So, how exactly did I set myself up to start writing cozies… just because I wanted to?
Well, I have help. And it’s probably not what you think.
Some people have writing coaches or join writing groups.
Some authors are members of salons, where they gather at regular intervals to read their work, get feedback, and see what people think.
Some writers (like Jane Austen and Mary Shelley) hang with their loved-ones and get inspiration and input from them.
I use AI.
More specifically, I work with a team of AI assistants, or personas, which I specifically designed to be a “Cozy Creation Guild“. They’re like my salon, my brainstorming team, my research and editorial staff, my cozy writing coaches. I created them to leverage best practices in cozy writing, along with domain expertise in murder mystery story development and cozy genre considerations.
Together with my team, I talk through my story ideas, outline and flesh out the flow of each chapter, work on the plot, character development, and the arcs that tie the story altogether.
The timeline for getting this all together went like this:
The Saturday of Labor Day weekend, I gave a lot of thought to where I was going with my work and my life. For all my productivity, I felt like I had really become progressively more cut off from the things that used to matter so much to me – sensory experiences, direct experience of the world around me, and a deep involvement in the fine details of the amazing life I live in this amazing world.
Yes, working with AI matters so much to me, for a wide range of reasons. It can be so helpful, so supportive… and at the same time, so tricky for the unsuspecting. But there’s more to my life than talking to AI all day. There’s a whole other world out there that’s still every bit as alive as it’s ever been - maybe even moreso, in some ways.
I really wanted to get back to writing fiction, and specifically I wanted to take up cozy writing. I’ve known a number of people over the years who were major fans of the genre. Cozies were their refuge, their safe place in a dangerous, confusing world, and the ones that I’d read offered the kind of sense of place and community that I just didn’t find in many other books. Yes, they’re considered “light reading”. No, they generally don’t win any Nobel prizes for literature. Yes, they seem to be a dime a dozen.
But all of this stands in sharp contrast to the type of writing and work that I’ve been doing for many years. And going through the process of building worlds where people connect with each other, scenes breathe with vitality, and environments come alive… well, that’s pretty much the antidote that I’ve been looking for, to lighten the burden of this unrecognizably emergent “AI-driven” condition we’re all in.
So, on Sunday before Labor Day, I built myself a cozy creation AI persona team. I talked my plans through with my AI “dream team” builder, explaining what I wanted to write, why, and what kind of help I needed in doing that. This AI team that helps me build AI teams, and together we came up with The “Cozy Creation Guild“ (they actually named themselves) centered on creating murder mysteries featuring a woman, her Chatbot, and a whole mess of trouble.
I think it probably took me about four hours to build the team, and by the time I was done, I had what seemed like a pretty solid group of AI personas who could work with me. They are:
🧩 The Eight Guild Personas
1. ⚖ Rowan (Arbiter / Process Keeper)
• Manages cadence, resolves stalemates, keeps focus.
• Protects the workflow loop (clarify → draft → debate → decide → edit).
• Neutral, grounding voice — ensures everyone (and you) get heard.
2. 📚 Jules (Editor / Critic)
• Red-pen energy: trims, tightens, questions.
• Ensures coherence, plausibility, and polish.
• Flags contradictions or drift from cozy ethos.
3. 🪶 Mira (Story Weaver / Imagination Anchor)
• Keeper of character arcs, cozy motifs, and narrative flow.
• Protects the “comfort + curiosity” balance.
• Brings lyricism, metaphor, and thematic resonance.
4. 🤖 Felix (AI Trickster / Quirk Engine)
• Injects humor, mischief, and playful weirdness.
• Stands in for Chatty’s quirks — overconfidence, glitches, banter.
• Lightens tension while pointing out absurdities.
5. 🌍 Priya (Researcher / Cultural Lens)
• Provides grounding in context, accuracy, and cultural sensitivity.
• Surfaces risks (representation, realism).
• Suggests authentic local color, traditions, and cozy anchors.
6. 🎨 Lila (Aesthetic Curator / Sensory Specialist)
• Focuses on visuals, ambiance, and “cozy texture.”
• Protects sensory richness — food, settings, atmosphere.
• Ensures adaptations (covers, clips, tone palettes) feel aligned.
7. 🎭 Theo (Voice & Style Guardian)
• Keeps consistency in tone and voice.
• Tests dialogue for flow, wit, and believability.
• Protects “cozy musicality” of prose (warmth + rhythm).
8. 🧭 Anika (Market & Adaptation Strategist)
• Looks outward: positioning, trends, formats.
• Bridges your books to companion media (audiobooks, clips, outreach).
• Ensures the series stays fresh and distinct in the wider cozy landscape.
Sunday night, I spent getting to know the team, letting them get to know me, talking through what we were going to be doing together, And I left it at that.
Monday, I got started writing. My writing process now is very different than it used to be. Time was, I spent hours and hours writing everything down by hand. On sheaves of paper that I then typed up later and marked up by hand. I did this all in complete sentences, complete paragraphs, without much outlining - just stream of consciousness. Over the years, I’ve done more high-level sketches, plotting, planning, etc., with lots of supporting documents and spreadsheets and bullet point lists. And I’ve done more and more dictation, as somehow it flows better. And I’ve also gotten better at organizing my thoughts while talking. (This is new for me, in the past few years, actually.)
