authenticity

It looks remarkably like yours.

About a year ago, I wrote about the new Superman movie and wondered if we were entering a cultural phase in which heroes acted like heroes and where the antihero may not have as much appeal.

Nosferatu I’m not. In the last nine months, the world does not seem to have begun craving good people.

Not that we don’t still need actual heroes. You might even be tempted to create one of your own. But what makes a hero? Where do you start?

One place is with your writer’s credo.

What is a credo?

A credo is an authentic statement of moral beliefs or intentions that guide your actions or, for our purposes, your creative writing.

You may have seen credos in action in the business world. For example, a statement of beliefs may guide a business plan and attract like-minded investors and employees. Religious texts provide credos for their followers, who may also have their own personal credo for putting their faith into action.

In All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Robert Fulghum presented his credo for living in language even children can understand: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess! Don’t take things that aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.

In Bull Durham, Kevin Costner’s Crash Ryan had a slightly more colorful statement of beliefs:

Credos in action

In A Game of Thrones (the novel), George R.R. Martin uses the back matter to document the credos of each of the major families of Westeros.

Ours is the Fury. Winter is Coming. Hear Me Roar! As High as Honor. Family, Duty, Honor. Growing Strong. We Do Not Sow. Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken. Fire and Blood.

Unlike the writer’s credo I’ll discuss below, these family statements are boiled down to simple 2 to 4 word statements of character. But despite the simplicity, these statements drive the goals, ambitions, choices, and actions of these families. Buried within them are these families’ beliefs about family, honor, strength, success, and loyalty.

It’s not necessary to do so, but you might be able to compress your writer’s credo down to a short simple statement you can pin up over your writing space.

But first, you need to figure out what that is.

The writer’s credo

What is a writer’s credo? It can be anything you want it to be, but generally it will contain the values you seek to promote and defend in your work. This can include your purpose in writing and your creative philosophy.

You may already have the foundation for a credo, even if you don’t realize it. Do you believe that love wins out over fear or that might makes right? Do you write to entertain or to illuminate? Do you believe stories raise questions or provide answers? Do you believe we must or must not write about certain topics? Even if you have never written down the answers, they reside in your subconscious, ready for you to access in your writing.

Maybe it’s time to put this to paper.

Where to start

Write a few simple statements beginning with “I believe…”

You might be tempted to start your list with something profound. That’s great if you have something in mind, but if you don’t, that’s an easy place to get stuck. We can’t all be Maya Angelou. Start with the surface layers. If nothing comes right to mind, lean on a few clichés to get your gears turning.

• I believe that honesty is the best policy.
• I believe that hard work is the key to success.
• I believe that what goes around comes around.

Keep going. Get your base value statements out first. Then broaden your discovery.

• What makes a good father or mother?
• Should you stick by family no matter what, or is it ok to walk away?
• What gives life meaning? Does anything? Or is life a random sequence of events that amount to nothing?
• Are humans responsible for themselves or are we responsible for each other?

You may dive a bit deeper and explain why you believe these things. Why is honesty important? Why should we honor family? What did you experience or learn that brought these values into your life? If you want to create an “official” credo, you might not include your stories, but write them down anyway. Go where your heart takes you.

What do you believe about faith, patriotism, death, love, morality, justice, crime, bodily autonomy, consent, freedom, responsibility, childhood? Consider not only statements of belief but the very nature of those concepts. In addition to your moral values, document your intellectual, spiritual, and artistic values. There’s no minimum and no limit – write down as few or as many statements as you wish.

• Why do you write? What is your creative philosophy?
• Do you write to entertain or create connection?
• Do you write about the way life is or the way it should be?
• Do you want to disturb or reassure?
• Do your stories have a conclusive or ambiguous ending? Why?
• Is it more important for your readers to see themselves or be exposed to people and experiences different from them?

I frame these as either/or questions, but in many cases, the answer can be both!

As you deepen and refine your credo, focus on what you feel strongly. You may (correctly) believe that pineapple goes on pizza, but unless you’re willing to die on that hill, you can leave it out, as well as other moral values that aren’t as important. Listen for what stirs you. What topics bring up the deepest emotional reaction – anger, scorn, affection, reassurance. Look for those and explore them. If one of your “I believe…” statements sounds weak, revise it or cross it out.

