My First Novella and How AI Wasn’t Helpful

And maybe that’s why I had so much fun.

Photo courtesy of author

So. I wrote a novella.

That’s not a thing I expected to say. Writing fiction wasn’t the plan. I have a PhD. I’ve written academic books. Articles. Papers. You know, the kind of stuff that makes most people go, “Cool, I’ll just skim the abstract and pretend I read the rest.”

I loved it.

It wasn’t easy and involved a lot of unlearning and learning.

But I had more fun writing this than anything else I’ve done in a long time. It was pure imagination. Not just ideas for improvement or efficiency, but actual “what if” questions. What if we could go back in time? What if disconnecting from technology could save us, or what if it couldn’t?

The novella’s called “Memory Act.” It’s set in a future shaped by AI and robotics, where humanity’s only hope is to step away from all of it. Disconnect, go analog, start again. Predictably, it doesn’t go as planned. Kids start disappearing. A weary detective has to untangle a truth no one wants to face, with help from people he never expected. And in the end, there’s a choice. One that changes everything.

Right now, the story’s with the beta readers.