No, I Didn’t Feed My Book to ChatGPT

How I used AI to reflect on my novels—without ever letting it read them or write them

“The reason we go to the artists we go to, or the writers we go to, or the filmmakers we go to is for their point of view. The AI doesn’t have a point of view. It’s point of view is what you tell it the point of view is to be.”
—Rick Rubin, Producer of The Black Crowes - Shake Your Money Maker and Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik , among MANY others.

That quote has been rattling around in my head ever since I heard it. It’s simple, and it’s true. And it cuts through all the panic and posturing I’ve seen in recent weeks about AI and creativity.

Because here’s the thing:
If a computer doesn’t have a point of view, then it can’t create art.
It can imitate, rearrange, reformat.
But it can’t mean anything.
And that’s the difference.

The Companion Is AI-Assisted. But It’s Still Mine.

Let’s be clear right up front. My novels—The Wake of Expectations and A Pleasant Fiction—were written entirely by me. Word by word. Draft by draft. Page after page.

As I’ve discussed before, the complete first draft of Wake was finished almost 20 years ago—well before even the first glint of generative AI was in Silicon Valley’s eye.

Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t have an editor—I did, a really great human one. And it doesn’t mean I didn’t use spell check, grammar check, or the internet for research. I did.

And yes, I’ve even used ChatGPT occasionally for small stylistic suggestions—the kind of thing I’ve described before, like my game of “is the that necessary?” In that use case, it’s basically the same as grammar check—just better. (It doesn’t just flag potential issues or offer replacements; it lets you engage in a conversation about how including or excluding a word affects the rhythm and meaning of the sentence—the way a good copyeditor might.)

But none of that replaces authorship. It supports it.

Now, I know some of you take a more absolutist view on AI. You believe that even that minuscule amount of involvement (what the U.S. Copyright Office refers to as “a de minimis amount”) somehow invalidates the work.

And you’re entitled to your opinion.
Technically and legally, you’re wrong—but you’re entitled to feel however you want.

But the companion volume, Coming of Age, Coming to Terms, is admittedly something different. It’s a collection of interpretive essays, thematic explorations, philosophical tangents, character dissections, and narrative meta-commentary. It’s also almost 400 pages long.

And unlike my novels, I used AI to help me write it. Enough that I can’t claim every word as my own. Enough that I can’t say it’s in my voice. In fact, that was the point. I didn’t want it to sound like me.

But the ideas? The insights? The intellectual framing? Those are mine. Often my exact words, sometimes paraphrased. Always my perspective—just delivered in a voice that isn’t quite mine.

Still, it’s not a personal expression in the same sense as the novels. It’s not art. It’s not supposed to be.

And no—I didn’t “feed the books” into ChatGPT and ask it to write essays for me.

That’s not how it works.

What People Think I Did… and What I Actually Did

Some readers—particularly the 10-15% who are loudest about what they clearly don’t fully understand—will assume I uploaded my manuscript into a chatbot and let it spit out a book about it.

I didn’t.

The AI never read the books. It doesn’t have access to them. There’s no model trained on them. It couldn’t quote a sentence if it tried.

Everything it “knows” about The Wake of Expectations or A Pleasant Fiction? I told it. Through conversation. Through carefully constructed, iterative prompting. Through dialogue that took hours, weeks, months.

If the essays sound like the robot actually read the books, it’s because I’m a really good teacher.

I built the foundation. I explained the scenes. I summarized the arcs. I outlined the themes. Then I asked it questions. I challenged what it said. Corrected it when it made mistakes (and if you’ve used it properly, you know the disclaimer is true: ChatGPT can make mistakes.) I refined it, reviewed it; sometimes I edited it manually, line by line. Other times, I gave it marching orders and had it completely re-draft the essay based on my feedback. And then I did it again, and again, until the result was something that sounded like what I wanted to say, just not in my own voice.

The companion is still my point of view. It’s just delivered through a stylized mirror—one I shaped on purpose.

Yes, I Used Other Tools Too. That’s What Writers Do.

