As a writer and editor observing tectonic shifts in the publishing and journalism industry, I have developed a solid and transparent policy on the tools and technology I use in my writing work.

As a journalist who trained and started working professionally for established publications in 2010, I have been guided by a strong ethical standpoint on journalism and storytelling which directs my use of technology alongside my protection of sources, integrity towards interviews and first-person quotes, and overall committment to the reader. I’ve been doing many of the processes detailed below since I trained in 2008. That’s more than 18 years ago. At the cusp of social media, pre AI. I truly believe in the value of good writing for the future of our humanity. So here's a stab about how I try to set myself up to achieve the closest I personally can to that value in 2026.

3 Sept 2026 — a list of principles, beliefs and values which guide my process and life as a writer, editor, and journalist

• I am an ally to friends who are members of the Anthropic lawsuit. I do not believe the work of authors, journalists, and writers should be stolen and used to train AI. I actively I believe there are strong ethical and environmental issues when it comes to how Gen-AI shapes the world.

• I also believe writing, and the art of writing, is one of few pursuits in my life I would like to master. Every day spent working on writing, thinking about writing, and developing its craft brings me joy and a deep abundant sense of purpose—regardless of where those words end up or who reads them later. I do not want to give over the process of this work to any machine.

• I have a serious professional and non-professional interest and investment in my own ability to do the critical thinking, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and learning necessary to be a writer.

• I do not use AI to generate, edit, ideate, input, use, or change any words that I write across fiction, nonfiction, professional writing, and poetry. To effect: all my writing.

• I conduct as much research as possible in person, via books, or through internet research drawing on my years sourcing, interviewing and researching as a journalist.

• I draft all creative fiction, creative nonfiction, and poetry works in Scrivener, which has no AI element. I store my work both in Google Docs, and Pages, exporting multiple drafts at the end of each creative writing day to Apple iCloud and Dropbox. I do not use AI for any idea generation, or to help me think in any way about my writing. I do not use AI for any images or graphics, or any element of these works.

• I choose not to use AI in my work as a writer because I believe my own ability will only progress and be honed through doing every single aspect of the work (before and on the page) myself. I do not wish to bring in any non-human element or hive-mind which is built on probable outcomes, generic summaries, and designed to deliver a finished, smoothed out product which does not incorporate, or even know about, the struggle of the process, or human suffering.

• I love working with people, especially editors, rather than screens and bots.

• I believe when I use Generative AI for any task, my brain gets a bit stupider. I would like to get smarter as I age, and better at writing.

• I use Marker as a brilliant writer tool for all my work with and for Marker, and as a strategist in the editorial and community space. Marker has an inbuilt ‘Editor’ which is powered by AI to make smart writing suggestions

Some additional detail about my process, for other writers who crave to know:

• For every book project, I have a copious note taking jamboree. Mainly: pen and paper, and hundreds and hundreds of post-its, as well as Apple Notes on the go. The writing process for me always starts with storing clips of ideas, prose, language, and dialogue in note form. And lots of time in my head, in the dark, thinking.

• Where possible, I do the bulk of my research for my books in person—by conducting in-person interviews, or interviews on the phone (recorded on Voice Memo, not Zoom), and by reading paperback texts in libraries and archives. I have sometimes used Apple Voice Memo’s transcription, as well as Otter and Descript for journalism. I use Granola for note taking in my paid (non-writing) work calls. In the past I have used Google searches to source websites and archives in my research. I have always jumped passed and ignored AI summaries, however I cannot be sure that my eye didn’t glide over those first responses and be influenced by them. We humans are nothing if not lazy. Therefore, since today I have switched to the European search engine Ecosia, which has a tree planting project alongside its commitment to climate action, privacy, and transparency. And no AI summary. Having worked for and with many of them, I do not know a single tech company which is perfect and 100% ethical. But I try and choose what I can as a consumer and user with thoughtfulness and rigour.

• I use the dictionary and thesaurus app on my laptop, as well as a paperback doorstop Oxford dictionary and thesaurus, and various other paper reference books for emotional and literary terms.

• I do not use any AI or AI-tool to check spelling or grammar or any other task related to writing, cognitive, intelligent or otherwise. (I do not and cannot rule out smart aspects of computers like autocomplete or autocorrect—which are likely also powered by AI. If you use computers and phones as a daily person in the world you have to accept that you are using tools now powered in new ways.)

• I default to conversations with people—regular folks and experts on certain topics—for everything else.

• I spend a lot of writing time thinking, especially in the dark while my kids are going to sleep. My brain seems to be the best tool around for seeing patterns and working out problems. I like to power it up as much as possible.

• When I’m ready to experiment with words, I start with notes and Scrivener. I mostly work there from then on.

• In 2025, after ignoring them for a while, I tried a Gen AI tool to see what it would suggest for naming a shop in my novel, and the ideas it came up with were so repulsively bad, I vowed never to use it again. I also tried multiple AI tools to see what they would do if I asked it to convert a chapter from first-person present tense, to first-person past. With this experiment, I actively felt my brain getting stupider for cutting down the time it took to do the task, and I didn’t like the additional suggestions the AI came back with about the chapter, which seemed to fester and spore in my brain producing new doubts which weren’t previously there. I will always be curious about how AI might help writers in all other supporting tasks as a self-employed person. For example, I have used AI in the past to help me with maths, percentages, fee quotes, and other grunt work and areas for running a freelance business where I don’t want to become an expert. Though in all honesty, I often just do this myself. I’m sure it could make my spreadsheets better. I just don’t like chatbots.

• Writing is one of the few mental skills I am inherently interested in become a master at. I want to learn every single tiny aspect of the craft of writing, which even a full day fixing commas will bring. It sort of pains me that I have to write this all out, but that seems to be what the shakeup of the publishing world is calling for. I’ve worked so hard at teaching myself to be a creative writer, and a good journalist, as have many other writers. It would be a very big waste if all that was destroyed by unfounded accusations. Like other writers, I’m documenting my process to mitigate this potential.

• In July 2026 I started working as a consultant for Marker, a writing tool being built by a magnificent team in London. I use Marker as a modern writing tool for some of my professional editorial and strategic work for Marker themselves. Marker’s Editor, which is powered by Gen AI, is designed to support the writing process and I’m helping the team figure out how to make it awesome and something writers will want to use, which doesn’t take away the process. The founders and team have the same ethics and feelings towards Gen AI as me, and I’m excited by what Marker is making. Still, I always make the first draft in Marker, for customer emails, strategic documents, and marketing, and rarely use its Editor feature. It has an amazing superthesaurus and other fun aspects.

• I use Substack’s inbuilt features for producing my published work on Substack.

• I’m a big fan of printing out, reading aloud, and transferring to Kindle to find faults. I also have asked the computer to read aloud my manuscript to detect errors using Apple Voiceover. I don’t like the voice so I stopped. I sometimes record myself reading my work aloud.

• My favourite places, as in physical spaces, to write are currently: The Hypatia Trust (archive room) where I volunteer in the bookshop and for events, the Morrab Library Elizabeth Trefry room, and trains (or any transport really).

• I use tracks like the audiobook of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of Own’s Own as a hype tune when I’m walking to the library or trust, and I use mynoise.net to drown out any sounds. I listen to Erland Cooper’s BBC Sounds tracks sometimes too.

• I change where I work for drafting and editing. Aparently just moving the seat one space down can trigger a newness in the mind to switch from first draft mode to editing.

And that’s all the lot of it. I expect there’s more, but how nuanced should one go? I could go into my thoughts about AI in general, for writing and beyond, but that’s for another day. Onwards!