Is AI a Useful Tool? (An Ask B&L Episode)

In this Ask Beth & Lisa episode, the hosts dive into the complex topic of using artificial intelligence as a writing tool. They share personal anecdotes, practical strategies, and ethical considerations for writers navigating AI in the creative process.

Key Discussion Points:

• Recent Highlights: Beth and Lisa reference two previous episodes with editor Joel Brigham and encourage listeners to grab the accompanying cheat sheets at writerswithwrinkles.net by signing up for the newsletter.
• AI as a Writing Tool: The duo clarifies that AI should not be used as a ghostwriter but can serve as an effective assistant in the writing process.
• Ethical Use Cases:
  • Organizing messy revision notes into actionable workflows.
  • Generating setting-specific sensory details.
  • Providing era-specific context for historical scenes.
  • Verifying world-building consistency in fantasy and speculative fiction.
• Cautionary Insights:
  • AI-generated writing often lacks voice and over-explains.
  • Always fact-check AI outputs, especially historical or technical information.
  • Be wary of labeling files poorly—both hosts share horror stories of lost drafts and mismatched versions.
• Creative Challenges:
  • Writing and revising across genres.
  • Navigating tech hiccups and summer distractions.
  • Rediscovering joy in storytelling through character and genre shifts.

Conclusion:
Beth and Lisa emphasize that AI, when used ethically and strategically, can streamline parts of the writing process without replacing creativity. They encourage listeners to share their own AI usage stories and remind writers to trust their instincts—especially when choosing literary agents. Don’t forget to check out the private Facebook group, The Waiting Room, for peer support and upcoming questions for literary agent Leslie Zampetti’s September episode.

Mentioned Links:

• Cheat Sheets: writerswithwrinkles.net
• Facebook Group: The Waiting Room (via Writers With Wrinkles community)

Transcript

BETH MCMULLEN

Hi friends, I'm Beth McMullen. And I'm Lisa Schmid. And we're the co -hosts of Writers with Wrinkles. This is season four, episode 15. And today we have an Ask Beth and Lisa episode, and we are talking about AI, everyone's favorite topic in publishing, right? It is not.

BETH MCMULLEN

I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Did you note the sarcasm? Oh my gosh.

LISA SCHMID

my gosh.

BETH MCMULLEN

Anyway, it's a good topic. Before we jump into that, just a reminder to everyone, our last two episodes with Joel Brigham, who's an editor, were really full of amazing advice to help you be a better writer drafting and revising. So we encourage you to go and listen to those. We created a couple of cheat sheets because there's so much good stuff in those episodes. We wanted to encapsulate it in something that you could just really print out and keep on your desk. So there are two cheat sheets. The way to get those is to go to our website, writerswithwrinkles .net and sign up for our newsletter and that will get you access to the cheat sheet. So that only comes out once a month. It's not spammy, just kind of a... preview of what's upcoming on the show and you get extras like these cheat sheets. I loved those episodes. I literally have my own cheat sheets on my desk.

LISA SCHMID

You know what? He was so packed full of good advice and information. And there was a couple of times I was, I was jotting down notes and then all of a sudden I remembered, I'm like, oh, well, Beth's going to get this for me anyway, because this is what you always do. So stop doing it. But it's really good.

BETH MCMULLEN

good. I'm in the middle of writing this thriller. Well, I'm in the middle of revising this thriller. And I, at the end of that episode, I always keep notes when we're recording so that I could, you know, if there are places that I need to change things or cut stuff out or whatever. But my notes from that episode were all for myself. They were all like, okay, you got to fix this and you got to fix that because you're doing that thing that he said, don't do that thing. And it was just really, I mean, it just proves that no matter how much writing you do and how many books you publish, you still. are learning stuff all the time.

LISA SCHMID

Well, and not just that, you know, just starting a new project. And I think everyone goes through this. And I think I've mentioned this before, is that sometimes you just forget how to write because it's been so long since you've drafted, you know, that manuscript that you've been working on. And then because then you jump into revisions and then editing and all that stuff that there's a long period where you're not drafting. And so all of a sudden, when you're starting something new, it's I don't know how to write anymore. And that's kind of that's that phase where I'm at right now is that I feel as if I don't know how to write anymore.

