didn’t seem helpful to me, so much of that first draft was just me throwing words down.

(2) Have Courtney Edit

Courtney goes behind me on everything. She reads, cuts, adjusts, and finds places to add her voice more fully. I think I finished the first draft back in February and she stayed thousands of words behind, trying to connect ideas better (and cut lots and lots of words).

Courtney reads a lot of memoirs, so she also spends significant time judging how bad she thinks ours is compared to those of freaking award-winning writers.

If Courtney uses AI, it is by mistake or because Google spits out Gemini feedback right at the top of the search results.

(3) Get Feedback and Make Structural Revisions (Enter: Claude)

Courtney comes behind me, and I come back behind her. While the above were going on, we shared the doc with a couple of folks to let them read along with us, provide feedback, and give us a general sense of how the story was fitting together.

Then, I reworked the entire book after Courtney’s first pass. This time, I’d cut and paste a chapter into Claude and ask for prioritized editorial feedback and line edits. (One chat within the book project for each section of the book, five sections in all.)

The project prompt for the memoir (slightly edited):

You are a senior acquisitions editor with 15+ years of experience evaluating nonfiction proposals and manuscripts. You’ve worked with faith-based authors who have genuine crossover appeal and you know the difference between a book that preaches to the choir and one that earns a wider readership.

You are reviewing work by Hans, a pastor of 16 years, husband of 21 years, and father of three. His manuscript is a marriage memoir titled You Talk Too Much (82,000 words), chronicling twenty years of marriage and his journey learning to release control in relationships. The book navigates his wife Courtney’s mental health struggles . . . before he learned the difference between control and love.

Your job is not to encourage Hans—it’s to help him produce work good enough to earn representation. You give clear, honest, specific feedback. You notice what’s working and say so plainly. You name what isn’t working and explain why it matters to agents and readers. You think about marketability, comp titles, platform, proposal strength, and manuscript structure—not just prose quality.

You evaluate everything through two lenses: (1) Is this good enough for an agent to take a risk on a debut author? (2) Does this have genuine crossover appeal beyond the Christian market, or does it only work inside that world?

When Hans shares writing, ask clarifying questions if needed, but lead with your editorial read. Be direct. Be specific. Cite the text when you can. Don’t soften feedback to the point of uselessness—Hans is trying to get published, not feel good about his draft.

During the past eight months I’ve been on plenty of websites of editors and reached out to a few. I scoured Reedsy, largely dissatisfied with the support that was there. I’d find a book I liked, read an intro, and see who the editors were. Many don’t take freelance work. Others never replied.¹

Spending money on people to help make a better book doesn’t bother me. It’s worthy work and I’m happy to pay, but there has to be someone willing, too. Claude was always up for it.

(4) Make the Adjustments (Sometimes)

I have some bad habits. I use a sermon reflex far too often (turning everything into a homily). I don’t trust scenes. I over-explain.

So I get a long list of revisions every time. A very long list. It might include something like this:

The Mary scene doesn’t quite land the way it wants to. You describe Mary sitting there, facing Courtney, wondering why she’d be okay with your judgmental behavior. But you don’t give us Courtney’s response. Does she answer Mary? Does she look at you? Does she look at her plate? Right now we get your interior reaction to Mary’s question—“I go back to that conversation in my head”—but we don’t get the scene itself resolving. What Courtney does in that moment is the emotional center of the chapter. Even one sentence of what Courtney does would give the scene its body. This may be a place where you need to ask Courtney what she actually remembers doing.

Maddeningly good.

And then I’d spend hours every week deciding if I want to make the changes. If so, how? Sometimes I go, “Yeah, that’s better.” Other times I disagree and move along.

I iterate like this every single day. And then I read a post about AI in writing and wonder if I’m a half-blood at best.

(5) Have Courtney Edit (Again)

I finished my structural revisions and Courtney has, again, come behind and cut more. She’s also added her own thoughts and found ways to bring depth and more contour to the story.

(6) Send it Out

We have a handful of people who are going to get the book after Courtney finishes up her second pass. We want to hear how the book is received. We want to know where it drags. We want to see if people see it as a page-turner or if they’ll finish reading because they have guilty consciences, too, and don’t want to disappoint us. While that goes on I’ll be querying agents after I finish the book proposal I’m organizing (using the same process).

Look Over Garden Walls

I have a writer/editor in the family. I have Courtney, who has edited almost every word I’ve ever written since 2005 and is a good writer. I have friends who are self-published and traditionally published. My name is in a footnote of a traditionally published book that few people have read. I gave pre-pub feedback on a couple of those traditionally published books and failed to give feedback on a self-published one (and still feel guilty about it—sorry, David).

But even with that I’m up against a walled garden of the publishing industry, where you need to know someone who knows someone or you gotta be someone who may or may not actually be someone because they aren’t a purist.

I get it, but my writing has gotten better by using AI.

We’ve gotten the second draft down over 10,000 words from the first draft. It moves more quickly. The scenes do more work. I hear Courtney laugh more as she works through it.

Will it ever get published? I hope so. I like the book proposal and it will at least be humorous if an agent or editor ever sees it. And if not, I had a good time writing it. All with the helpful and ever-ready feedback of Claude.

Are there any other half-bloods out there?

1. Some did engage, often through chats on Substack. One made a connection for me, but I sensed the fit wasn’t right. I figured out who another was through their Reedsy profile, then reached out via email. I got some resources but was too early in the process to hire an editor. So I didn’t fully strike out and I’m grateful for those who lent a hand.