This is Neal Winsomer. It still is Neal Winsomer. You may notice a major change today in my voice. I am officially retiring the AI-altered voice and moving to my real voice. It is the exact same real voice I used to narrate the audiobook for Calling Out the Shadows.

In being completely transparent about how and why I am doing this, I have done some research. I have had a few conversations with legal aides and a lawyer. Under the First Amendment, I have an absolute right to freedom of expression, which legally includes the right to create, publish, and speak anonymously or under a pseudonym.

Using a pen name is protected, time-honored, and a creative right. Using a pseudonym to protect one's privacy is entirely lawful, provided it is not used to defraud. I am not impersonating anyone. There is zero identity theft. I am simply expressing my own creative work.

As I was putting up the first nine episodes, in being honest, I had to note whether it was AI-enhanced. And it was. So I said it was. It was my script. Where I fumbled, the voice fumbled, but there was a lack of authenticity for me, and I was not happy with it.

Looking up my right to privacy, the elements of legal identity, and plausible deniability, I realized that as long as I walk a careful line, I can use my voice.

I am not going to engage with, confirm, deny, or reply to any external speculation, messages, or accusations about who I am in the real world. Any attempt to breach this boundary, or to use this creative outlet to interfere with my personal life, will be met with silence and documented for my legal protection.

I have to create a balance, and I have to stand for myself. I have to stand in authenticity, in transparency. It is a pen name, so it is not complete transparency, but in that, it protects my daughter and it protects me.

In this entire process, I was creating to protect myself and to protect this story, so that whether I was here or not, the story would come out and could not be muted, dulled, deleted, or stopped.

I walked very carefully, and I continue to. I have not made wild statements. I have shared my opinions, and often substantiated proof, but I kept it in the theme of opinions and views.

When I was doing the audiobook, I saw so many people put out audiobooks using AI generation or someone else. When I first started, I said no. The timing, the extra breaths, the mistakes, the flow, the tempo, for how I wanted to share it, it had to be my voice.

Then I took a step back with the podcast. For the first nine episodes I flipped it over to a voice on what is called ElevenLabs. It was close, and it hit some of the inflections, but it still was not me.

Part of what I share is that people might connect a little more with who I am, with how I speak, and with the way I deliver it. So I was not hiding with the first nine episodes. I was working on a level of protection.

If you are not familiar with the book, or if this is one of the first things you hear from me, this is not an attack. It is a view. It is an experience. It is what I went through.

It is the approach I am taking that I hope, down the line, my daughter will understand: how I chose clarity over comfort, transparency over secrecy, structure over spin, and love over anger.

Many things angered me. Many things that were said were not right, and many were lies. As opposed to hitting a lie with a lie, or countering, or reacting, I worked through this to get better.

I am not perfect. I made my share of mistakes. There is a part of me that feels I was blinded from some things so that I could have my daughter. I tell her regularly that I do not regret it. If I look back and it would not include her, I would go through all of it again.

I am not letting my daughter see this right now. She knows about the book. We have had conversations about it. She has seen the cover and finds it kind of cool, but I have made it clear this is not for a girl her age.

I have her number one copy, the first copy of this, boxed up with a special note to her, sealed, so that when she is ready, I will get it to her and she can open it.

I am going to my real voice. This is the pen name, Neal Winsomer. I am not going to share my real name, my daughter's name, my ex-wife's name, or other identifying details, so that I can use my voice, my tone, my experience.

Now that I understand my rights, I want to be as transparent as possible while in this level of protection. I want to put up a podcast and not say it is AI-enhanced, because it is not. These are my words. One take. I make mistakes, I breathe, and it bothered me that, in the middle of talking about transparency, I had to flag it because of the voice-altering tool.

So, as far as I am concerned, the first nine were me. That was my script. This continues to be me, but now I do not have to click that AI-enhance button.

This is my tone, this is my story, this is what I am about. It is part of why I wrote Calling Out the Shadows: sharing with my daughter, and connecting with others who may be going through the same kind of experiences. I am no expert. I am no authority. I know what I know, I have learned what I have learned, and I choose to share this to engage and to be transparent, and maybe it might help a person or two. That is the deal, and that is me.