BETH MCMULLEN

It doesn't get easier. I think there are people who out there who think that by the time you get to your, you know, fifth book, your 10th book, your 20th book, it's just a simple process. But I almost feel like it gets. harder because when you're writing your first book and you don't know anything, you don't have all that baggage and you're just kind of like, yeah, okay, I'll do this and it will work wonderfully. And then by the time you get to your other, as you kind of get more experience and publish more books, then you start to second guess yourself and you start to doubt what you didn't even know was a thing when you first started out. So I think it does. It actually feels to me as if it gets harder, especially if you're switching genres, because then, of course, you're trying to make sure that you are paying attention to the conventions of that new genre. And that just feels like you've suddenly been dropped into another school that you never attended before and you don't even know where the bathroom is. So it's a thing.

LISA SCHMID

a thing. It is a thing. And I think the first when you're on your first book, you know, there's such a joy that goes with that, that you'll never. I don't know. I've never been able to recapture that, you know, that joy of like, oh my God, I can hardly sit down and play with this and do that. I've never captured that again, you know, from the first book. And I still enjoy writing, but it's more of like that first book. It's all wonderment and excitement. And then, you know, I think a little bit of reality.

BETH MCMULLEN

bit of reality. Reality reigns on your parade. It's true. It's true. I think that's why I like to switch genres because I get bored. It's not even bored. I just feel like I want that excitement again. And I get that excitement when I go off to do something totally different where I feel like I have no clue what's happening and I'm inventing this stuff as I go along.

LISA SCHMID

Yeah, I get that. I recently, you know, I've been struggling with the story. that I wanted to start and, and I'd found this idea and I thought I liked it. And then I wrote a chapter and I'm like, Oh, I'm just not loving this. And I think because it was going to be such a, I wanted to try to do middle grade horror, which I've never done, you know, minor ghost stories and often have a paranormal twist, but it's never been horror. And I'm like, you know what? That's the thing. I think we talked about this before and I couldn't do it. So I was thinking about Ollie Oxley and the ghost I had written.

BETH MCMULLEN

you know,

LISA SCHMID

And a whole synopsis. And I had the story idea for the second in the series, which, you know, unfortunately didn't get picked up, boo. But I always loved the story. And all of a sudden I just thought, why can't I just repurpose that and rework it for a new story? And I put a whole new cast of characters. a whole new setting, a whole new rules. You know, there's still ghosts involved, but oh my God. So now I'm really excited. And this is the one that we sat and brainstormed about. And so now I just need to sit down and write it. But unfortunately, every time I sit down to write right now, it's some horrible thing happens in the world that deflates my joy bubble. And then I sit and, you know, ponder life. It never goes anywhere good these days.

BETH MCMULLEN

never goes anywhere good these days. I know it's hard to, it's hard to concentrate. It's really hard to concentrate. And I feel like there's something about,

LISA SCHMID

know it's hard

BETH MCMULLEN

something about, like, I find myself gravitating toward sort of my writing busy work when I have sort of too much news and I don't, can't, I can't really focus and I don't really know what I'm trying to do. So it's, it is harder to achieve that. happy place of writing, especially if you're at the beginning of something. In some ways, I think it's easier to jump in when you're in the middle of something. Right. But getting that initial push and getting going, it's definitely hard. Plus it's summer and everybody's out of their routine and everything feels a little disjointed. The world is disjointed and it makes me sad. Yeah. Even a lot of other people.

LISA SCHMID

One of the things I found is taking the apps off my phone has helped quite a bit. Oh yeah. I did that too.

BETH MCMULLEN

yeah. I did that

LISA SCHMID

Yeah. That's take them off.

BETH MCMULLEN

And then you don't, it's that drift, right? You drift to stuff that, okay, you're standing in line at the grocery store or something and suddenly you're on Instagram. Why?

