Brainstorming With the Machine — How AI Can (Potentially) Be Helpful

I've talked a lot about what I don't think AI is good for, so let's discuss something I do actually use it for and where I draw the firm, bright boundaries around its involvement in my process.

I make no secret about the fact that I have AuDHD (Autism/ADHD) and am in a perpetual state of burnout. As all of you know, being creative when your burnt out can be a serious difficulty. While I do not at any point use AI to write for me (every word you see of mine came from my fingers directly), I do want to discuss ways I use it because I both want to offer some insight into my process as well as sharing some use cases for it.

To be clear here, I have said right along I am not anti-AI as a concept. I have serious concerns about the environmental problems, but I have serious concerns about environmental problems regarding Shein/Temu, Walmart, the mining we do for EV batteries, and many other things. I do vote with my wallet as much as possible, however I am also disabled and sometimes need to use less-than-ideal things as accessibility tools. Hence AI’s role.

I am not blind to its impacts, but I also know that the manufacturing process for the braces I wear in factories in China does damage to the environment and might be assembled by… less than ideal labor. Same with the clothes I purchased from Walmart.

This is also my kickoff to an article series about AI because I’ve been talking about it a lot lately and figured doing a formal series would both help me plan my content out a little farther than “what’s on my mind today” as well as offering me a chance to really wrap my head around the nuances of this issue in a way that I think I can share.

As a note, to those of you reading this for free, my articles are released a week early to folks who are supporters of my work! The podcast goes out to everyone at the same time, but articles are a week behind, so if you want things fresh off the press, please consider the $8/month. It helps tell me people find this work valuable as well as helps me dedicate the time to these pieces and my podcast!

Photo by Nick Morrison on Unsplash

This is also on my mind because of a discussion in my church yesterday. I actually worked with other leadership to codify an AI policy that doesn’t allow for pastors to use AI to write sermons or respond to pastoral care emails etc. but does allow them to use it for things like brainstorming (today’s topic) and other things like scheduling, organizing, and internal documents. As well as notetaking during non-sensitive meetings with the consent of everyone present.

That’s because it’s a tool that exists in our world, and we need to stay updated on how we use tools and where we want to use them. Personally, I don’t need a machine telling me what it thinks of God because, frankly, it didn’t go to seminary and isn’t an authority on the human soul. I don’t want to know what AI thinks about the Bible and God. I want to know what humans do. Nor do I want an AI responding to pastoral care requests for people handling the most sensitive experiences of their lives.

During the meeting, there was some push back from someone who thinks AI is the future and that humans should let AI write poetry for us. I vehemently disagree with that notion because AI has never stubbed its toe, fallen in love, or felt wind on its skin. It cannot, by its nature, comprehend the fullness of human experience, no matter how much text it consumes about it. Aaaanyway…

Today, though, I’m talking about brainstorming.

As I said earlier, I am frequently in a state of exhaustion and burnout. I’m trying to work through that and be better about it, but the reality is that the world is not really permissive to the amount of rest I need if I’m going to be able to accomplish the things I want to accomplish. That means pushing through. A lot.

Given that disabled people are expected to somehow juggle work, home life, and remembering to shower, I am forever struggling with what feels like an endless to-do list that never seems to quite finish because things are constantly added to it. (What do you mean I need to edit, write a podcast, clean the cat boxes, and engage in self-care today?) If I didn’t have the supports I do, I wouldn’t be able to function because, realistically, I can do what I do or I can be a functional human being who eats three meals a day and does chores. Doing both is more than I am capable of.

That isn’t just the AuDHD, to be clear. I have Ehlers-Danlos, chronic migraines, POTS, and a bunch of other health challenges that sometimes take me out for days at a time. Today, for example, my upper back is out of alignment, so every time I breathe it feels like someone is sticking an ice pick between my shoulder blades and twisting. That isn’t an exaggeration, either. I am currently at about a 6 on the pain scale. I also woke up with a migraine, which I had to take meds for first off if I wanted to write this at all.

