Could the AI stand behind Naito Diamond?
Hi, I'm Naito Diamond, author of speculative fiction, developmental editor, and repeat pattern designer.
I know how to cook on a medieval stove, build a treehouse, and I'm raising a German Shepherd, three cats and a rooster. I grew up in the forest, so I'm full of unique facts that give color and texture to my stories.
My short stories are featured in two volumes of A Season for Romance anthology: Spring Blossoms and Summer Simmer, as well as Flights of Fantasy, an anthology from Iron Faerie Publishing.
There is a big buzz about authors using AI to create their works, and I'd like to share my opinion about this topic.
So let's get started!
As a nerd who loves technology and exploring new prospects, I use some AI in my daily life. Grammarly and ProWritingAid apps help me solve grammar issues before my alpha readers set eyes on my first drafts.
I have also played with ChatGPT to create interview questions to answer in my author bio. I must admit some of those questions really made me think more deeply a topic. It encouraged me to update my author page with my mission, themes and things that inspire me.
ChatGPT can create prompts to help authors break their writing blocks. Authors can use AI to boost creativity and brainstorm ideas while their writing pals are sleeping. However, it would never replace the need for 'breathing' critique partners.
I love how technology makes our life easier. But I'm against authors generating passages of their content with AI.
The main reason I’m against generating passages with AI in my writing is simply because it doesn’t sound like me. It’s crucial for authors to develop their own voice, and making shortcuts with AI takes away the most valued thing from authors - the ability to express themselves.
When you rewrite your text for the fifth or seventh or tenth time, you are always rethinking the message you want to convey. You dig deep inside yourself and discover the gems that lay buried deep within yourself.
With the usage of AI, this ability to develop and grow vanishes, and readers can feel it. The primary reason people pick books to read is to have a connection with somebody.
AI doesn't have any message it wants to send to us. Even if there's a certain topic set by somebody, AI doesn't have its own opinion about it. It can't look at the topic from a fresh angle and write something new.
All AI does is provide a generalized idea of the topic, while readers seek for authenticity. So even if a story has a basic structure and flawless grammar, AI stories have no soul and are incapable of resonating with readers.
Encouraging people to think outside the box, one story at a time...
I love the freedom within the genre of High Fantasy that allows me to build entirely new worlds, create complex systems, plot intrigues, seed mysteries, have amazing action-packed moments...and maybe add some romance as sub-plot.
Psychological thrillers are difficult for me to write but totally worth the struggle. It's a specific sub-genre within the broader genre of Mystery/Thriller with a heavy focus on the unstable emotional states of characters. They take a lot of emotional input and have a special place in my heart.
In magical realism, my main goal is to blend magical elements within a realistic atmosphere to create a deeper understanding of reality. In these stories, magical elements are presented in a straightforward manner, as normal occurrences, juxtaposing the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of thought.
In my sci-fi stories, I speculate upon current or future technologies. While it's often paired with the fantasy genre under the umbrella of speculative fiction, science fiction is largely based on scientifically established or postulated laws of nature.
In these stories I explore beings and phenomena outside the realm of scientific understanding of the natural world. In this collection I only play with creatures from folklore, fairy tales, and popular culture, such as angels, demons, forest fairies and Forest Keeper. At some point, I would also like to come up with stories about psyonix.
War stories are the shortest in my collection, but they turned out to be the most powerful. Inspired by news broadcasts, they came through very strongly and have had a big impact on my readers...
8 Topics That Are The Areas Of High Interest For Me
Military Strategies and War
For over ten years, I have been interested in military history and strategy. So when I write about war, I am keen to bring my knowledge to the page.
Unintentionally, I picked an angle that is not often seen by others. I write about children living on war-torn land and having their dreams torn away from them, about soldiers from opposite sides meeting and understanding that they have more in common than they thought, rather than being defined by something (often no more than an ideology) that separates them.
My most recent war poem features civilians living in a war-zone and calls them Heroes of the War.
Human Nature, Mental Breakdowns and Psychology
I have ADHD and it is fascinating for me to try and understand how my brain works and how I can influence it. While I don't have a degree in psychology, I have made a study of the subject, and I'm confident in my understanding of mind tricks, the mechanism of psychological trauma and its far-reaching effects.
What does it add to my writing?
I like to write about socially successful people (e.g. the billionaire in On The Bridge or the emperor in Lonesome Emperor) and show them behaving in a domineering manner in public. But once they are alone, they have panic attacks, mental breakdowns and other expressions of vulnerability.
Medical Innovations and Technology
My obsession with innovations, especially in medical and mental health fields, is so strong that it sometimes shocks me. If I weren’t a writer, I most probably would work for an IT company, developing androids for social needs or creating prosthetic arms and legs.
The symbiosis of human and technologies is the topic I like to explore in my science fiction stories: Stray, Mimicry and Mentor For Aliens.
I have one work-in-progress - Singularity Point - where I question whether or not an NPC can understand that they are only NPC. What makes a human different from AI?
Mythology, Folklore and Shamanism
Do you know someone who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of mythological creatures? Who has spent her entire childhood in the forest and has a strong connection with nature? Who gets goosebumps whenever she hears the mention of shamanism and mythological creatures?
