This picture is AI art. I made it last night, on purpose, and I'm telling you plainly — because it's the last time you'll see one anywhere near my byline, and because it says how I feel better than I can: exhausted, defiant, still standing.

This picture is AI art. I made it last night, on purpose, and I'm telling you plainly — because it's the last time you'll see one anywhere near my byline, and because it says how I feel better than I can: exhausted, defiant, still standing.

Yesterday I dealt with my first troll. For eleven hours, a man hiding behind a fake name followed me across three community groups calling me a fraud and a fake — and when he ran out of arguments, he posted something about me and my children so vile that Facebook and the group admins removed it. I didn't swing back in the gutter with him. This morning I'm on my way to the Delaware State Police to file a harassment report, with a printed file of every word he wrote. Today's my fucking birthday, and this is how I get to start my day out. That's how you deal with a bully: with the record, in the light, under your real name.

When I started this, I posted pictures with the stories. The stories took hours. Writing them is hard, slow work — checking facts, getting names right, treating people like people. The pictures took seconds. I just wanted to decorate the work I'd done. I can't afford a photographer, and finding photos you're actually allowed to use is not easy — I learned that the hard way, in public, yesterday.

So here's my vow, in writing: no more AI photos on stories. I've already stopped. From now on, every story runs with real photos — like last night's, which ran with a real street photo and a public-domain picture anybody can verify. AI art is for art. The news gets the truth.