LISA SCHMID

And then you don't, it's

LISA SCHMID

okay,

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah. If you just drift into it, like you don't, like you can't be alone with your own head for any amount of time. And honestly, you can't be a writer if you're not willing to be alone with your own head. Just have no choice. You have to be. Speaking of trauma.

BETH MCMULLEN

I don't know where this is going. So many ways to end that sentence. Well,

LISA SCHMID

so I have a friend of ours that sends me her manuscripts each time. And I'm very, you know, I love being a trusted beta reader and I take the job seriously as I think most people do. This particular book was 400 pages and it's adult fiction. And it's, you know, it was, it's a lot, but it deserved it. You know what I mean? It was like, that's, that's, you know, that's the book. And so, and I love the story. You know, I loved reading it. And every day I would sit down and like, I got to like get through this. Cause she's, you know, she sent it to her agent and she sent it to me. And, you know, so I'm reading it. And so every day I sit down with my cup of coffee and I read, you know, two or three chapters and I'm kind of texting her as I go. And I'm making comments and dah, dah, dah. So I finish it. And by the way, it's, there's only a few books that's had this effect on me. I started crying. Like I was so shocked and surprised and tickled by the ending, but it was like super emotional. And I was crying and I'm like, oh my God. And so anyway, I, I, I'm like 99 % sure I saved it, but it was on my old Mac. And when I went to open up the file, like it had only been saved. The comments had only been saved up to a certain point, like a quarter of the way through. And I don't know what happened to all my comments. And I was so distraught. I had to literally take a half a Xanax and lay down. So sad. To, like, call her and tell her. And so, you know, I could give her kind of the overarching, like, concerns I had about the story. But, like, all my little notes were gone. And that was, like, super traumatic. I mean, it takes, I've had nightmares about it. Like, literally. Because it takes hours. Yeah,

BETH MCMULLEN

Because it takes hours. Yeah, to do a really good, like, beta read or a developmental edit or any of that. Like, you spend hours reading. And you're not, you know, and it's not. Those little things, you're only going to be able to catch them if you go back and read again and you're not going to catch all the same stuff, which is like, you don't have that many hours in your life to dedicate to it. It's crazy.

LISA SCHMID

Well, because you catch something and then I'd be like, okay, I need to scroll back and see if she already addressed this and I don't remember. And then I'd be like, okay, you addressed it, but you might want to say a couple more times to like, because I forgot about it. Just all those little intricacies of the notes. And they're gone. And I just, you know, I don't, I couldn't do it the whole thing again, you know? And so.

BETH MCMULLEN

about it. Just

LISA SCHMID

That was traumatic. So that forced me now to move over completely. As you know, this has been going an ongoing saga to change over computers. Yeah, and as friends, this has been going on for years. Hate that Mac computer with a passion. I'm surprised it's still standing. Like I just sat there staring at it like it was a mistake. It's ledge hammer time.

BETH MCMULLEN

It's ledge hammer time. Oh my God. So you can't, I think you can't jump between. to computers like you're old and you're new because that sort of stuff just I mean not that particularly who knows what happened with that it was probably just like some terrible glitch but I I mean I I opened up file that I thought was my most recent file of my manuscript and it wasn't it was an older one and it took me couple of pages to realize it wasn't in the right draft. I have draft control issues. Like no matter what I use, I always mess it up. So I have to be very paranoid and check constantly so I don't become like that person who has to integrate six different drafts at the end.

LISA SCHMID

have draft

LISA SCHMID

I have a million drafts and I always am like, you know, it's the final draft. I have final. And then that's not the final draft. So I'll go one dash final, two dash final. And then I, before I sent it to Leslie, I'm like, okay, what did I just call this final? Is it really final final?

BETH MCMULLEN

Is it really final final?