Nice to meet you. My childhood summers spent in the forest, pasturing goats and listening to my grandparents telling tales about mythological creatures - Forest Keeper, mermaids that lure people into the woods and let them sink in the bog - had ignited a love for the supernatural world deep inside me. And I’m willing to share it with you.
Animals & Familiars
My pets - especially my 3 cats - are the ones who inspire me the most. They are so talented in their laziness. Cats can be completely relaxed when they are asleep - resembling a picture of sleeping beauty - but as soon as they hear something, they become fully alert.
They have their own characters and, unlike people, they don’t plot behind your back. Most people love them and I love to add them to my stories.
In my main fantasy series (Tau Ceti universe) I have soldiers whose mounts are ligers - hybrids of lions and tigers, much larger creatures than either parent.
The prince from my Red String - flash fiction series - has a familiar, a caracal named Freya.
Different Cultures, Languages and Diversity
Whenever people hear that I speak English as my third language, they are shocked. When I say to them I would like to learn another language - their eyes widen even more. When I say that one of the languages I want to learn is Sanskrit - they are dead.
Seriously, I enjoy learning new languages and exploring other cultures. I love the diversity we have on our planet and think it’s crucial to understand each other.
There’s nothing better than going around the world, meeting people from different cultures, trying to understand their POV and enlarge the understanding of our world. My short fiction Mentor for Aliens is about how we can gain from an understanding of other cultures.
Ancient History and Caves
I'm fascinated with history and caves. Maybe it’s related to my great-grandparents’ house with a medieval stove where I watched my great-grandmother cook.
I still remember how we lived there with my parents. Among all the seasons, the winters were the most fascinating. Casting shadows in the house, the fire created an eerie atmosphere. The warmth of the medieval stove titles embraced me when I returned from outside. My father brought wrinkled apples from the winter storage room and boiled them so they would be easier to peel.
So nostalgic. Whenever I think about it I feel like someone who had been running from danger and then found a cave as a secure place to hide.
In my main series (Tau Ceti universe) I have a culture of semi-sprites who live in caves and have their folklore passed from one generation to the next through songs carved on the walls of the cave.
Marketing, Economics and Business
I have left my major background as the last piece to understand my character, even though I have a great understanding of the topic.
Some might think that business, economics and marketing are dire and could only help me if I write contemporary stories. But my business knowledge, especially meetings in business club, helped me to create a relatable character, the CEO of a corporation.
Ian from On The Bridge is good at helping business owners meet their business partners and create deals that would serve both sides. He knows the importance and cost of information.
In Undercover, I used my business knowledge to create a setting for espionage.
I try to create stories where the protagonist's POV is contradicted by the antagonist's POV, letting readers to choose a side. I try to stay away from judging and summarizing events happening on the page, using Show vs Tell. My interest in psychology helps me to develop complex characters, and while some characters might not be likeable, I try to make my readers cheer for them.
Inspiration. It’s the strange thing that comes to me in the most unexpected places: when I’m outside shoveling snow, when I’m taking a hot shower, or washing the plates after dinner. Does inspiration have something to do with water? Perhaps. In any case, your mind needs to be flexible to create. It’s hard to create when you are under pressure.
I have worked as editor-in-chief for A Seasons for Romance anthology and help to developmental edit 44 short love stories. I have put my insights into the blog post Decoding Romance: The Unique Blend in A Season for Romance Anthologies.
Fiction helps people experience different aspects of life and meet people they can't in their ordinary lives. Fiction helps us gain new information without any risk and create new ways for us to communicate with the world around us.
As a tech geek, I usually come up with intriguing science fiction stories when I come across a controversial question I would like to answer. I'm not afraid to dig into topics such as the ethics of usage of emerging technologies. Also, I write science fiction stories when I want to create a working system; it's easier to write a science fiction story than to develop a working code.
My email list subscribers are the first to receive the call to become my beta readers. They are also the first to be informed about complimentary ARC copies.
They are the ones who follow me through my author's journey and hear all the behind-the-scene stories.
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Naito Diamond has participated in the international projects
A Season For Romance
Anthologies of short love stories
Hoping to reveal all shades of romance, we have gathered together twelve authors from around the world, including Canada, India, Lithuania, and the United States for this diverse and inclusive sweet romance anthology.
In Summer Simmer, you will find true love in a variety of genres and styles, from first kisses to second chances, at pivotal junctures and in bittersweet moments. There is beauty, tenderness, angst, and even some humor and sizzle in these carefully crafted stories meant to transport you to magical worlds where love is just moments away.
global insides-the vaccine
verse, prose, and images from souls around the world during the 2020/2021 COVID-19 pandemic
A year into the pandemic, with a glimmer of hope that the vaccine will provide herd immunity and a return to “normal,” how are we? In this third book of the global insides series, peer into the lives of people all over the world, view their insides through their art, and learn their deepest thoughts and feelings at a very vulnerable moment for humanity. You will find verse, prose, and images from Belgium, Brazil, Botswana, Bulgaria, Canada, Columbia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Oman, Palestine, Poland. Portugal, Russia, Singapore, Tanzania, Spain, the UK, and the U.S.
