Now What, November?

 October has traditionally been the month I start planning and semi-plotting my project for November's annual write-a-novel-in-a-month activity. I've been doing it for several years (going on ten, I believe), and it's one of those things that both energizes and stresses me out to the absolute maximum.

Especially those little badges they give out for reaching certain mileposts of word counts, making your daily goal, never miss a day of writing or posting, whatever. November is a difficult month to do that because there are holidays and birthdays and family stuff and, well, I always felt a little guilty slipping away to get some words written and posted to the site before jumping back into whatever fray was happening at the time.

Then things got...dark. I've not followed it too closely, mostly for my own mental health, but the gist of it is that the powers that be believe using AI to help write the damn novel is ok.

Now, to be perfectly clear and honest, I use AI when writing. Those red squiggles under my misspelled words, that's AI. The grammar suggestions that I may or may not ignore, again, AI. And my favorite? The "read aloud" thing on my word processor. Let me tell you, I can read my stuff over and over and it's fine. I can even read it out loud and it sounds fine. Why? Because I know where to put the inflections, I know what words are supposed to be there. But, when I have the computer read it to me, that bitch catches all my boo-boos. All I have to do is fix the part that doesn't sound good, and ta-dah! It's the way I want it.

But I do the work. I do not allow AI to do anything more than make a suggestion on whether or not that comma belongs in that spot, or if one of those words is extraneous. I still make the final decision. In that regard, I'm fine with AI. 

Allowing it to do most of the work, however, is where I draw the line. I don't want to just hand over my idea and let the machine put all the words together. That's not writing. There's no blood. There's no weeping. There's no yelling. There's no smell of fear or rage, or that sweet, sensuous feeling of the perfect sentence flowing from your brain to your fingertips. 

In regards to using AI for art, I'm kind of in the same camp. I cannot draw, and I'd love to see "pictures" of my characters, or the places they've been. If I could figure out how to use an art AI program, I'd probably have it show me those things according to my descriptions to see if what I say is what others might see. But would I sell that piece of art? No. Would I use it for the cover of my book? Again, no. 

That's where I'm fortunate to know several artists who will, for a fee, work with me on creating covers for my books. I appreciate those skills they've gathered over years of practice and study. I've taken art classes, but I still can't put the pictures in my head on paper and have it make sense. That's what artists do, and I'm thankful for them.

AI has a place in the world of art and writing. Even music, if you think of the synthesizers as AI. I'm not sure I do, but I'm sort of clumping a lot of computer stuff into the category of AI, so that might be where I'm derailing my brain train.

All this to say, I'm not sure what to do with myself next month. There will be no piles of sunflower seed shells near the keyboard; no packages of lemon drops stuffed in the spot next to the tower; no cups of cold tea or coffee on the desk; no drifts of scribbled notes piling up against the printer. 

Oh, who am I kidding, my writing area always looks like that, but in past Novembers, it just felt different, like it all had meaning. It always felt so magical, knowing thousands of writers were out there, doing the same thing at pretty much the same time. No spontaneous conversations in chat rooms about rabbit trails, plot holes, or being written into a corner of which there's no escape. I'll miss that ethereal comradery.