A Book Co-Written With My Son

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In the late 90s, and early 2000s, I read and wrote voraciously - mostly fantasy and some sci-fi. Unfortunately, I stopped writing around 2006, with a brief break in 2008 to write a novella.

In 2023, when ChatGPT rose to fame, I decided to use it to answer two questions:

• Can it write a book for me?
• How can it help me organize and plan a book?

As it turns out, ChatGPT can't really write good books -- not in terms of direct, powerful, writing. And in the process of prompting it, you end up writing a LOT of content, but prompts, not book content.

But, ChatGPT can help in a number of other ways: planning, outlining, brainstorming, taking an idea and expanding it, and more. So I started to plan, and then co-author, a book with my second child, which became Dr. Vortex's Web of Shadows. It reflected her, to some degree, with the cool kid punk hijabi protagonist and her robotic partner.

I also quickly learned how to publish the book on Amazon. Encouraged by the success, and excited by the process, my third child got super stoked. So, we started planning, and then writing his book, which became The Amazing Whisker Warriors.

At that time, my youngest was only seven, which is a bit young for a Young Adult novella. Regardless, he persisted and insisted. Finally, that project, the Last Standing Dragon, came to fruition. While I initially dragged my heels, I finished writing it early this year, and editing it a few days ago.

While not my typical style or tone, it contains friendly dragons, ancient magic, helpful siblings, scary wyverns, a haunted cave. If you have kids around 8-12 years old who would love to read something like this, with clean themes and a solid message, why not give the book a look?

You can read more about the book here.