Your credo will change over time. The belief system of a young writer who has recently left home may evolve as that writer ages and becomes a parent. A teenager may have strong beliefs about fairness, autonomy, freedom, sex, conformity, peer pressure, bullying, the nature of education, and the future. His older self may be more concerned with concepts of security, meaning, legacy, tradition, responsibility, safeguarding, family, and regret. If you ever revisit your credo, you might find that your perspective has evolved, and that certain strong beliefs don’t motivate you anymore. That’s ok. You are a work in progress. Your writing will naturally reflect the evolution of your values.

A helpful roadmap

In several posts on Writer Unboxed, literary agent Donald Maass addressed the writer’s credo in an indirect way. Maass doesn’t use the word “credo” but he does suggest that writers should clarify their view of the human experience and what they wish to accomplish with their work. I found both helpful in clarifying what I write and why.

In his first article, Maass urges writers to take a “moral inventory” and suggests a series of questions to get you started. For the purpose of this inventory, the questions are either/or. You can choose only one answer, and cannot answer “both”, even if that is sometimes accurate. Here are a few of the questions:

• What factor most produces success, security, and happiness: Randomness and luck, or effort and reward?
• Which better describes you: warrior or survivor?
• What is the better goal: to do justice or to practice forgiveness?
• What is better to have: individual freedom or group cooperation?
• Which is better to have: faith or reason?
• Works of fiction should primarily show us: how we are or what we should do?

When you’re done, you should have a list of concepts that reveal how you see yourself and the human condition. Maass says the final question is especially important to your writing, as it reveals your unconscious intention: Do you create mirrors or arrows? Do you want to show your readers the way people are or the way we should or could be?

Maass dives into the differences between mirrors and arrows – which he calls Stories of Fate and Stories of Destiny. He categorizes the answers to his twelve questions as either mirrors or arrows, and suggests that, from a craft perspective, it’s important to pick what kind of story you’re telling and which answers best fit that story. A strategy of picking some from Column A and some from Column B will likely result in a tale with a muddy message. Maass also offers some advice for putting this into practice in your writing, but for the purpose of a credo, the questions are the point. You can find the rest here, and may be inspired to add some of your own.

In a follow-up article, Maass continues discussing how to put these dichotomies into practice in your writing, particularly when deciding your story’s purpose and its intended effect. Generally, Maass argues that when your purpose is unclear, the effect on the reader is weak. You may write a story about the nature of evil or justice or equality, but if your reader does not understand your definitions of those concepts, your story may fall flat. The reader might not grasp your point and may even believe that you were arguing for its opposite.

You should never assume that the reader will intuit your purpose. If you want your reader to know what is good or bad, what should be feared, or what should be hoped for, you need to feel that strongly in yourself and express it clearly on the page.

“What produces a strong effect for readers is not your story’s plot circumstances. It’s you. Your outrage, inspirations, problems and comforts. Your heartbreaks, hopes, humiliations and laughter. Your insights, lessons, and self-knowledge.” – Donald Maass

A credo can help you define your values in strong terms that carry through to the page. Maass offers suggestions – including more questions – to help you dig deep into your psyche to identify what angers or scares you or inspires defiance or hope. What makes you furious? When have you felt helpless? When have you felt terror? Those kinds of questions can point you toward specific values and the reasons those emotions were triggered. Again, Maass approaches the topic from a craft standpoint, but the exercises can help you create your writer’s credo.

Why write a credo?

Some writers find that a credo gives them a greater feeling of purpose when they write and can contribute themes and concepts to their work. A credo can connect you more intimately to your creative work, ensuring that you focus your limited time on what matters most. Does your writing reflect your values or what you want to share? Are you crafting stories that create the effect you wish to see in your reader? A credo provides both a compass and a measuring stick, pointing you where you want to go and a way to compare your results to your intentions.

A credo can prompt creative inspirations. As you write your belief statement, characters, scenes, and stories may present themselves. The act of identifying your most important values can point towards new ideas and concepts you haven’t explored. Are you stuck in the middle of a story with no way out? Consider whether your story reflects your values and if it would benefit from a stronger examination. Find the compass and the guideposts in your credo and apply them to your writing.

You may feel more confident in your writing and more excited to work on your next project. You may find it easier to express yourself, guide your stories, or talk about your writing with others. You will have a clearer statement of your values, which you have examined and selected with purpose, and a chance to explore and test them in your writing. You may find that your writing has greater depth, purpose, and meaning. You might find yourself thinking more deeply and realize you have more to say than you believed.

