Generative AI and the Writer's Soul

Further musings after my rant on generative AI and drafting manuscripts

My last essay was born out of a fiery need to say what need be said. And in its wake, I was left with the question:

What is constructive from here?

When my anger over the emerging pattern of AI drafting in traditionally published manuscripts burned off, I found myself haunted by the question of why one would even do such a thing.

The “Holy Haunting”

Artist and writer Scott Erickson talks about how a creative work haunts us¹. There is something about being a maker that just nags at us to make the thing. We cannot help it. The impulse chases us:

• The religious trauma of my family being pushed out of the church I grew up in came out of me as a novel about outlaws.

• A summer of boredom emerged as an ability to crochet.

• While navigating the restlessness of my early twenties, I cooked my way through a cookbook despite not proclivity to cook before.

• Feeling ethically conflicted about a job I was good at became an academic dissertation.

• I once got over an ill-advised romantic infatuation by writing a poem—the words removing the guy from my interest entirely.

I cannot tell you why any of these experiences had to result in the making of something. It just had to. And in that making, I was also being made. A novelist, a hostess, a researcher, hell, a terrible poet, but ultimately: a human. One who was metabolizing what life had wrought and was finding beauty where there had been none before, even in its clumsy, stumbling forms.

I would guess you could share your own version of this.

And if you have experienced this, you, like me, may be asking: why would you rob yourself of the experience of unmaking what you have been handed and remaking something to hand off? If one does not want to undertake the vulnerability and costly task of fully writing, why even seek publication? Why let a computer program rob you of the experience of ever-becoming human?

In asking all this, I guess I am asking a deeper question that I return to again and again with greater frequency in my work in the publishing industry:

Why does it gotta be a book?

Creating for Creating’s Sake

I wasn’t kidding about the outlaw novel. At 13, I woke up from a dream in which I was a medieval serf and my older brother (that only exists in this dream) were trying to save our father who was sentenced to death for being accused of theft by the ruling lord. We failed in our rescue but vowed to avenge him.

I didn’t really need to unpack that with a therapist to realize 1) I had seen Ever After too many times and 2) I may have been holding some anger over my actual father being pushed out of the ministry he and my mother had devoted so much of their lives to.

But as my imagination continued to build on that dream and I began to write it down, I didn’t know I was working out that anger. I just knew I was falling in love with playing pretend on paper.

Each night, rushing through homework or talking my way out of dish duty to go down to the basement to write another chapter, creating that novel was the only thing I wanted to be doing. The margins of my math notebooks were dialogue. I started carrying a notepad with me at all times. I was haunted. I was in love. I was writing a gloriously bad novella.

What I wouldn’t give for that unbridled creation for the sake of itself once again!

And I don’t want to overly romanticize only writing for ourselves. It is good and often necessary for what we make to have a recipient. But ask this:

When did that recipient have to be everyone as the result of the commercial success of a traditional publishing deal? And why to the extent that the making the thing no longer mattered, but instead what mattered was your name on the cover and the praise in a podcast interview?

Perhaps it is not the end goal that should be of our creative concern.

Maria Bowler is an internet acquaintance whose work kept the little creative ember of my soul alight after the burnout that followed grad school.

Back in my undergrad, as I wrestled with my gullibility of believing that working on books would be a worthwhile career path to help fund me writing books, and then blindly followed that path to learn it is a deep and utter lie, I ave had to confront my own capitalist beliefs that making myst be monetizable to be legitimized. Bowler’s book, Making Time, has been doing good and necessary work on me of illuminating my fears and hunches and inviting me a little closer to the state of being that 13 year old writer.

I want you to find the validity of your work as well. For it to be in the making of that thing you’re haunted by. And for that to bring out the deep making of your human soul.

Where are you going with this, Lex?

So what does any of this have to do with the internet?

Let’s be so for real about why we’re out here creating publicly: Somewhere along the line, you were your own dope in love with the act of writing. And someone told you you could write a book one day if you kept at it and that was so encouraging! So you kept at it until you figured it was time to work toward publishing the book, so you looked into it and discovered that to get published, you need a platform.

So you started a blog. You made that public social media account. You rejoiced when the first person who wasn’t your friend or mom started following along.

You were doing it! You were building a platform! One down…1,000 to go. Or was it 10,000? Or did that agent on that writing podcast really say 50,000?!

And so more of the energy used to make your imaginative work was now being used to build a small empire in the hope that someone might pay you to write.

Friend: what do you actually want?

The attention that comes from having written? Or the writing itself?

I am not saying your creative labor isn’t worthy of compensation. And I am not saying that people enjoying what you’re making is bad. What I’m saying is this:

If what one wants is the praise that comes from having written, to the point where they are using a computer program to do what really only matters if it is done by a human just for the sake of having their name on the book and potential praise and income that comes from that, then I think we’ve got this all wrong.

There are more sure-fire ways one can seek accolades that does not exploit the labor of other creatives and publishing professionals in the process.

And for those of us caught between the platform it takes to put out writing in the traditional market and the actual magical act of writing:

Value the writing act over the promotional act.

It is better for your human soul. And it betters each of ours as readers as well.

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What I’m Taking In Lately

Watching

It’s been a strange season over here with my partner seeking employment and my work team going through some changes. Reading or creative work hasn’t been the priority as much as rest and caring for ourselves in a time of a lot of change.

As such, we’ve been watching Parks and Recreation—my fifth time through and Kwade’s first full time through. This is how my partner is realizing I do not have an original sense of humor—I’ve just been quoting this show our entire relationship.

Around the Internet

I’ve been collaborating with different folks as my creative outlet during this time! Here are some things I think you’ll be interested in:

Book Publishing Summer School

I’ll be joining a bunch of fantastic folks around the publishing industry in weekly conversations with

Sara Billups

and

Drew Brown

! This summer series is designed to equip and encourage aspiring authors — led by editors, marketers, agents, and published authors

Tickets: $15 per session or $56 for the full series.

Register Here

My session is a week from today (June 19), and here is the full line-up:

• June 19 – Digital Hospitality for Writers
  Lex de Weese, Senior Marketer, Zondervan Reflective/HarperCollins
  

• July 10 – Writing and Selling Your First Book
  Joash Thomas, Author, The Justice of Jesus (Brazos)
  

• July 24 – Growing a Healthy Platform on Substack
  Will Parker Anderson, Senior Editor, WaterBrook Multnomah
  

• August 7 – Finding an Agent and Pitching Book Proposals
  Morgan Strehlow, The Bindery Literary Agency
  

• August 21 – Emotionally Healthy Writing
  Chuck DeGroat, Therapist and Author

Whether you’re wanting to learn more about the path to publishing or are ready to pitch a proposal, this five-part series offers practical tools and thoughtful guidance to help you move forward.

Podcast Interview: Artists of the Way

I had a blast talking with Jon Wilson and Nate Knobloach of Artists of the Way to talk about how technology seeks to dehumanize us and how creators of faith can navigate platform in a way that rehumanizes our digital spaces. If you’re down for a wide-ranging conversation complete with some solid dad jokes, I recommend you give this some time.

Listen Here

1. His phrase “holy haunting” in reference to the creative impulse has stuck with me since seeing his show “Say Yes” back in 2019. His book, Say Yes is so very worth your time! (Transparency: this book is published by an imprint owned by my employer. I don’t gain anything by you purchasing it, but the company that pays me does and that has no motivation in me sharing with you.)