K W
Full-time elementary school teacher. Romance novelist. Team of one.
How a Full-Time Teacher Went From Ghostwriter Chaos to 10,000 Words in 2.5 Hours
"I used to work with a team of ghostwriters, editors, and beta readers. Now I'm a team of one."
The Life K W Was Juggling
K W started publishing romance novels in July 2023 while working full-time as an elementary school teacher. She tried the standard indie author path: hire ghostwriters to help with production.
The Ghostwriter Disaster
One ghostwriter vanished for four months mid-book. Others missed deadlines. None followed her instructions. The same story was written by TWO different ghostwriters — and both versions were unusable.
She had to heavily edit everything anyway. The team approach was failing.
She needed a system that would actually follow her instructions — or she'd never be able to publish consistently while teaching full-time.
K W didn't just switch to AI — she engineered a system that forces compliance. She started using Plotdrive in February 2024.
She built detailed "or you fail" rules into her chapter generation prompts. Style deviates? Automatic failure. Setting contradicts the outline? Automatic failure. Wrong POV character? Automatic failure.
"Co-Writer helped me write an 'or you fail' rule for my chapter generating prompt after the AI was ignoring my instructions, even with documents that were toggled on."
"Now the AI whispers about what it will not do when it is thinking... PD giving itself a pep talk."
The "Or You Fail" Framework
K W treats her AI like a ghostwriter she can actually hold accountable. Her chapter generation prompts include strict rules with automatic failure conditions:
Mandatory Style Rules
If style deviates = AUTOMATIC FAILURE
Setting & World Consistency
Every character, location, and established fact is locked in. The AI must reference the outline exactly.
If any setting/fact contradicts the outline = AUTOMATIC FAILURE
Word Count Calibration
Each chapter must be 2,000 words (±50 acceptable). Each beat labeled and verified at 400-410 words. Final word count stated at chapter end.
"I paste in the plot at the end of the prompt for each chapter. This is despite the plot outline being in the toggled documents. I find PD sometimes seems to skim the documents or cherry-pick which of my writing rules it wants to follow."
The Impact
From ghostwriter chaos to predictable, high-output writing sessions — while teaching full-time.
Full Production, Full-Time Job
Three books completed with Plotdrive. Publishing every two months — August, October, December — while teaching elementary school full-time and tutoring weekly.
She does all her own production: generates male cover models in MidJourney, creates marketing images and animations, makes paperback covers in Canva, edits with Grammarly, formats with Atticus.
"Tonight I have generated about 10,000 words (5 chapters) in about 2.5 hours. The AI is following my instructions fairly well, so most of it will be usable."
The AI still goes rogue sometimes — writing in past tense, inventing characters, using wrong names. But the "or you fail" system catches it.
"If I go too fast with Plotdrive, I have had too many plotholes to fix. Tightening up my prompt has helped me not waste time by having to redo things as much."
The Takeaway
"Tightening up my prompt has helped me not waste time by having to redo things as much."
K W treats AI like a ghostwriter she can actually hold accountable. The "or you fail" framework turns compliance into a system — not a hope.
Full-time teacher. Team of one. Three books. Publishing every two months.