There are “analytical AI” platforms that attempt to do what I did. To provide holistic feedback on narrative and structure. I ran Wake through AutoCrit’s Fiction Analyzer and ProWritingAid’s Manuscript Analysis. I tried ProWritingAid’s Reader Reflection tool, which was still in beta at the time, on A Pleasant Fiction—just to see what it would come up with.

And honestly, it was fun. It was interesting. Occasionally insightful.

But compared to the type of analysis I provide in the Companion, it’s shallow. Like the “books” non-writers churn out when they think AI alone can write for them—people without a point of view trying to fake one.

What I did with the Companion is something else entirely. Those tools analyze your writing and give you automated feedback. They use varying degrees of AI, from traditional natural language processing (NLP) to limited GPT integration. But what their more holistic tools provide is mostly surface-level, mechanical and constrained—at least by comparison. The more granular it gets, the more you get the sense that it can’t see the forest for the trees. In contrast, some of the other more focused feedback that the platforms provide, like the filler word counts and dialogue pacing reports, are genuinely useful.

And honestly, my goal is not to criticize those tools. I’m just saying—the output of automated tools—as impressive as it can sometimes be—doesn’t compare to this companion.

What I did was use generative AI as a dialogue partner, a mirror, and a sculpting tool. I didn't feed the books into an engine and ask for a book report. I built an interactive process of reflection—one that required intention, authorship, and a point of view.

A human point of view.

That’s the difference.

And it shows.

Compare what you get out of something like Fiction Analyzer to Coming of Age, Coming to Terms: Hundreds of pages of character arcs, literary lineage, symbolic choices, grief metaphors, moral contradictions, and thematic echoes.

If you think a robot did that on its own, you don’t understand what AI is or how it works. And frankly, you’re not giving me enough credit.

But then why not sell it?

I’ve previously made a commitment not to sell AI-generated or heavily AI-assisted work. And so, even though I continuously guided the process, even though it’s still my point-of-view, even though my human contribution is more than adequate to justify copyright registration…my answer is still no.

Because it’s different.

And if you want to argue that what I did with the Companion isn’t “writing”… honestly, I can accept that.

It’s like saying listening to an audiobook isn’t exactly “reading”.
It’s not. But it’s still engaging with the material.
It’s achieving the same goal through a different mode.

And the goal for the Companion is not the same as what I’m trying to achieve with my novels.
The novels are personal. Intimate. Artistic.
The Companion is something else—reflective, analytical, interpretive.
It’s valuable, but it’s not the art itself.

Its purpose is communication, not expression. And that intention matters.

That’s why I’m not selling it.
That’s why it’s a gift.

And if I’d wanted to hide the AI involvement, I could have. But I didn’t. Not just because it’s the ethical thing to do, but because I’m not ashamed of it. I’m a writer who won’t use AI to write my novels—but who will use it for everything on the periphery (including this blog).

Because I’m not afraid of the tool. And I’m not afraid of what it says about me to use it—because I’m using it the right way, for the right reason: to add something to my art, not to take away from it.

I know the difference between writing a novel and analyzing it.

And I know what I contributed to the project.

Because the Point of View Was Always Mine

Rick Rubin was right: We go to the artist for their point of view. That’s what separates creation from imitation.

And Coming of Age, Coming to Terms? It’s not imitation. It’s reflection. It’s me, asking questions of myself in a new voice. Using a mirror to go deeper, not shortcutting the climb.

If the AI contributed anything meaningful to this book, it’s because I taught it what mattered. And if you don’t believe that, you’re welcome to try replicating it yourself.

You won’t get close. Not with my novels anyway. Maybe with your own. That’s up to you.

Because the real work wasn’t in the tool.
The real work was in the thinking.

And that goes for reading as much as writing.

At least it should.

Javier

© 2025 Chapelle Dorée Publishing, LLC. All rights reserved. This content may not be reproduced, distributed, or modified without permission.

🎥 For Further Viewing

Music Producer Rick Rubin on AI and Artistic Point of View

“The reason we go to the artists we go to, or the writers we go to, or the filmmakers we go to is for their point of view. The AI doesn’t have a point of view. It’s point of view is what you tell it the point of view is to be.”

Watch the short clip here:
👉 Rick Rubin on AI and Point of View (YouTube Shorts)