(THIS PIECE WAS POSTED ON MY SUBSTACK ON SEPTEMBER 5TH. I’VE NOW BEEN A GRANDMOTHER TO A GORGEOUS BABY BOY SINCE LATE SEPTEMBER, AND MY POP STAR HAS HAD A MILION MORE ADVENTURES! I’VE BEEN VERY BUSY, AND HAVE NEGLECTED MY WEBSITE!)
I’m sixty-four years old, and I will be a grandmother in about a month. And in the last month I’ve spent a small fortune on a fictional pop star called Emilio who insists on serenading a sitar instead of lip-syncing his song lyrics.
Confused? Let me explain.
My daughter is a fashion photographer. My son is a cinematographer. They grew up into professional image-makers, one capturing a single perfect image, the other chasing movement through twenty-four frames in a second.
I’m incredibly proud of what they do, but I mainly consider myself a writer, not a visual artist. I’m creative, just like they are, and I love making things, going through crazy crochet phases, and sewing phases. But mostly I’ve sat at my desk and described the many worlds that live in my head through words.
With one exception.
Circa 1983, I made a video set to The Eagles’ Hotel California using an old black-and-white television monitor and rudimentary editing material that probably belongs in a museum today. I vividly remember lying on the floor in my friend’s house up in the San José hills, completely losing track of time as I worked to hit the exact beat each time I cut from one scene to the next. This video still exists, preserved for decades on a VHS tape, then uploaded onto a USB key, now a permanent resident of my computer. It’s an amazing snapshot of a mad part of my life, and of an era.
Once it was finished, I retired from making movies for four decades.
And then, earlier this year, I came across a very good-looking man with that typical velvety-gravelly voice some Spanish men have, singing Spanish love songs.
His name was Saúl del Río.
I stopped scrolling and checked him out. He had a massive following on Instagram and TikTok, as well as a Spotify account with a full album. I lay in the garden under the magnolia and listened to his album. Wow, I thought, good looks, great songs and an incredible voice.
Later that day I realized – sadly – that Saúl del Río was AI.
Yet he looked so real. And sounded so good. And there were little clips of him doing everyday life things, saying cheeky things to his followers.
This AI hottie planted a real seed inside me. You see, I already had a singer. I’d imagined him years ago. I’d written him. I knew his face, his voice, his songs, his career, his bitchy agent and his love life.
His name was Emilio Caliente, and he’s only existed on the pages of my romantic comedy, Just Like A Movie.
What if Emilio could step out of the book?
What if I could make him almost alive?
So I began a little experiment.
I didn’t tell anyone, mostly because I felt a bit silly. There I was, a sixty-four-year-old woman about to attempt to do something way out of her comfort zone.
When I imagine people making stuff with AI, they have a certain look. They’re young and trendy, speak fluent techno, and slouch nonchalantly in their funky gaming chairs while loud music blares in the background. I knew how to clean the washing machine filter, and dismantle the foot of my Dyson, with the help of a YouTube video (on repeat), but that’s about as far as my technical expertise stretched. Ask me to format a document in Word and my mind does that spinny thing the computer does when it’s overwhelmed, which happens to my computer quite a lot.
However, I’m very curious, I entertain a sense of wonder, and if I really want to do something, my determination is a whole lot of oohlala.
Also, I like to think I’m kind of trendy for someone my age.
I already had Suno, the AI music platform that turns lyrics into fully produced songs – I’d used it to turn some of my poems into songs. I had several Emilio Caliente song titles because they’re mentioned in Just Like A Movie, out next March from Empress Editions.
Call me nuts, but my heart rate was racehorsing the first time I sat down to write lyrics for “Corazón Loco” in Spanglish, with a little help from ChatGPT because my Spanish isn’t good enough. And then, there was Emilio Caliente singing words I’d written for him.
Suddenly this became far more than a silly experiment. Did Walt Disney feel a little like this when Mickey Mouse first moved across a screen? Something I’d dreamt up years ago had turned into something I never thought possible. It felt like Emilio was answering me.
But I wasn’t ready to charge straight into animating him. I tried to find out who was behind Saúl del Río, but his creators remain anonymous, mysterious. The online animation software looked terrifyingly technical – the lingo itself assured me I must absolutely be a multi-diplomaed technodiva. Under normal circumstances, this would have put me right off.
But by then there were squadrons of bees buzzing around in my bonnet.
And we can do hard things, right? Even a blonde who will become a granny in September.
I began with photographs of myself, uploading them into Kling, an app that can turn a still image into a moving, talking video. I didn’t yet know I needed detailed prompts, so the initial results were hilarious, with silly voices because I hadn’t realised there was an anti-silly voices button to click. Once I figured that out, I was off to Neverneverland!
It wasn’t long before I created an image of Emilio Caliente, marched him over to Kling, and got him to lift a glass and say “Salud!”
