Something I posted on Threads a short time ago…
I’ll only say this once because I don’t have the patience to repeat myself: My writing has never used and never will use AI. The closest I will ever get is the grammar and spellcheck in MS Word, and even then I make the final decision on it. Your not believing that is not my problem.
And why the fuck would I want to have a computer do the all the parts I love doing the most?
That said, if I’m going to provide you with any ‘process’, it’s going to be in the form of behind-the-scenes commentary just like those old school dvds. Like nerdy explanations about Tuckerizations, how I came up with the conlang, and what song inspired a particular scene. Because that’s fun too!
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So while I’d like to pride myself on being open to learning how to use new technologies and software — to the point that I’ll even write easy-to-understand How-To’s and FAQs for others to use at my day jobs — there are just some platforms that are not built for me. I’m sure I could figure it out easily, I just don’t want to.
All those “AI” systems (and I use both terms loosely) fall into that description. I have no use for them because they’re built to do things I personally like doing myself. I haven’t even bothered to find out where they’re located other than the somewhat intrusive Copilot here on my PC. [And I turned that off as soon as it was installed.]
To me, creating something via prompts just seems so counterintuitive to any kind of creativity I’ve ever had since I was a preteen. There’s something about having to work longer than a few minutes on a text box describing what I want in excruciating detail in the vague hope that it will blorp out what’s currently swirling around my head that sounds so wrong to me. It feels like homework. I’m sure I can do it, and probably even nail it after a while, but it wouldn’t be fun.
Why? Simple: the best part of being creative is the work I put into it. It’s the most fun, the most challenging, and the part I’m most proud of. I still look at A Division of Souls, my first self-published book that came out eleven years ago and the end result of a project that started nearly twenty years before that, and I’m gobsmacked that it’s now in print, that I wrote, edited and published it myself, and even did the layout of its cover. Sure, it took time, but I’m proud of the end result, and that I’ve learned how to do it repeatedly. And each writing project demands an all-new set of rules and outlines to work on in order to give it strength and structure.
The mere idea of sitting down and writing “blorp me out a 200,000-word novel in which two aliens meet, fall in love and fight the evil demons from the neighboring planet who are trying to take over” and then spending four more hours revising and expanding and crafting that description in hopes that something cohesive and entertaining blorps out, just seems so… boring as hell.
The same goes for other avenues of the arts: I’d rather learn something new on my guitar than type a prompt saying “write me a three-minute hit song that sounds like Failure covering Death Cab for Cutie”. I’d rather keep making mistakes in my artwork and learn along the way than type a prompt saying “draw me an anime in the style of Caravaggio.”
Like I said above: why the fuck would I want to have a computer do all the parts I love doing the most?
Now, if these platforms instead created a workable and successful system of promotion work for me, considering most of us writers absolutely hate that part of the gig, then maybe I’d think twice about it.
But yeah, for now, I’m just gonna keep hammering away the old school way while listening to music created by real humans.
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