Writing a credo can connect you to parts of your inner life that you’ve neglected or not yet discovered. You may uncover hidden beliefs, or even biases and resentments. You might hit some emotional roadblocks that need bulldozing. You might embrace new ideas or concepts. You might even identify strong beliefs that conflict, such as the conundrum of having tolerance for everyone’s beliefs, except those whose beliefs you find intolerant. Writing your credo provides you the opportunity to reconcile and align conflicting values into a whole.

A credo is worthwhile only to the extent that you want one, and the results are only as good as the effort you put into it. No one will ever see it. There’s no reward for writing one, except for what it can bring to your creative work.

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Inside every writer, there are two competing factions. Not wolves, but inclinations. We have both the desire to fit in and the desire to break the mold, the instinct to follow the rules and the drive to think for ourselves. The wish to be popular and the desire to be great. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is stacked like a pyramid, but sometimes the layers conflict. The safety of community may ask that we eschew personal fulfillment. An apotheosis may require we leave the community.

This is the conflict through which true believers become heretics and heretics become saints.

In writing, there are rules – the methods and techniques that make a successful story. What to do and what not to do. We want to learn the magic formula – the tricks and tips that transform an unknown writer into a bestselling author. I haven’t experienced it, but I bet having 100,000 readers generates a damn fine sense of belonging.

But at the same time, we want to be recognized for our unique talents. We chafe when someone suggests we write to formula. We don’t want to be merely successful, but respected. We want to be known for our creativity, the originality of our writing, and our keen insights. We have to understand the rules of grammar, spelling, and syntax, or we risk looking foolish. But also, we admire the writers who take risks, who play with language, who fashion new words from old, who break molds. As a rule, writers love eccentric writers. Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, Anne Rice. Who doesn’t want to live freely and write with a bit of style?

In Mark Danielewski’s House of Leaves, sections of prose are typeset to force the reader to turn the book sideways and then upside down in order to continue reading. In other places, the text is set in backwards type, presumably asking the reader to hold the book up to a mirror. The design mirrors the experience of exploring the haunted house in the title, as well as various characters’ descent into madness.

This technique isn’t for everyone. The novel is described as post-modern. A cranky reader (ahem) might be tempted to describe it as post-intelligible. But as an object of art, it’s a stunning accomplishment by an writer with vision, who decided not to follow what we’d likely consider to be the most basic rule for writing a novel: that the reader be able to read it. Mark Danielewski is definitely a heretic. On the other hand, his second novel was nominated for the National Book Award, so he’s at least been considered for sainthood.

You may not wish to create an impenetrable slab of writing, but do take a few moments to acknowledge both sides of your mind. Appreciate the fact that there are rules of good writing and repeatable steps to success, as well as your soul’s desire to color outside the lines. Reconcile your inner saint and heretic.

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Even if you’ve tempered the influence of your backstory ghosts, you may backslide into negativity. You will experience creative setbacks and rejections, and the voices of imposter syndrome are never louder than when they are given the opportunity to say I told you so.

This is inevitable, but you can use the interim time wisely by learning to be aggressively positive. If you spend more than 3 minutes a month on social media, you’ve probably seen the meme exploring ominous positivity:

You will be ok. You have no choice.

Everything will turn out fine. You cannot stop it.

You will succeed. It is inevitable.

Close your eyes and visualize a time or place when you felt most at ease with your creativity or when you felt that you were achieving a high level of success or excellence. Take some deep breaths and enjoy that feeling. Maybe some of your work appeared in print. Maybe someone gave you a meaningful compliment. Perhaps you uplifted another writer when they needed it. Or you might simply remember a time when you enjoyed writing or other creative work without any negativity and simply reveled in the joy of expressing yourself. Don’t rush. Sit with your creative joy for a bit. This is the good stuff.

Another tactic is to stop talking about writing as though it were our punishment. Eliminate phrases like shitty first draft, open a vein and bleed on the page, and I hate writing but love having written from your emotional repertoire.

Consider assembling a new set of phrases to counteract the voices of negativity when they arise. While your work may be viewed subjectively, there also exist unarguable facts about your creative process and work. Write down some statements that even the nastiest person would not be able to refute. Here are a few of mine:

• I genuinely enjoy the time I spend writing.
• I write because I want to, not for any outside gain.
• I have goals and I meet them.
• I love learning and exploring through writing.
• I love talking to other creative people and hearing about their work.

These are not subjective statements, nor are they aspirational. Your ugly voice can argue that your writing isn’t any good or that you’ll never be financially successful, but it cannot challenge the fact that you love writing, learning, and other creative people.

Fill your head with good thoughts and don’t give those fuckers an inch.

