writing: an action and a feeling.

surprised it’s taken me this long to touch on AI here, but it’s absolutely something i’ve been thinking about as i’m writing my manuscript. in a society, and specifically an american society, that too often prides itself on knowing everything and having the answers to every question, i’m not shocked more and more people are turning to AI for answers, outcomes, and final products, but i am appalled.

so much of what i love and have always about writing is not the end product – it’s the struggle in-between. the feeling of climbing up and over the mountain of nonsense in my brain to find the exact words i want to say and then actually finding them??? that’s the magic. the spontaneous idea generation – feeling lost and suddenly out of nowhere, knowing the exact ideas you need to pursue or the scenes you need to write or the words that seem to have chosen themselves. it’s not solely or even primarily about the final version of the book i’m excited to have at the end of this journey – i’m fighting through and enjoying the journey i’m taking to find the book for myself.

AI can never replicate that.

the chaos of the human mind. the emotional connections from memories and cultural allegories you naturally pull from. the knowledge that your creative magic is your own. that you’re the only person who could’ve come up with these words at this time, even if someone selects similar ones at a different or the same time. they aren’t you.

i’m currently reading “you need your art” by amie mcnee in hopes of fully believing i’m an artist as i actively create. mcnee’s book emphasizes the importance of finding both legitimacy and value in our unique creative processes and our specific abilities to communicate information. if ever there was a time for human beings to lean into this part of our egos, our literal and extraordinary humanness, it is NOW. claw your humanity away from AI, which purports to make art “accessible” by destroying it at the root, by reducing art to an end as it separates you, your mind, your heart from the means.

if all of the world’s art had been about the final products themselves, we’d never know or care about artists’ stories. we’d never know what made them feel so compelled to share those stories and their work with us. who artists are matters as much as their work. what good is a story if you don’t know who or what informed it? what conversations led to ideas, what questions led to scenes, or encounters led to characters?

AI can never replicate that.

writing is an action i perform AND a feeling i experience. creation. building a world and populating it from scratch. it is unfathomable to me to consider handing over my creative process in exchange for “being done.” even if it would mean having an easier experience from idea to book, or having a higher probability that i’ve “crafted” something people will want to read vs. something i want to write, my answer is no.

writing is deeply personal and indulgent for me – an opportunity to create whatever i want. there is no way a machine is capable of having that human internal drive, that yearning, that undeniable urge to say something or to communicate a feeling or thought, and that itself is FUNDAMENTAL to creation. it’s definitely not capable of MY drive, MY yearning, MY urges. why would i ever want to give that up?

i have no idea how writing future books or future anything will proceed for me. maybe this current book will get harder to write and so will everything else that follows. or maybe my process will land somewhere between ease and trudging through the tundra. no matter what, the creative process is mine. there are lessons i have had to learn and still need to learn about myself as i go through it. all of that, all of the feelings of ineptitude and elation i will experience as i grow and change as a person and a creative — that is what i would be denying myself by heralding a completed project more than my own mind and passions and skills. i never want to do that. now or ever.

i’m using both the foundation and the remaining shreds of my humanity to pour into my art, and i refuse to turn it over to AI.

convenience is not worth handing over my humanity. completion is not worth losing it fully.

i write because i can’t not write.

because it’s who i am.

and i am a HUMAN BEING.

i’d rather have crappy art than hollow.