A minuscule step for technopros, a WTF-have-I-just-managed-to-do for Madame Bossert. Within hours I was animating the cover of Just Like A Movie.
Oh my goodness! What a rush!
I got wildly carried away and made Gemma and Emilio run off the cover and onto the beach, immediately floundering in that dreaded three-armed bandido territory. I didn’t give two hoots; I was having the time of my life.
By then I desperately wanted to go full-on scuba in the deep waters.
One of Emilio’s slow songs would surely be easier to pull off for a rookie, right? Well… The learning curve became a full-on Mount Everest expedition in a snowstorm. Despite having prompted Emilio to only lip-sync when there were actual lyrics, the darling man was certain he was fluent in sitar and rambled away like a very handsome dimtwit.
Uff.
I don’t know how much hair the Saúl del Río people pulled out of their heads before they got their hottie right, but chances are they’re bald by now. I’m far too vain to pull my hair out, but I did a lot of frowning, staring at screens in a state of utter confusion, and wasted loads of money generating things that didn’t work. Who knew that making videos with AI was so expensive?
Still, my bees were urging me on. I spent entire days shut away in my office, wrestling with one intimidating piece of software after another: Kling, CapCut, GarageBand. I cut and stitched audio, emerging cross-eyed after chading the lip-sync frame-by-frame.
I asked my son to help with fine-tuning the lip-syncing, but he blew me off, saying he didn’t like AI. Whenever he watches my videos, I know from his expression that he thinks his Mama is rather amusing, but she really isdoing something slightly unhinged. My daughter isn’t raving over my newly discovered filmmaking talents either; she doesn’t care much for the music, but she appreciates how much time I put into it. I figure it’s fair enough; she’s having a baby of her own in a few weeks and has far more pressing matters to deal with than showering her mother’s imaginary pop star with oohs and ahs.
My husband laughs at my videos, but he’s also the one who forever wants me to show them to his friends. He also thinks I’m far too modest about the whole thing, which could be true, because I do feel rather daft explaining how I’ve spent the last few days trying to convince a fictional pop star that he doesn’t speak oud, or sitar. When I do show people my videos, I get admiration mixed with baffled expressions. I understand; if you’d told me two months ago that I’d now have several music videos sitting in my phone, I’d have looked pretty baffled, too.
But there’s something else I wasn’t expecting from this new interest. For the past few years, chronic illness has made my world much smaller.
Creating has opened up a world my illness cannot tamper with.
On days when I can’t go anywhere, I’m quite happy to spend time with my imaginary friends. I’m working on another novel and have plans for a third. When I’m too tired to sit at my desk, I lie in bed and write more songs for Emilio Caliente. I’m also fully capable of arguing with artificial intelligence about the perfect amount of stubble on a thirty-two-year-old man. I smile, I chuckle, totally oblivious to time.
If it sounds frivolous, it doesn’t feel that way; illness makes you feel like a lesser version of yourself.
Making things gives me a sense of anticipation. I wake up eager to make something new, my mind already juggling a million ideas.
I still don’t know who is behind Saúl del Río. He’s out there, gorgeous and anonymous, singing songs about a life he doesn’t have.
But Emilio has a life. He has years of pages behind him before he ever opened his mouth to sing.
Saúl gave me the trick.
Emilio gave me the world.
I think that’s the part of this that has blown my mind. AI didn’t imagine Emilio for me. It didn’t write the years of his life that came before this. It didn’t make me fall in love with him. It just opened a door that hadn’t existed when I first imagined him. And then the man who has lived in my head for years walked through it.
Three-armed bandidos, sitar meltdowns, wasted credits and all the crazies.
(THIS ONE CAME WITH SITAR PROBLEMS!!)
In a few weeks, I will become a grandmother.
Turns out I’m also a brand-new proud mama myself.
PS: Last week, in late October, I finally figured out how to make Emilio speak, which opened up even more possibilities. Here’s me with Emilio… of course, there’s a Spanish version too, as Emilio now has his own Instagram page to promote his real music on Spotify! His most popular reel has over 335 thousand views and counting, and he gets comments and messages from all over the world. I am very clear with his fans, answering in his voice, telling them that he is a fictional character from the romantic comedy, JUST LIKE A MOVIE. People enjoy him nevertheless! He’s cute, and he’s nice, and he can be a bit cheeky. And his songs are dreamy. Or sexy. Like this one, Take Your Time, coming out on all streaming platforms November 6.
This was the first time I got Emilio to speak!!! What a rush!!
This one was also a big breakthrough as it was the first time I got Emilio to sing while a busker played alongside him. So many things to learn and explore!
Follow Emiliocalientemusic on Instagram. And listen to Emilio Caliente’s music on Spotify and all streaming platforms. I’m releasing a song a week until Just Like A Movie is released by Empress Editions on March 16, 2027. Please pre-order the book; pre-orders make a huge difference to a books life!