Beyond the day job

When my father-in-law asked me to illustrate a story he wrote for my daughters, I was so touched by it, I immediately agreed. But later on that night I said to myself, "How the heck am I going to hand-illustrate a book in-between my full time job and everything else?!" Then the 'Aha!' moment came: "I'll use AI!" Fast-forward beyond tool selection, giving myself crash courses in image prompt-engineering, and failing at story image continuity many many times over, 80 hours later, I finished the book. In the end, it probably took me just as long as if I had illustrated the story by hand. But the look on my father-in-law's face when he saw it? Learning an intimidating new skill? Priceless.