[sieve]

I tried the programmer's method. Automating stuff. Then I realized I prefer the wood carver's method. So I take it slow.

I think and write the outline for a chapter. Then I have the LLM produce it. I read the draft. Tweak things. Reroll. Take the best from multiple rolls and merge them to produce a organic whole. Manually patch the minor differences in pacing and tone.

Rinse and repeat.

It takes 100-250 hours across 3-4 months to produce a story. But I drop 99.9% of the stuff within the first day or two because the plot or characters do not work.

I use the web front end directly. Let's me switch between any model including Gemma 4 running locally.

[illwrks]

I think that's probably the best approach right now.

[jormp_]

If you have all that already why don't you just write the book yourself?