The Academy · Editorial · Start Here

Keep the Pen

When AI drafts for you — and when it walks beside your story instead

A gentle guide to inviting AI without losing authorship. Ghostwriter help can suit a blog post; for a story, stay for every word. Built for writers navigating ADHD, dyslexia, English as a second language — and anyone who wants a kind tutor with long memory, not a machine that flattens their voice.

1. Lesson 1 · 10 min

   Two jobs for AI — only one is your novel

   I like AI. I plan to use it. Love JMT was never built to shame that.

   What I do not want is a product that pretends “generate chapter” is the same thing as writing a story. Those are different jobs.

   Sometimes AI-as-ghostwriter is genuinely helpful. A blog post announcing a sale. A newsletter blurb. Admin copy. A rough outline you will throw away. Speed and scaffolding for work that is not the soul of your book — that can free your energy for the pages that matter.

   When it comes to writing a story, I want to be there for every word of it.

   Not because machines are evil. Because the story is how I think, feel, and leave a fingerprint. If a model writes the prose for me, I may get pages faster — and I may also get pages that sound like everyone else’s hallway. Useful for some tasks. Wrong for the novel I’m trying to live inside.

   Love JMT’s Workshop is built for the second job: a scaffold, never a ghostwriter. The tutor asks, suggests, and revises with you. You accept or dismiss. The pen stays in your hand.

   Invite AI to the desk. Keep the pen.

   Exercise

   List three writing tasks you have this month. Mark each G (ghostwriter help is fine) or P (I want to be present for every word). Circle one P task and write its opening sentence yourself — no AI — in five minutes.

2. Lesson 2 · 12 min

   Your barriers are not a broken voice

   A barrier I know well is not “I have nothing to say.” It is getting the saying onto the page when the mind jumps tracks, when letters rearrange themselves, when English is not the first language of the heart.

   ADHD can make the desk feel like a moving target. Dyslexia can make reading your own draft exhausting. Writing in a second language can make every sentence feel like a translation test. None of that means your vision is unclear. It means the path from vision to typed line needs a kinder guide.

   That is what the AI tutor here is for — not to overwrite you, but to walk with you so you shine through.

   Ask it to rephrase a sentence you already wrote, not to invent a chapter you have not lived. Ask it what is confusing in a paragraph you drafted. Ask for structure when your outline dissolved. Ask for a gentler wording when ESL grammar is fighting the emotion you meant.

   Your vision stays yours. The tutor’s job is to clear fog, not to paint a different landscape.

   In Settings you can also turn on Easy reading — OpenDyslexic and wider spacing — so the page itself meets you halfway. Tooling is care. Using it is not cheating.

   Exercise

   Open a messy paragraph you almost abandoned. Ask the Workshop tutor one question only: “What is the clearest version of what I already meant — without adding new plot?” Paste your paragraph. Accept only the changes that still sound like you.

3. Lesson 3 · 11 min

   Long memory for a long book

   Short chat windows forget. Novels do not.

   One reason writers bounce between tools is that the “helpful” AI only knows the last thousand words you pasted. By chapter twelve, it invents a sister who died in chapter three. That is not partnership. That is amnesia with confidence.

   Love JMT is shaped for long-form: binders that hold chapters and story bible together, a story brief the tutor can lean on, Listen so you hear rhythm with your ears, and a craft trail that remembers you typed the work. The point is not surveillance. The point is continuity — so the guide stays with you the whole way.

   When your ADHD session lasts twelve focused minutes, the binder still holds yesterday’s clarity. When dyslexia makes re-reading hard, Listen can carry the cadence. When ESL makes you doubt a phrase, the tutor can workshop that phrase without discarding the chapter around it.

   Long memory is how a sanctuary differs from a speed-gen tab. You return to the same desk. The desk remembers the book.

   Exercise

   In your binder, open or create one Story bible / character note for the person who matters most this week. Write five true lines only. Tomorrow, ask the tutor a question that requires that note — and notice that you are not starting from zero.

4. Lesson 4 · 10 min

   A simple practice so you stay the author

   Here is a rhythm that keeps AI useful and your authorship intact.

   First: draft in your own words — messy is allowed. Voice memo, scrap, typed stumble. Capture before you optimize.

   Second: ask the tutor with a fence. “Help me structure this.” “What is unclear?” “Offer three revision options for this paragraph — I will choose.” Never “write the scene for me” when the scene is the heart of the book.

   Third: accept or dismiss line by line. If a suggestion is smarter but not yours, rewrite it in your mouth before it stays.

   Fourth: for non-story chores — blog, blurb, admin — let AI draft more freely if you want. Name the job out loud so your brain knows which mode you are in.

   Fifth: when you share or submit, use the tools that prove the human work — integrity ledger, Craft Certificate, Shunn or ePub export — so the finish line still belongs to you.

   You do not have to choose between loving AI and loving your voice. You choose which job you are hiring it for.

   Write with AI when you want it. Stay the author always.

   Exercise

   For your next session, write this at the top of the page: “Mode today: story — every word mine.” Draft for fifteen minutes. Then ask the tutor one fenced question. End by underlining one sentence that is unmistakably yours.