New Short Story Release: Worth a Thousand Words

I recently gave a talk for the Maryland Writers Association on using AI tools for creative writing. I felt confident giving this talk because I’ve fully integrated tools like Chat GPT and Midjourney into my workflow.

Specifically, Chat GPT was been a wonderful tool to bounce ideas off of (no worries, I’m not using AI to write my stories and all my words are still my own). I pulled up the chatbot on my desktop and asked for some sci-fi or thriller short story ideas. It gave me a list of quite a few, but this one intrigued me the most:

Perception Alteration: A young artist discovers a mysterious painting that seems to change every time they look at it. As they become obsessed with unraveling the painting's secrets, their perception of reality begins to shift, blurring the lines between what is real and what is imagined.

I decided that instead of centering the story around an artist, it would be about a young woman who inherited a peculiar painting and that the changes in the artwork over time would be subtle. I also didn’t want my character to devolve into total madness–not in this story at least. Coincidentally, I named the main character Doreen before realizing the clear parallels between my story and Portrait of Dorian Gray.

I’m really excited to share this story, but also a bit apprehensive. I’ve had friends tell me this is the best thing I’ve written, to others saying that they hate the romance aspect and I should change the love interest. Ultimately, I decided diverse representation is more important to me than ruffling a few feathers, so if you don’t want to read sex scenes with a non-binary character, maybe skip this story.

To help celebrate the launch of “Worth a Thousand Words,” I’ll be featuring artistic endeavors throughout the month on my social media. I’ll share tidbits about my favorite artworks and the artistic activities I do in addition to writing.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of “Worth a Thousand Words” directly from me, you can do so here:

Buy “Worth a Thousand Words”

You can also purchase the story from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Eventually, after I release a few more shorts, I’d like to compile them into a paperback anthology. But for now, releasing the individual pieces allows me to continue releasing fresh content while working on my next novel.