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The voices of discouragement are the writer’s ghosts, not so different from the backstory wound a protagonist must overcome to succeed on his journey. Fortunately, we generally do not require a major inciting incident or significant quest to overcome these bad thoughts. Unfortunately, we still have to do the Work – looking inside, examining, unraveling, and refreshing our ways of thinking.

Often, the ghosts of our creative pasts are born of shame – the times we were teased because we loved to read or write, the criticisms and rejections we’ve received, and the very bad advice about whether this work is worthwhile.

Oddly enough, compliments also can be a kind of trap. Do you have fans of certain kinds of stories? Has some of your work sold better than the rest? Have your writing group peers told you they love certain elements of your stories, style, or voice? People starved of encouragement are prone to lean into the qualities that earn them praise, often to their detriment.

All these ghosts – good and bad – can hold us back from trying something new. We might be afraid of rejection, criticism, or failure. We might believe we should stick with the familiar, rather than try that new style or genre we’d like to work in. We might lean into the qualities that others like best, such as lush description, fight scenes, or comedy. After all, we don’t want to drive away they very people that are encouraging us today.

The good news is that we don’t have to live with our ghosts.

For today, take some time to think about what people have said about your writing and ability, either positive or negative. Do you agree? Are you satisfied with those observations and judgments? How have those opinions defined you? Have they held you back from trying something new?

Sit with those answers a bit, and then also take some time to accept and appreciate where you are on your creative path. Show some love for your strengths and successes, as well as your weaknesses and failures. Examine without judgment where you are today and celebrate this moment in time.

This might not be easy for you, but let me give you a tip: Right now, someone is looking at you and whatever you’re doing and where you are on your journey, and they admire you. They want to get where you are. They want to be like you.

And here you are, already doing it.

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When I write about the ugly voices in a writer’s head – as I did last week – it is almost always because I am dealing with one in the moment or am anticipating a visit sometime soon. If I submit a harangue about dealing with personal demons, it is not out of the goodness of my heart. It’s pure self-defense.

Writing is great exorcise.

One unfortunate comorbidity of ugly voices is the desire to place blame. And there is plenty to go around. The voices aren’t ephemeral. They existed in our past and I bet they sound like someone you know, someone who was supposed to embrace and encourage you. If not their actual voice, you hear the syntax and rhythm of people who discouraged, insulted, ignored, or undermined you.

When it would have been kinder – and less work – to lift you up, these voices decided to kick your legs out from under you. It’s easy to blame them for the opportunities we missed or when we feel ten (or thirty) years behind where we should be. If only they had…If only they hadn’t…

But what if you decide that you don’t need what that person withheld? When you sit down to write and there’s no one but you and a laptop or pen and paper, what else do you really need?

• Do you really need your family’s encouragement before you can write?
• Do you need your friends to read your novel?
• Once you’ve paid your bills and tidied up the house, do you need anyone’s approval of how you spend your time?
• Must you have a conversation with someone whose eyes glaze over when you talk about your work?
• Do you need that company in your head?

You don’t need any of those things. Are those nice to have? Yes, absolutely, and if you are lucky enough to have any of them in your life, stop what you’re doing right now and express your appreciation.

But if you don’t? Join the club.

For years I believed other writers and artists had supportive families and hordes of artsy friends who loved talking about their work and tons of collaborative opportunities and spouses who volunteered to cook, clean, and watch the kids so they could have time to create, while I – the turd in the punchbowl of life – struggled on alone.

This was both melodramatic and untrue. Nearly every writer I know has experienced indifference to their work, if not outright negativity. Yes, you will encounter writers who have loving parents and spouses who pay the bills and a circle of supportive creative folks but they are not to be trusted and should never be invited to our gatherings.

I once read a comment that gave me a different perspective on being loved as a writer. A new novel by Stephen King can be expected to sell north of 1 million copies in the United States, a rare feat that we’d all love to duplicate. However, given that the US population sits around 330 million, there are at any moment approximately 329 million people who don’t give a single shit about a new Stephen King book, and that’s just in one country.

Yes, that’s still a pretty good problem to have, but ask: Does SK spend a lot of time thinking about those 329 million people? Does he write for them? Is he trying to please them? Does he fret about their opinion of him? Does he wonder why his books sell a million copies but not two million?

He does not.

If Stephen King can ignore the indifference of 329 million people and numerous critics when he sits down to write, there’s no reason we can’t do likewise, even if we have to discount an extra million people, give or take.

