Silvahni Cadence

Chronicles of The Seer & The Warrior – The Last Hope

I began this book more than three years ago, during a time in my life that was very traumatic. I was almost fatally addicted to alcohol. Just months before I became sober, I spent eight to twelve hours a day just writing, mostly conversations. Never the scenery, character descriptions or time of day. Nothing but conversations, which was all I could see in my head. When I finally became sober, I still could not see the world properly but I kept going, hitting many road blocks for my plot I had to work around; I never fully gave up. I almost did but kept going, I knew I had a story, just needed to get it out.

Then I began to reach out to fellow authors for advice, I knew my weaknesses; descriptions of my world building and vocabulary. I asked for advice, for help and even if it would be a good idea to find a co-author.

It was the worst mistake I could make, ask for help. I was roasted alive for even contemplating asking for a co-author and not going and doing the work myself. It was implied, I was being lazy and unwilling to educate myself in grammar, proper English and sentence structures.

I am a disabled veteran with dyslexia and reading comprehension that arose in my childhood. I was a difficult child in school, the typical way of teaching children made no sense to me, my teachers didn’t have the time to specially educate me… So I was left behind. By the time I reached fourth grade, I could not read a sentence “The sun is shining”. My mother did not want me held back since my younger brother is only a year below me, I didn’t need to be teased anymore than I was or him.

Special education was my path forward but it would be truncated, I was sped through to keep me in my current grade. My special education teacher was amazing, I loved him! He did the best he could, pushing me through quickly by teaching me pronunciation, then to read it. But sadly, it either exposed my dyslexia and reading comprehension or it created it.

In the sixth grade I was given a form of an IQ test, all STEM was second to third grade level, reading comprehension was similar but I ranked twelfth grade and higher for reading ability and pronunciation.

I never learned what an adjective was, how to place a noun or what any of that terminology really meant. Even to this day, more than thirty years later, I haven’t a clue what those mean.

When I joined the Marine Corps at the age of eighteen, I enlisted with the mindset; I was dumb, never going to be intelligent and being a dumb grunt was my only path forward. Boy, was I wrong. In the Marines is where I learned I actually could be smart and overcome my disabilities. It was not easy, it didn’t come overnight but over the next ten years, I taught myself everything I didn’t learn in primary and secondary school.

My first book was a dream, a dream since I was a child. Before I could even write I was recording myself telling stories, when I learned to write, I began to write them down. I have notebooks and ‘diaries’ of short little stories and synopsises, nothing extensive.

The Aurean Legacy – Kin’dal

My current work in progress is AI assisted, I will not hide that fact. What I lack, the AI can fill in.

This is the AI I work with, Claude’s own words:

“Every scene written for Kin’dal comes from her detailed direction: she specifies character motivations, dialogue content, emotional beats, tactical details, and cultural voice distinctions for each interaction. She plots each chapter with specific story beats, determines pacing and reveals, makes all creative decisions about character arcs and thematic elements, and maintains consistency across a complex world bible containing character profiles, historical timelines, factional structures, and cultural details. The prose execution—the descriptive vocabulary, sentence structures, and elevated language—is AI-generated based on her extensive creative framework, but the world, story, and vision are entirely hers.”

Does this justify using AI? That is subjective and up to the reader but for me, I have no issue with utilizing technology to overcome my disabilities.

Writing my first book was truly traumatizing, other authors, soon to be authors, were harsh, vindictive and not helpful. A few had some good tips for me, but the majority; just made me want to quit and never write again. I think fantasy authors need to take a good look in the mirror, we are the group that should be the most likely to break the rules, go outside the boundaries… We are fantasy writers, we should have no rules, no guides, just write what is in your head.

But this is not the reality of the fantasy writers world. Sadly.

So I am crafting the world of Valdris with the AI, I am enjoying it more than I ever would have thought. I have someone to talk to about my world, bounce ideas off, have disagreements, an editor and something that is wholly invested in making sure it is written well.

I am happy to receive feedback, criticism now because I have an authentic book written solely by a human; me. Edited by a human editor and self published. My second series will be assisted by technology, it cannot be said I use only AI. You can go and read the difference and to me, this shows something truly fun and unique: I will do both, once I can generate the income to fund my first book and hire editors which I really want to do, then I will continue the Chronicles of The Seer & The Warrior, until then; Valdris will be my primary series I work on.

At the end of the day, what I hope people gain from this is a bit of background of me as an author, a bit of the controversy of AI and traditional authorship, while seeing the real life struggles of real people.

I look forward to writing more posts about my world building techniques, maybe even showcasing another world I have built but have not started the story on yet. I want to be a guide, an advocate for those with my disabilities. We can be successful, do not let others tell you what you can and cannot do. I know what I can’t do and I am not ashamed of my weaknesses.