LISA SCHMID

I wrote it down. I'm like, okay, I think this is the final final. And I'm in the process of a, you know, I'm on sub with one of my books and. she's like, okay, now is this the final? Do I have the final final? And I'm like, oh, can you send it over to me so I can take a peek at it and make sure you have the final final? Because I don't know. I've named it final so many times and so many different variations of final that it's embarrassing. I'm just thinking I should have more control over like my writing process and how I label things. And that's what I think happened like with my friend's book is that I don't know if I labeled it and then I like saved over it or do you know what I mean? I don't know. Cause I save it in multiple places that I think I must've like, I don't, I must've done something. And so anyway, there's gotta be anybody who has advice on a labeling system.

BETH MCMULLEN

I think

BETH MCMULLEN

We should do a version control. Oh my God. Talk about like somebody to come in and tell us how to be more organized in our, in our writing. Okay, let's jump to AI. So we're not talking about the philosophical and kind of ethical quandary that AI has put publishing into. We're talking about whether or not you can use it ethically as a tool. Like we are starting from the premise that AI is not a ghostwriter. It is not something that is meant to actually write your work. It is a very powerful and can be a very effective tool to use. So that's kind of where we're coming from. That's our starting point, just so that we don't mislead people into thinking we're going to dissect the philosophical yes or no of artificial intelligence.

LISA SCHMID

We had, Joel had mentioned it in one of the recordings that we did with one of the episodes that we did. So we had somebody reach out and say, can you please clarify the use of AI and how to use it in the appropriate way? Because I think she had concerns with using like Grammarly and rewriting sentences. And it's like, that's not what we're using it for. You're, you know, you don't want to use it in that manner. So we're going to talk about ways you can use it.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah, you definitely don't want to use it in something that is actually rewriting your words. Because first of all, no, thank you. That's not what I'm asking for. It sounds weird. It does. If you want to just, you know, and I'm sure people have done this, if you want to just get a sense for how strange AI sounds, have it write something. Give it a prompt and tell it to write something. You can even show it some of your work and say, try to write like me. And it's still going to sound bizarre, like not like you and kind of like a robot, which is what it is. And then I've noticed that it really loves. It really loves sort of assuming that the reader is an idiot. It assumes the reader is an idiot. So anything that it writes, it has so many details because it leaves zero space for the reader to conclude anything. So it assumes that whoever's on the other end reading it can't possibly figure anything out on their own. So for me, that's a big tell when I see stuff that is overly... detailed to the point where I'm thinking, okay, this was written by a robot who thinks I'm a moron. So, you know, it's an interesting.

LISA SCHMID

Definitely overwrites. Everything's, it's like, it's overriding everything. And I think, I don't know where it's getting that style. And everything is overwritten. And you just, you can definitely tell. And it's very, there's no voice to it. I mean, that's exactly it. There's no voice to. To the writing, it's just a bunch of sentences put together that, you know, with lots of details.

BETH MCMULLEN

of details.

LISA SCHMID

It's empty. It's void of any type of real,

BETH MCMULLEN

void of any type of real, you know, you can just tell. It's gross. It doesn't sound like anybody. It sounds like a robot. But that being said,

LISA SCHMID

It doesn't sound

BETH MCMULLEN

that being said, there are a handful of ways that I have found it actually to be very effective and very helpful. I think. The main one that I'm liking right now, because I mentioned I'm revising a manuscript, and when I revise, I keep a laundry list of notes of things that need to be changed or areas of concern or stuff I need to update or things that don't match. And it's literally just a piece of paper and it's note after note after note after note. So it is a mess at the end. And, you know, I'm writing in the margins. I'm, you know, putting post -it notes on it. So it's just a bunch of random thoughts. So when I gather that into a document and I ask AI to organize it for me in a way that I can use it as a workflow so that all the things that are connected are grouped together. So I can look at changes that I need to make to one character and how they might affect plot. to work with rather than my just hot mess on the page. So I really, really like using it for that. I wouldn't have come to that if I wasn't revising something. It just happened to be where I'm at right now. That's one of my favorite ways to use it.