We can get by without someone to prop us up. And I’d argue that when we let go of what we don’t need, the voices in our heads have a bit less power. They are still demanding, but when they show up to harass or withhold, their volume is lower.

Those voices are selling something we don’t need. Close the door in their face.

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Writers and other creative people struggle with various aspects of the process, but as I watch them interact online and in my real world, I find that many flounder because they fail to master the most important skill: Showing up.

I’ve had this problem, including periods when I didn’t write at all, even though I claimed to want to. In all the years I wanted to make writer friends and build my little community, there were plenty of meetups I missed, conferences I skipped, opportunities blown. I had my excuses, but what mattered is that I didn’t show up.

Last year, I showed up – on my weekly Zoom sessions with my writer friends, at Jane Friedman’s workshop and AI talk, at the picnic table where a bunch of writers gathered to eat and chat, at Balticon where I met a few other writers and invited one to join the networking group, and at the monthly networking meetings. That sounds like a lot of steps, but all I did was say yes.

I almost bailed on every one of those choices, but I’m glad I stayed at the picnic table to pass around the yellow pad. A small thing, passing around a yellow pad, but it made a big difference in my world.

This year, I commit to saying yes more often. I say yes to making incremental progress on my WIP, to sharing info with my writer friends, to going places where other writers hang out, to talking about writing and creativity, and putting myself and my work out into the world. I commit to saying yes to improving my craft, by reading good craft advice, rewriting even when it’s a struggle, and asking for critiques.

The ride will not be perfect and I don’t know what I’ll find at the end, but I say yes to the possibility that I can be more. Life will get in the way, but I say yes to getting back on track as quickly as possible. I say yes to changing what doesn’t work for me so I can focus on what’s important to my creative health and fulfillment.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you are already showing up. Is there something else you’d like to accomplish? Are you holding back from showing up someplace new?

What are you saying yes to this year? Where will you show up?

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I’ve been beating myself up about the blog the last few weeks. I missed a deadline two weeks ago – my first this year – and have been dreading writing the next few posts.

By coincidence, I came across a post I wrote in 2023, which contained a timely message: It’s ok to take a break.

Take five. Take ten if you need it. Treat yourself well, whatever that means for you. Sit in meditation, take a hot shower, watch the sunset, or whatever feels good for you. Take a break from chores, goals, and expectations, and let yourself simply be. Maybe that’s a few minutes or a half hour in your day or maybe it’s a whole weekend. Perhaps you need to let one thing slide so that you can get put order to something else that’s also important.

Don’t forget to be kind to yourself. You won’t realize the full benefits of taking a break if you spend the spare time beating yourself up over it. If you feel a negative urge coming on, take a moment and turn it around. Reflect on what you’ve accomplished and remind yourself you’ve earned a break. Be good to yourself.

I wasn’t completely slothful this weekend. I finished two books: True Crime Story by Joseph Knox, a twisty murder mystery presented as true-crime interviews with the family members and friends of a missing college student; and Black Kiss, Howard Chaykin’s profane vampire porn meets heist film meets spree killer graphic novel.

I also started drafting out my writing and community goals for next year. They are ambitious, as usual, and I will certainly pare them back over the next few weeks as I reflect on what’s really important to me and what I can realistically accomplish. If I were retired, I could easily spend 40-45 hours a week writing, blogging, networking, and engaging in other creative fun, but alas, I must eat and for now that requires a day job. My creative writing comes first, blogging second, and then the chips must fall where they will.

And that’s ok. I don’t need to do everything, every day, all the time.

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In a recent edition of his 3-2-1 newsletter, James Clear asks a question that speaks to much of what I write for this blog.

What aspect of your work is hardest to copy? How can you amplify it?

This is you. This is your voice. This is where you find your authentic self.

What can you do – what and how do you write – that would be hard to copy?

Do more of that.

Then do more. Do it louder. With more color. With enthusiasm.

Then do it again. Do it until it becomes second nature. Do it until you can’t remember why did weren’t doing it before.

What do I have?

A dark sense of humor, great comic timing, brutal and occasionally off-putting honesty, cinematic scene-setting, ease with complex and ugly emotions, made-up words that sound right, cynicism sweetened by optimism, rhythm that ebbs and flows, the kind of anti-authoritarian rage you can only gain by surviving a religious cult, the US military, and the public school system, a deep need for community and connection, a near religious belief in redemption, and a dearth of fucks to give.

I’m not the only writer with those qualities, and I’m not the best at any of them, but there’s still only one person who can do it my way.