With that in mind, one of the things I struggle frequently with are content ideas. It’s not that things don’t sometimes hit me that I need to discuss. Sometimes I’ll watch a video or catch a conversation that I need to create an article about, and that will drive me write something. However, I will say that coming up with endless content to present to people is very hard. You all know that. Sometimes you go to the well, and you come up dry. This is particularly true when we are trying to create new, interesting, and timely articles every week.

This is where sometimes AI helps me. I go to Claude and ask for a list of article ideas. I’ll look through it, see what happens. If none of them vibe with me, sometimes the list will spark an idea of my own. Or I’ll tell it a rough subject that I’m thinking about writing about, and it spits out things surrounding that. Talking to it sometimes acts like jumpstarting my mental engine, which allows the engine (my brain) to start humming. With the volume of burnout I am consistently in, sometimes the engine just does not turn over and doesn’t have the juice. Using this method often gives me enough of a jump that I can at least get where I’m going.

Now, when I am doing this, it’s not flawless. There are times when I don’t have enough in the tank to write an effective prompt, and thereby get no useful ideas. Sometimes the AI doesn’t send anything useful despite a decent prompt. It’s not a flawless process, and there are also plenty of times when I know what I want to say without asking AI for ideas. This isn’t so much me offloading my creativity (because it’s not actually creating anything) as it is sending myself a list of writing prompts.

For example, here’s an exchange between Claude and I (typo included) about what I wanted to write.

Can you help me come up with an article for my Substack?

I’d be happy to help you brainstorm a Substack article!

To give you the most useful suggestions, it would help me to know a bit more about what you’re thinking:

What’s on your mind?

• Do you have a general topic area you want to write about (publishing, editing, neurodivergence, your fiction work, etc.)?

• Is there something that’s been bothering you or that you’ve been thinking about lately that might make a good piece?

• Are you looking for something for your author newsletter versus something more industry/craft-focused?

Any particular length or tone you’re aiming for?

I know your voice tends toward the direct, warm, self-aware style with conversational prose—and you’ve written everything from personal essays about the physical demands of editing work to industry pieces about AI in publishing to lighter “cheating on my WIP” author updates.

What direction feels right for this one?

I want it to be something about writing and publishing. Maybe something timely.

Got it. Let me think about what’s timely right now in the writing and publishing space that would fit your voice and expertise.

A few directions that could work:

Industry/Business Angles:

• The ongoing fallout from major publishers’ AI deals and what that means for working writers

• Tariffs and their actual impact on book production costs (if that’s still actively unfolding in May 2026)

• The shift in how authors are expected to show up on social media vs. what actually moves books

• Publishing’s continued contraction and what that means for debut authors right now

Craft/Process Angles:

• The gap between “writing advice” and “writing a book people can actually buy” (bridges your two books nicely)

• What to do when you finish a draft right as the publishing landscape shifts under your feet

• The myth that you need to understand the industry before you start writing vs. reality

Labor/Professional Angles:

• Unpaid author labor expectations in 2026 (feels like it connects to your Just Part of the Job series)

• What “platform building” actually costs in time and money

• The invisible work of being a working author that no one talks about in publishing advice

Seasonal/Moment Angles:

• If there’s a particular author controversy or industry moment happening right now

• Summer writing slump reality (if we’re heading into that)

Which of these directions feels most alive to you right now? Or is there something else happening in publishing that’s caught your attention and made you think “someone needs to say something about this”?

Hmm. I have an author i’m working with who has been very stressed about reader expectations and meeting those. Is there something in that?

Oh yeah, there’s absolutely something in that. That’s a rich topic that hits multiple pressure points for authors right now.

Here are some angles I’m seeing:

The Core Tension:

• The impossible bind: readers want consistency (same tone, same tropes, same everything) but also freshness (don’t repeat yourself, keep it interesting)

• How “reader expectations” has become code for “write the same book over and over but make it feel new”

• The difference between serving your readers vs. being trapped by them

The Labor Reality:

• Reader expectations now include: the book itself, constant social media presence, parasocial availability, explanation of every creative choice, advance notice of content, trigger warnings as granular as scene-by-scene breakdowns

• When did “writing books readers want” become “performing the author readers want”?