LISA SCHMID

I think I haven't used it that much, but the one thing I did use it for after talking to you and how you were using it, I was... writing a setting and I just said, what are sights and sounds that you would hear at, you know, a ball game or, you know, whatever. I can't remember the exact situation was so that I could know like, okay, that's going to be there. That's going to be there. And that's, that's how I used it just to give me sights and smells and sounds and, and, you know, things that I could use when writing that setting. But that was it. It was kind of a list of things.

BETH MCMULLEN

That's actually, it's actually very useful because you can use it to provide historical context in a really pinpointed way. So you can say, so for instance, in this thriller that I'm working on, one of the timelines takes place in 1995. So I gave, as a prompt, I described the character who is 17 years old and a student and a little bit shy at a few other things. And then I said, What would she be into in 1995? So give me television shows. She might watch books. She might read what's in the movies. What is current news? What's the climate? You know, how are women being treated in the workplace in 1995? Like all of these things that give you context for this character. And I would say a couple of the details probably made it into the work, but most of them didn't. It was more so that I could think about how this character was, not think about, but see the way this character was looking at the world in 1995. Because I was here in 1995, but I can't tell you a single thing about it. So using it to kind of ground your character, ground your scene in what was going on in that way. You could gather all of that information on your own. This is just way faster. And it delivers it to you in a nice summary so that you have very quickly sort of a flashcard about 1995 or whatever your historical context is that you're after.

LISA SCHMID

I wish I could have used that better or more effectively or thought, you know, that it was really around at that point when I was writing Heart and Souls because I had characters from different decades. And so I would be, you know, Googling when did, you know, iPods come out or when not iPods. I can't even remember the word. What was the first thing? Walkman?

BETH MCMULLEN

Walkman?

LISA SCHMID

Yes. Thank you. I'm like, when did Walkman come out? Where, you know, kids using it? Where, you know, just stuff like that. I think it's really beneficial and will, you know, help writers use their time more effectively when it comes to research.

BETH MCMULLEN

I love to use it for the technology question. What? where was technology in this particular year? What was available? What was readily available to anybody? What was still only being used by a tiny slice of the population? Because that stuff, and oftentimes I'm like, wait, really? I totally had no idea or I completely forgot or whatever. Because that stuff, those details are super important to your... timeline if you are setting things in some point in time other than today. You just really need to make sure those are accurate because readers will nail you on that stuff in a heartbeat.

LISA SCHMID

Your readers and your copy editor, if they're good, will catch that. I had a copy editor one time because I wrote in Ollie Oxley that there was an apple orchard in the McMullen Farms apple orchard. Remember I named a farmer after you? Anyway, and then she, that copy editor literally messaged me and, you know, and as part of the, not messaged me, it was in the notes. Apples didn't arrive in California until, you know, this state, which is well after. So I had to change it to peaches. And I just thought, what an interesting factoid. This copy editor, but that's a good copy editor. She went out like I would never have thought like apples weren't in California at that time. And she went out and researched it. And so I changed it to peaches. So which is funny.

BETH MCMULLEN

I mean, it's a great it would have been something that you would have caught if you had said, OK, I'm setting a farm in California in 1812 or, you know, pick whatever date. Right. What are the crops that would have been grown? And then you have, which I think is interesting. I mean, it goes without saying, of course,