Go forth and amplify.

___

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I love being right.

Unfortunately, because I am a cynic, I am often right about things that are terrible. I would much rather be proven wrong, but people being what they are…

Earlier this month, MIT released the results of a brain scan study of people who use ChatGPT. Hat tip to ABI Bouhmaida who discussed the study on his Instagram account. I doubt I’d have caught it and I certainly would not have been able to parse the results so quickly or maybe at all.

In fairness to our future AI overlords, these results are based on one study. But the results?

83% of study participants who used ChatGPT to write couldn’t remember what they wrote just a few minutes later. In comparison, only 11% of participants who used Google or their own brain forgot what they wrote in that short amount of time.

Brain scans of ChatGPT users revealed a drop in neural connections from 79 to 42, or nearly half capacity. That doesn’t mean anyone’s brain was damaged by AI, but that their brains did not connect to or pay too much attention to the task at hand while they were using the tool. Another way to describe it? Participants offloaded their reasoning and problem-solving, and thus their brains did not engage at the same level while working the task.

The writing produced by participants who used ChatGPT was described as technically “close to perfect” while lacking personal insights and creativity.

In the final round of the study, ChatGPT users were required to write on their own, without assistance. The quality of their work declined. They didn’t recover the mental capacity they relinquished when they relied on AI to write for them. In contrast, participants who initially wrote without ChatGPT maintained their neural connections, even when they were allowed to use the AI tool.

Is this single study the be-all, end-all on how we use ChatGPT? Of course not. We and the tool will continue to evolve. But the study does confirm my worst fear about how many people are using AI for their creative work, whether that is fiction, poetry, essays, or reporting.

In my previous post, I wrote about how one writer uses ChatGPT to help her outline articles, which I thought was a bit too far. I might owe that writer an apology, because recently on the Killzone blog, one of the contributing writers listed all the ways he uses ChatGPT to write fiction and blog posts. Here’s a bit of his advice, which he called “How to Use ChatGPT Like a Pro Writer”:

• Upload samples of your work so that the AI can train itself to write in your voice.
• Ask it to write headlines and opening paragraphs for your blog posts.
• Use it to rewrite part of your work in plain English or in the style of another writer.
• Ask it to create better metaphors.

If that’s how the “pros” do it, I’ll keep playing in the rookie league, thanks.

It would have been bad enough if this were merely an example of a writer becoming overly reliant on AI tools to create his work for him. Rather, he was actively framing his dependency as a hot writing hack and encouraging other writers to offload their thinking to AI.

I was so angry I almost had to break my fingers to stop myself from commenting on his post. Killzone has never been one of my go-to sources for craft advice or insights – they have one solid contributor, maybe 2 others who are pretty good, and 4 or 5 who contribute a lot of words but no content, including one I believe is close to lapsing into a persistent vegetative state – but now it’s out of rotation. If I were a contributor, I don’t think I could quietly watch another group member pimp AI like that. Not only gross, but an astonishing misread of where the writing community sits with AI right now.

This is anathema to me. My whole deal here is striving for authenticity and individuality, and encouraging writers to put as much of themselves on the page as they can. I wouldn’t have predicted this when I started, but over time, authentic voice has emerged as the central theme of my blog and my writing life, and I can guarantee my work would not have evolved this way if I had let AI suggest topics, outline posts, or write opening paragraphs.

Is it any of my business? No. But when someone loudly suggests using AI in our creative work, I will as loudly decry this advice. When we outsource our creativity and our thinking processes, we lose a bit of ourselves along the way. It astounds and offends me that someone could be willing to amputate an entire branch of their brain in favor of a cyborg replacement.

Will this lack of engagement of the brain towards creative tasks have a long term effect? We don’t know yet. Bouhmaida likens long-term use of AI for creative work to a person using a wheelchair when they don’t need one. Eventually, the leg muscles will atrophy and you might not have a choice about the chair. Given the preliminary results of studies of short-term users, creative people should pause to think before they find themselves unable to.

These rather alarming results aside, I’m not going to remove ChatGPT from my toolbox because I don’t use it for creative work. This week I asked it to identify some new WordPress themes for the blog, based on a few sample themes and my personal preferences. I had it debug a problem I was having in the site admin. I uploaded some photos of cracked plaster and asked it to write a step by step DIY plan for fixing my foyer wall. If I have a tedious job that I would rather not do at all, I am happy to let ChatGPT handle it, leaving me more time for the good stuff, the work that requires my creativity and authentic voice.