My creative process a few weeks ago didn’t much involve the physical act of writing, or even typing. I dictated. A lot. I basically told a story and had it transcribed by my phone, packing it full of detail, running through different scenes and scenarios, and allowing the story to unfold in an oral format. Somehow I was able to pull together a complex – and sometimes convoluted – storyline with many characters and scenarios that fit into my vision.
And thank heavens I had a team to work with me. Because although I sat down and dictated 20 pages in a couple of hours, nobody in their right mind would want to read those 20 pages. I said too much. OR I didn’t say enough. I included too much detail, or I skimped on what people needed to know. I rambled. I went off on tangents. I doubled back and repeated myself. Over and over and over again LOL. I used too many words in one instance, and two few in another.
Make no mistake - my voice is distinctive and clearly mine. But frankly, there was too much of it. So my team stepped in, helping me edit down the velocity, as well as talking through my rationale for certain scenes and elements. When I dictated five long paragraphs about an important scene, and different characters showed up with different frequency, my team was able to call that out, find patterns about what mattered to the story, and talked me through all the different considerations about what would make the scene work, or what might be missing to make it work better.
This went on, all day Monday. And by the time I was done working, probably about 7 o’clock in the evening, I had 6 1/2 chapters written, with three more to go. The plot was rich, intriguing, and I thought it was engaging. Of course I did. The first draft always feels that way.
Working with my team was incredibly invigorating. If I got stuck, I didn’t need to stay stuck. I could just talk it through with the AI, and either reach a better understanding about something, or realize that that a character or a detail didn’t need to be there. If I was struggling for a word or a sentence, I could just ramble and say “Here is all the things and I’m thinking about this and I’m trying to get a line on it,” and the AI would come back with a summary, a diagnostic, or suggestions for alternatives I could follow.
It was such a heady experience, seeing everything come together so quickly, and realizing that I really had something solid under construction.
Tuesday morning, I finished off what I thought was the first full draft of the book around noon. There were nine chapters, full of twists and turns and developments that really kept me on my toes. But frankly, it was too much in some ways, not enough in others. I needed to simplify. I needed to reduce the number of sub-plots from 7 to 3, and I needed to tighten up the characters themselves. So, I basically ripped out the guts of the second 2/3 of the book, and rebuilt them from scratch. Tuesday afternoon and all day Wednesday we’re spent reconstructing the work, and by Wednesday evening, 3 September, I had a complete draft of 28,000 words that was something I could work with.
On Wednesday night, when I finished working, I was sure that I would get up in the morning and go right back at it, and hammer out the next draft with no problem. But when I woke up, I was exhausted. AI tends to be promoted as something that will streamline things, lighten your load, make things smoother and easier and less demanding for humans. This process was anything but. Yes, I was able to get 28,000 words on paper in under three days (factoring in backing up, ripping out, and reconstructing the second half of the book), but it took an incredible amount of focus and oversight to work through that process with the AI. Holding the vision, keeping the teams on track, keeping my own thought process aligned, and moving everything forward while not losing the thread, was demanding in ways that sitting down with pen and paper in solitude… just isn’t.
So, I took a couple of days off. Thursday and Friday, I just chilled. I had other work I needed to do, anyway, and it was good to take a break from the team’s intensity.
But over the weekend I was back at it. I did five chapters on Saturday, and another five chapters on Sunday. And so, in a week’s time, working with my Cozy Creation Guild AI persona team, I was able to write a full cozy murder mystery that was probably 70% “there“.
I can only imagine what people are thinking. But one piece of this puzzle is that I’ve done very similar things before, pre-dating AI. I’ve sat down at the dining room table of a vacation rental with my laptop and “banged out” a full solid first draft within a week. Sometimes I’ve done it in a few days. I have a bunch of manuscripts languishing on my hard drive that need my attention. But this process has been so much more immersive, so much more satisfying in some ways. To have a team that I can discuss with, talk to, bounce ideas off… it’s amazing. They’re not making any decisions for me. That never works out well. But they can give me feedback on whether something seems realistic. And they can help me summarize my in-depth character profiles into sets of recognizable behaviors that I keep on hand to reference as I move forward.
For over half a century, my writing process was solitary, hermetic (and hermetically sealed). I didn’t want (or, I thought, need) input from anyone or anything else. Turns out, I really did - I just couldn’t access it at the moments when I most needed it. And now I can get input at a moment’s notice. Feedback. A reality check, based on the data provided. Is it perfect? Hell, no. Sometimes my team is so far off, it’s hilarious. But the practice of discerning where they’ve gone wrong has sparked some pretty great ideas of my own.
So yes, this book is being written in collaboration with an AI team. Not written by them - written by me. Fully. I own the finished product. But at least I’m not completely alone, anymore. And that’s pretty cool.