LISA SCHMID

you have,

BETH MCMULLEN

any AI that you're using will make mistakes. So you do need to verify everything. Otherwise you could be embarrassed. One other thing, and I haven't done this because I don't write fantasy, but I think you could use AI to, you could even train a bot. on the specifics of the roles of magic for your world so you're building out this world right and and whatever elements dictate and whatever elements you put in that dictate how things happen in this world you could train the bot on all of that say these are the roles for this world that i'm building you know could be magical could be other stuff whatever it is these are the the parameters that i've set for this world and i want to have this happen does that violate my own rules that i've established so a double check on whether your fantasy elements align with what you have because you know you have to have roles in a in a in a fantasy world otherwise you know having your character be able to just conveniently do whatever they want because there's no boundaries is boring so you have to have those roles but I have found I've only written, I wrote sort of a fantasy light middle grade series. And I struggled even with that to make sure that what I was doing didn't violate my own rules that I had established. So you could use it as a check on your own sort of, okay, I'm going to have this character do X, Y, and Z. Where do you perceive conflicts? And that gives you a little heads up that maybe you need to think twice about how you're going to do whatever it is you want to do so that it doesn't. puts you outside of the rules. It's also a great way to think about adding tension to your chapters, right? If you're coming very close to violating the rules that you've created, then that's great tension building right there. So, I mean, it's kind of, it could be kind of cool in that way. I mean, as I said, this is just me thinking outside the box. I've never actually done it, but I think it would be a good way to kind of keep yourself honest in your writing of like fantasy or that sort of thing.

LISA SCHMID

It's interesting. I've actually read a book and I remember very clearly towards the end of the book, the author broke her own rule to resolve the story. And I remember just looking at it, just thinking, oh my God, does she like, does she realize that she broke her own? I mean, because you very clearly set rules as you're going through your story. And maybe she just didn't catch it because, you know, when you're so into your own thing, sometimes it's hard to keep track of everything, especially if you're creating this, you know, doing this world building. So that's a really interesting way to utilize that space so that you can double check yourself because we need to be double checked like all the time. And that's why beta readers are important. And when somebody fails you.

LISA SCHMID

We are not pointing the finger at you.

BETH MCMULLEN

the finger at you. We are not.

LISA SCHMID

My trauma. But no, I think it's a really good way to use AI in that aspect.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah, I think you can do it for action adventure too, because sometimes in action adventure, you get off into stuff that's a little wild. You know, maybe it is actually feasible in our world, but you're really coming to the edge of what could actually happen. So you want to just keep yourself grounded in whatever world it is that you have created. Might be fun to do. If anybody does that, let me know how it goes because I'm curious. I don't currently have any fantasy on my plate, so I can't tell. I'm curious also how other people have used AI in a way that is ethical and that has benefited them in their writing.

LISA SCHMID

I'm curious also how other people have used AI in a way that is ethical and that has benefited them in their writing. So if you've used AI and you have something that we haven't mentioned, you know, please let us know and share with our other listeners because it's, you know, it's a good tool if you use it right. And, you know, you're not out writing a book like some people are, which is when I say writing a book, I don't mean writing a book. I mean, pirating a book.

BETH MCMULLEN

Pirating a book. Yeah, I think I think that would be it would be great to hear from people. You know, how are you using it in your process? Are you using it? Are you not using it? Do you feel like it's helpful? Do you feel like it's a waste of time? Because I feel like it definitely saves me time on things that I don't feel like doing, like organizing my notes. I hate doing that. I just don't. I stare at them and I'm like, well, I don't I don't see any connections. I don't know. You know, I mean, it's just such a different skill set for me and I don't have it. So I really do love it for that. My books aren't complicated enough to.

LISA SCHMID

love it

LISA SCHMID

You know what I mean? To like have to use AI that much. I just, I think, like I said, I used it the one time and it was helpful in that scene. But it just, for me, it just, I'm a very uncomplicated person.

BETH MCMULLEN

You are very straightforward. Very straightforward. This is good. I mean, I kind of, this thriller has gotten wildly complicated and I kind of wish it wasn't, but it's okay. Working my way through it. Working my way through it. You know what?

LISA SCHMID

through it. You know what? It's, yeah, that's what you're writing right now. You know, and when I say my books aren't complicated, I mean, they are because there's like they're mysteries and there's twists and everything. But it's not, there's not, you know, I don't know. It's just not as complicated as it is.

BETH MCMULLEN

as it is. In some ways. So I've written middle grade. I've written adult. And honestly, I think the complication, like middle grades are very complex. They can be very complicated in their own right.

LISA SCHMID

as it is.