• The exhaustion of trying to be everything to everyone while also, you know, writing

The Creative Toll:

• What happens to your craft when you’re writing to avoid disappointing people vs. writing to tell the story

• The fear spiral: if I diverge from what worked, will they leave? But if I don’t grow, will I lose myself?

• How reader expectations can calcify into creative prison

The Business Pressure:

• How algorithms and platforms have weaponized reader expectations (write to market, hit the tropes, don’t surprise anyone)

• The shift from “find your readers” to “become what readers expect”

• When reader feedback stops being useful and starts being destructive

What Actually Helps:

• Distinguishing between craft feedback and preference policing

• Building boundaries around what feedback you take in and when

• The difference between respecting your readers and being held hostage by them

Does one of these feel like the heart of what your author is struggling with? Or is there a specific manifestation of this stress that’s showing up for them that we should center the piece around?

I had a few more exchanges with it because a lot of that didn’t quite fit what I’m doing, and I wasn’t happy with all the angles it took. However, I eventually did write an article based on some of the thoughts in this exchange:

As you can see above, through this whole process, I am not replacing my writing with anything. I am not even asking it to write me an outline for the subject. I will admit I’ve tried that in the past, and none of it ever ends up what I’d say, so I just ask it for a topic and then riff on my own because, well, I have a lot of opinions (you may have noticed).

Now, I do think you should be careful when doing this and not just default to whatever the AI suggests. That’s a trap some people fall into. They just write whatever the tells them to write, and they end up going down weird rabbit holes and straight into the ground. And not in the usual way of rabbit holes. This blog is not an AI-driven blog; I decide what I write and when. But… there are times when I absolutely need the help visualizing a direction because I am stuck in brain fog and cannot see my own mental hands in front of my face.

I also, as I’ve said, draw the line at having AI write so much as a word for me. I don’t use its language, its phrasing, or even its article titles. They’re usually the wrong voice for me, so I don’t. I prefer my own thoughts and words come from me rather than from the machine.

Now, I will admit, that I tried seeing what it would do with writing articles for me early this year. Everyone in my feed was talking about training it on your voice and having it write things for you and claiming it would revolutionize the process, so I tested that. I fed it a bunch of my articles, and I asked it to write something in my voice. It failed so dramatically that I spent about five hours editing one article before giving up and throwing the whole thing away. It just sounded nothing like me. And there was absolutely no saving it. I usually take about 2 hours stem to stern to write, edit, and polish a thing.

As with most things, thanks to my autistic nature, I had to explore something deeply, experience it, and analyze it to decide that it was not—and would never be—for me. Every time I’ve tried to have any of the AI platforms write “in my voice” it falls flat and sounds like itself. Because it’s AI; it has its own voice (as I’ve proven several times in other articles).

In the end, you can use or not use it as you choose, to be clear, and I want to emphasize that throwing ideas at a machine dartboard to come up with what to write doesn’t limit my own creativity, nor does it replace it. However, when I am trapped in a circumstance where I need to write something because leaving paid subscribers with nothing for weeks isn’t an option, using it to spit out writing prompts and shape a content schedule so I can plan things out when I just don’t have the mental wherewithal to do so is a helpful strategy.

Also, I want to note that I don’t use this method for my fiction writing. Fiction comes from a completely different place in my mind and soul. Those stories are out of somewhat different stuff, and I don’t have the same pressure to be quite as consistent with creation that I do with my blogs. My fiction writing is important, and I love it, and I keep going back to it, but it’s not quite the same bread-and-butter part of my income that my non-fiction platforms are, and it requires different things. My discussion of AI in this article series will be focused around its function in my non-fiction spaces and its uses there.

What do you think about this? Whether you're a fellow neurodivergent creator finding your own workarounds, or just someone trying to figure out where you land on the AI question, I'd love to hear about it in the comments. And if you want to follow along as I dig deeper into this stuff, this is the first piece in a longer series. Stick around. It's going to get interesting.