For me, it was key that what I made was made by me. We all have a line, and I did not start along this journey only to reach the end. The journey itself was key. I wanted to build it myself, piece by piece, line by line. Every moment of joy, every moment of frustration. Untempered and honest, and me.
I did use spell checkers, and I allowed for grammar checks. I mean, who amongst us really know what commas are for?
I did use an editor, but he is a real man, a professional.
I have thousands of files.
I spent decades working in Information Technology, and there are few who have worked in this space who have not become paranoid about backups. Throughout this process, I would write each day, and I would email the document to my kindle, and I would review there. Every new day, sometimes several times a day, I would create a new version of the document, number it, and save it.
Save it to my one-drive, to several email accounts and to external drives. It is only ever the backup that you don't take, that you regret. What does this mean? I have date/time-stamped delta versions of each novel existing in several locations and numbering into the thousands.... Okay, the low thousands. But date-stamped, preserved in gmail and Microsoft mailboxes... as further backups.
Fully verifiable.
Yes, once I had secured permission from the artist I used for my cover designs, I have since created trailers using A.I. I have even used A.I to create music based on extracts I took from the novels. But this is not where I see my art. The trailers, this would have been impossible without securing Pixar to assist, not without A.I. Prohibitive, my any objective measure, and otherwise impossible. I have lost sleep over the music though. That was harder to justify. The words are mine, cut directly from the novels.… But the music itself. I cheated there.