Over the summer, I was at a fancy French artists’ residency sitting in on a class about writing a better artist’s statement. I’ve always struggled with artist’s statements.
I’m a writer… uh read my writing…? It literally speaks for itself.
But. Clearly fellowships and residencies and awards feel differently. So whenever I can, I take a class, and I try to improve how I speak about my own work.
Never once, not once, had it ever occurred to me to turn the task over to AI.
Even as I grouse about the artist’s statement, I see the value in understanding what I do and having the ability to communicate what that is to others with clarity and specificity. The better I understand my art, the better my art becomes.
So I keep at it. And hope to be someday better than I was.
Someone in the room proudly proclaimed to the instructor that they asked their cousin to use ChatGPT to write their artist’s statement and it’s pretty good.
The inaudible gasp from the instructor, even through our glitchy Internet connection was loud. Her shoulders flexed forward as if she’d been punched in the chest, as if she were about to hurl.
She recovered quickly, “If it’s working for you, that’s great.”
I don’t keep up with that person, so I’ll likely never know if that R2D2 penned statement is actually “working” for them.
Closer to home is the conversation around using AI to write your book proposal.
The book proposal is a marketing and sales tool. It exists to convince an agent and/or an editor that you can write a book compelling enough that thousands of people will purchase it. I’m certain using AI to write your book proposal is not the most effective strategy for making people feel confident you can write a whole book.
Particularly, because most essay collections and memoirs are sold on proposal, it feels especially heinous to trust that a technology fueled by pattern recognition can tell your life story better than you can. The life you want to base your book on should not be that cliche, and at the very least, the storytelling within the book shouldn’t be.
As a writing coach, I don’t even advise writers pay someone else to do their book proposal.
Let a coach guide you through the process, but you should absolutely do the work yourself. The arduous project of pulling together a book proposal forces you to see your book with clarity and prepares you for shifting from the creative side of the writer’s life to the business of publishing. How will you position the book in the market to make it distinct? The answer to that question comes into focus during the research and writing you do for the book proposal.
If you use AI to write your book proposal, not only will you not have this answer, you’re also unlikely to even know what’s in the proposal and there’s a high possibility that whatever the Jetson’s Rosey flings together for you on her 15-minute break from being a dishwasher in an apron, probably isn’t going to be a cohesive, compelling enough argument for someone to toss a book deal your way. And your competition? Your competition is going to be writers who did the work. (Or their very, very skilled ghostwriter…)
The conversation around AI’s place in your writing is young and already I bore of it.
There are still many worthwhile conversations to be had around AI on the business side of writing and AI’s impact on our environment and so many other necessary AI conversations, but the one about whether or not you can use AI and can still be real writer…? That’s one I’m no longer entertaining.
I write because I’m compelled to. I write because I’m smitten by my own wordplay. I write because I’m good at it. For real. So if you’re ceding the writing to Boop-Boop-Beep-Beep… I think Kendrick said it best when he said, “They not like us.”
You can do whatever you want. I literally cannot stop you. And my lack of respect may be meaningless to you. But that also means I don’t need to pretend we’re doing the same thing. Your aspiration is to be the fast fashion of book writing. My aspiration is to create art.
Schiaparelli does not concern itself with Shein.
Shein is still a billion dollar business, but they are not respected in the world of fashion and no one would argue what they do is quality. I want to be the hand stitched hem of the literary world, not the cheap, dangling button.
But you do you.
Maybe it’s the John Henry in me, but I simply refuse to believe a bot can out write me. In book writing, the accolades and money don’t always match the achievement. In the face of rejection, I have always been able to console myself with the fact that the writers I admire, respect me as a writer. Kiese Laymon is one of our greatest living writers and the fact that that man fucks with my work heavy — pun intended — keeps me motivated. That’s not the kind of respect you earn having Johnny 5 doing your bidding.
Writing for Fakers is not for AI.
This morning I had the thought that I might need to be concerned that I might attract AI aficionados to my writing community with a name like “Writing for Fakers” and a tagline like “Imposters wanted” and an invitation for “Wannabes” to join us.
But wannabes aren’t posers. At least, I don’t see it like that.
A wannabe, as far as I’m concerned, is someone who wants to be and just isn’t yet. A poseur is someone who’s a subpar imitation of the real thing. Writing for Faker is here to see newbie and growing writers through the stages of being able to claim yourself as a writer. From “I want to be a writer” to “I’m going to be a writer” to “I am a writer.”
Say it with confidence, because you are one.
Well, you are if you aren’t using AI. There is simply nothing I have to say that will be useful or helpful to a writer that isn’t interested in doing the actual writing.
And I don’t want to waste any of the precious time people have entrusted me with to help them grow as writers discussing something as irrelevant to most of us as tips and tricks for being a better wrAIter.
