Help, I’m being haunted by a fake book I didn't write

“What do you want to feel while reading a book?”

That’s how it started.

A woman named Jenn was seeking just the right book for this exact moment in her life. She was 41, recently divorced, mother to toddlers, navigating a career change, and trying to figure out what the next version of herself might look like. Nothing dramatic, nothing extraordinary... just a real human person trying to hold it together in a very weird, overstimulating world.

So, like many of us do in 2025, Jenn asked AI to help. To its credit, it didn’t just spit out a bestseller list. It asked questions. Thoughtful ones, like:

• What do you want to feel?

• What are you trying to understand?

• Do you want memoir, or structure, or both?

Jenn answered. She said she wanted to feel inspired. Seen. She said she was balancing motherhood, burnout, and not knowing what the hell to do next. She said she wanted a blend of story and guidance... something human, but also useful.

ChatGPT responded with a book list. The first were a few real titles, and then came this one:

This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started by Ariel Meadow Stallings.

Jenn liked the sound of that, and went to hunt down the book. She couldn’t find it anywhere, but she did find my Insta page, so she DMed me.

Except she couldn't find the book, because I haven't written it.

AI really thought I had, and it described the book to Jenn in detail. I know this because in our DMs, Jenn shared what ChatGPT had told her about my book, This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started: 

That’s when I blinked, because that description? Um, that book actually sounds pretty fucking great!

That actually is the kind of book I WOULD write!

It sounds like the kind of book I wish had existed ten years ago when I was going through my shitshow. This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started sounds like a book that helps you do the quiet internal work of learning to stand in the middle of the burning courtyard without flinching. Not because you’re numbed out, but because you’re rooted in something deeper than the chaos. You’re not escaping it... you’re staying with it, breathing through it, offering your presence to it, even as it tries to unmake you.

My friend Lewis shared a parable with me a few days ago: A violent general walks into a monastery looking for the last monk who hasn’t fled his army. He threatens the monk, saying “Don’t you know who I am? I could run a sword through your belly without blinking!”

And the monk replies, “Don’t you know who I am? I could let you run your sword through my belly without blinking.”

That’s the vibe this book would have. That deep unshakable spine under the swirl... something that prepares us to stand calmly in the fire, not hustle through it.

We need a workbook for tending the part of you that stays.

BTW, this hallucination wasn’t an isolated incident.

Just a few weeks ago, NPR ran a story about newspapers publishing AI-generated summer reading lists that included books by real authors that didn’t actually exist. Fake titles from real authors, with made-up summaries. One of the most fascinating parts was that the fake books sounded perfect: Emotionally targeted and dead-on in tone. A librarian friend of mine told me that this is happening all the time in her library. (I asked her if I could interview her because I’m dying to know more.)

So Jenn’s experience wasn’t just a fluke, but part of a bigger pattern. We’re entering a moment where AI doesn’t just regurgitate or remix what authors have written… It actually invents what we haven’t written yet.

And sometimes it seems terrifyingly accurate about what needs to exist next, and who should be creating it.

The question for me as a writer then becomes: when the algorithm names your next book before you do… do you listen? It's feels like the most amazing market research ever. When was the last time my readership was so motivated that they hunted me down to ask about a book I haven't even written yet?

…So, I think I'm writing it.

Well, IF there's a market for it. As a recovering workaholic, I'm not here to make a hamster wheel for myself unless people want it. But I’m super curious, so I’mma try this:

If 100 people think this hallucination has legs, I’m going to make it walk!

This is an experiment. A kind of tiny spell disguised as a micro-Kickstarter. If 100 people preorder This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started by July 1st, I’ll write it. If not, I won’t. (And everyone gets refunded.) No harm, no hard feelings, no weirdness.

I’m just checking to see if this hallucination is a clear signal from the collective nervous system that says: yes, we want this.

If we hit the goal, you’ll get a digital PDF workbook in the fall, along with an AI companion pack full of rituals, prompts, and nervous system spells. Maybe I’ll even do a live Zoom workshop if I’m feeling brave.

The idea behind This Time Next Year You’ll Be Glad You Started isn’t about becoming better. It’s about becoming more anchored, more aware, and more spacious. It’s about remembering that even in a collapse era, something in us is always unfurling. Even in grief, something in you is still blooming. And even in uncertainty, there’s a way to say “yes” to your own becoming.

If you want to join in on the experiment, the preorder’s here. Name your own price:

This book doesn’t exist yet, but maybe it wants to. Let’s find out! 🔥📕🪴💖