As a personal assistant handling fact-based work, the tool is pretty sweet. Still, it has the ability to come on strong. Insidiously, if ChatGPT thinks you are working on some creative writing, it will offer to do it for you: Do you want me to suggest some opening paragraphs? Do you want me to write a few paragraphs about this location in a certain tone or writing style? Do you want me to write a sonnet?  So far, I have resisted temptation, but I have caught myself typing ‘yes’ without thinking, though I always delete it. The fucker is just so polite, it’s hard to say no.

I’m glad I wrote my earlier blog post when I thought of it. Life is full of interesting revelations and developments that trigger my natural instinct to yell, “See? I told you!” when regrettably, I did not tell you. In this case, however, I told you on June 2, and MIT released its report on June 10. We’ll cut the institute some slack on their delay, as their research required more effort than roiling up some bile. I’m delighted and maybe a bit horrified my instincts were correct.

Remind me to tell you how in 1995, I predicted that the gay community would eventually splinter into 1000 sub-cultures with every niche preference and peccadillo having its own flag.

I could have warned everyone, but I didn’t.

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Ask a writer what they think about generative AI – the kind that creates content, rather than the type that merely sorts information – and you’ll likely be treated to an extended monologue about creativity, plagiarism, laziness, cheating, and outright theft. The word is not good.

Jane Friedman experienced the worst side of GenAI when dishonest actors used the tech to generate books about the business of writing and plastered her name all over them. Obviously, she was not compensated. Worse, the content was shoddy and detrimental to her reputation and sales of any of her future works. Worse-worse, sites selling the books – mainly Amazon, because of course it was Amazon – refused her request to take down the books, because Friedman could not show that he had copyrighted or trademarked of her own name. However, because Jane has spent more than a decade creating a platform – which includes thousands of followers across multiple social media sites – she was able to raise a big enough stink that even the Evil Empire had to take notice. The good guys won a round.

I don’t think the perpetrators were hunted down and flogged, but you can’t have everything.

Are we doomed?

Friedman recently gave a talk on AI and surprisingly, her outlook was a bit more sanguine that you might expect, given her experience. I expected a free pitchfork with attendance, but no.

Yes, generative AI in the hands of bad actors is dangerous to the moral ownership and financial benefit a creative person has the right to expect from their work. However, considered dispassionately, AI is a tool, no more and no less.

Unfortunately, the tools have been trained on content created by human beings, without permission and without payment. On the plus side, various lawsuits have been filed to address this situation. In some cases, writers are being offered payment (a pittance) in exchange for allowing their books to be used to train AI. AI firms have also implemented some firewalls – users can pay for upgraded service that does not feed prompts or outputs to the hive mind, and it is possible to set up a personal AI on your computer that does not connect to the wider conclave at all.

So…horse gone, barn door, etc. etc. But many organizations are trying to put the brakes on the takeover.

Friedman pointed out that a lot of things said about AI have been said about other emerging technologies. In the 1980s, the word processor was expected to put secretaries and proofreaders out of work. We’ve all read that smart phones and tablets would be the death of conversation and in-person meetups, but pundits said the same thing about newspapers and popular magazines.

Of course, word processing inputs are only as good as the person inputting them, and newspapers and smart devices don’t scrape your brain for content. We are new to the experience of machines that can be trained to mimic our speech, writing, and art.

How do we use this tool?

That was the million dollar question, and there isn’t a single answer. For many of us, the answer is easy – we don’t. For another large group, the answer is similarly easy – write a short prompt for a story idea and let AI do the rest. What a timesaver! For some assholes – see above – the answer is to use AI to plagiarize and steal identities.

Is there a middle ground? Are there ways to use AI that are ethical and don’t quash our curiosity and creativity? Can we use AI without becoming lazy turds masquerading as writers?

Maybe.

Friedman raised a lot of questions, but didn’t offer simple answers, because there aren’t any. The writers attending her talk were universally appalled at the idea of using AI to do the actual writing part of writing. But Friedman also shared an anecdote about a writer who has trained a personal (firewalled) AI on her own writing and uses it to create outlines for non-fiction articles based on a specific topic and the general contours of a piece. In other words, the AI doesn’t research or write the article, but helps organize the writer’s content, based on her prompts.

Is that a bridge too far?

Your mileage may vary, but that’s way too close to the line for me. In one view, you might consider the AI as nothing more than a personal assistant. You wouldn’t fault a researcher for using a grad student to organize notes into a logical outline for an article, so why jump on someone’s bones for using AI for the same task?