BETH MCMULLEN

But they're like 40 ,000 words shorter. So you just have less. content. And like, I can keep my, my middle grade books are all around 50 ,000 words and I can keep 50 ,000 words in my head. Like I can't do that. That is fine. I'm never lost in those manuscripts. This one is 80 ,000 words. And that additional 30 ,000 words is like, my head just explodes. I can't, it's like, it starts leaking out and I can't quite keep track of it in the same way that I'm used to when I write middle grade. So it is kind of humbling for me. That even happened? I don't even know.

LISA SCHMID

And that's, it's funny that you say that because I can, I have the whole story in my head. I don't know. It's not like, I don't have like notes everywhere. I mean, I have like a few little post -it notes, like here and there, like, Oh, make sure you do this. Make sure you do that. But it's not. you know, it's all up here where I'm like, okay, I know where I'm going with this. Oops, I did this. I can remember what chapter I wrote something in and go, oh, I know I have to go back and change that. So it just is. And I think it's because mine, you know, averaged out about 45 ,000 and my last one was only 35 ,000. So they're getting shorter.

BETH MCMULLEN

Well, that's because nobody wants to read 60 ,000 word middle grade books. That's just where we're at. So it's good that yours are getting shorter. Yeah, I really think that I would not be surprised if like the human brain has a capacity of X amount of words. And after that, everything just flies out the window.

LISA SCHMID

The other thing I want to mention, and this is totally off topic. We just booked Leslie Zampeti. My wonderful agent is going to be coming on in September to talk about red and green flags with agents because we've had so many people. ask about that. And so I, you know, keep that if you have something that's either going on or you want to know what to look for or what not to look for, those kinds of things, send this into us because we're going to be talking to Leslie and she is the perfect person to talk to about this.

BETH MCMULLEN

Yeah. It also has come up on the waiting room, which is our private Facebook group that we offer to listeners and writers out there. And that is a great place if you have weird feelings or suspicions or something's just not quite right. That is a really good forum to throw out the question and you'll get a lot of opinions. So you'll get a bunch of people, lots of agented writers in there who'll be like, yeah, that's problematic. Or, well, did you ask her this? Maybe that's what she meant, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think it's a really good way to just get a little double check on. Don't ignore your feelings. If something feels weird, do not ignore them. It's meaningful. And ignoring them might just come back to bite you later on.

LISA SCHMID

Yeah. If it doesn't feel right, then it's probably wrong. I think because nowadays there's so many agents,

BETH MCMULLEN

probably wrong. I think because nowadays there's so many agents, there's so many people, and all you have to do is call yourself an agent. You don't have to have any sort of credentialing at all. Right.

BETH MCMULLEN

just you know aware right because everybody who is out there looking for an agent you can get a little desperate you can make choices that maybe aren't wise even though you're not meaning to so yeah and you're sharing your work with somebody that you know you're sending a whole you know your manuscripts over and entrusting these people with your your work and you know that's like a big ask

LISA SCHMID

and you're sharing your work with somebody that you know you're sending a whole you know your manuscripts over and entrusting these people with your your work and you know that's like a big ask You know what I mean? That's like, that's the biggest form of trust is saying here, here's my manuscript I've worked on for five years. And, you know, that, that person could really run amok with it or, you know, do you, do you wrong? So I think it's really good. Now's the good time to ask those questions, ask those concerns and, you know, either send them to us through the website or the waiting room.

BETH MCMULLEN

really good.

BETH MCMULLEN

So that wraps up our time. Thanks for joining us. Come and say hello on our socials. And if you have questions for the next Ask Beth and Lisa episode, send those along through our website, writerswithwrinkles .net, or use any of those social channels. We check those regularly. On July 21st, our episode is with Joyce Sweeney, director of Kidlet, the Seymour agency. That's going to be a good one. So please mark your calendars for that. And we would like to remind you, we do this show for free. So if you would like to support us, the best way to do that is to buy our books. They are available in your local indie. They are available wherever you buy your books. So if you want to say thank you for the content that we provide through the show, please just do it that way. And we will be ever so grateful. So until next time, happy reading, writing, and... listening. Bye, Lisa. Bye, guys.