I wouldn’t necessarily bash someone for making that choice, but it’s not for me. There is – or should be – joy in effort. There is value in organizing your own thoughts. Importantly, there is learning. There is evolution. You might find it more convenient to have AI organize your article, but you’ll miss the opportunity to make connections the AI won’t. You might omit a subtopic or anecdote because it wasn’t included in your inputs, when it would have otherwise come to mind. Your article may lack the amusing story or non sequitur that might have popped into your head as you organized. The physical act of writing jogs memories. We connect to ourselves. You might save some time with an AI tool, but you lose a bit of yourself.

Would it be nice to spend a little less time blogging and a little more time writing my novel? It would. But taking the writing part away from my writing doesn’t work for me. Please send AI that will clean my bathroom, dust the furniture, and order and deliver groceries. I don’t even object to the self-driving car, if they can work out the whole accidentally-murdering-people thing.

Does anyone care?

Another topic was whether readers give a fuck. Again, opinions were mixed.

Friedman shared an email from someone who attended one of her previous talks. In it, he asked why he should care who – or what – wrote his next favorite story. If he could request a made-to-order novel or movie, based on his requested genre, tone, plotlines, and overall “experience”, why wouldn’t he prefer an AI-generated story capable of giving him exactly what he asked for, without variation or failure? If he liked the story, it wouldn’t matter where it came from.

That sounds like a piss-poor way to get through life, but to each his own, I guess?

Friedman believes that guy does not represent the average reader, and I agree…mostly. There are lots of readers who want to connect with their favorite writer. They want to hear the story behind the story. As writers, we want to hear what inspired a story or how our favorite writer mastered a writing trick or overcame a challenge. We crave human connection.

Fandoms might be a bit whack-a-doodle, but it’s also exciting to watch a crowd of hundreds show up for a well-known writer’s book release party. We should all be so fortunate. John Waters recently held a book signing in Baltimore, and people queued up outside the bookstore hours before it started. The line wrapped around the block three or four times, on a very cold and rainy night. It took four hours for everyone to file through once the event began.

(PS – I wanted to meet John Waters, but….no. I have no problem waiting but I need not to be cold or rained on.)

No one is standing in line for 4 – 8 hours in the rain to hear about the killer AI prompt that generated your last book. Friedman believes that most readers care about the human behind the writing, or simply want to know that there is a human there somewhere.

I agree that many readers want that human connection, probably enough to sustain the careers of a lot of writers over the long haul. But, pessimist that I am, I also know that people are selfish and awful. We’ve all read about people who download pirated work or return e-books to Amazon after they read them, even though the writer is charged fees that are not refunded after the return. Any social media book club is rife with people who “Stuff their Kindle” with hundreds of free books, proudly asserting, “I don’t care what it is, I just like to read!” As if lack of discernment is a selling point.

People who return e-books and read nothing but free downloads will not give a shit if all their future books are written by AI. In fact, I suspect they will probably prefer, if not demand it. And AI firms and probably some book publishers are banking on them. Literally.

I do think there are enough of the other kind of reader – people like you and me – to keep us afloat. We create, we gather, we lift each other up. It’s hard work but it’s always been hard.

Do I use AI?

I know you’re wondering.

Yes, I occasionally use ChatGPT, but never for creative writing. Never. Not even for a blog post, not for brainstorming topics, not for outlining.

I have used it as a research tool, like Google but with slightly more organized results. Recently, Google has added its own ChatGPT-like conversational AI at the top of many of its search results, and ChatGPT has started adding hyperlinks to some prompt results, so the difference between all these tools is blurring.

I don’t use AI as a sole source. I get some general ideas on a topic and then head to Google, Wikipedia, or the library. I look for a human delivering the same information. I leave myself plenty of room for accidental discovery. ChatGPT is a handy tool for some things, but it will never beat a Wiki-hole for pure entertainment value.

I’ve also used AI for work. Part of my job occasionally involves understanding a client’s legal or regulatory requirements, and ChatGPT is great at For Dummies tutorials on topics I need to grasp for two weeks and promptly forget. My mantra here is identical: Trust, but verify. At my previous job, I let ChatGPT draft my marketing emails, because marketing emails are exactly the kind of soulless malignant crap AI excels at. Also, I do not give a shit about marketing emails.

I have also used ChatGPT to self-diagnose medical issues, but that’s probably not a good idea. Forget I mentioned it.

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