TikTok, AI, and other impolite things

I don’t write a lot of blog posts that aren’t just “so here’s what I have for you next” but I have some thoughts and feels about two things which seem unrelated at first glance but are very related to me.

TikTok and AI. Before I get into this, I want to point out that I have author friends who use TikTok and author friends who use AI tools. I am not making a moral argument nor am I speaking ill of anyone doing things I don’t do. I’m simply expressing why I don’t do them personally.

TikTok first… since it’s slightly less of an emotive landmine.

I don’t do TikTok. At the end of last year I really thought about it. I know TikTok can sell a lot of books and I know a lot of successful authors who SWEAR by their TikTok presence (though they have huge followings and got into TikTok when it was actually still an up and coming platform).

But I fucking HATE TikTok. I hate it with the fires of a thousand flaming suns. I just don’t fucking enjoy the whole idea of it. I don’t even have a TikTok account. (I do love Instagram though). If you told me literally the ONLY way to have an author career in 2023 was to get on TikTok, I’d start applying for “real jobs”.

I’ve certainly gone to Tiktok on occasion via links when there’s something interesting I want to see, but I can think of few things more crushing to my soul than spending any sustainable time on that platform and life is too short and precious to do shit you hate that much. And the idea of making endless “look at me, like me!” videos on that platform… seriously… ugh. No. TikTok can fuck ALL the way off.

So… I don’t do TikTok. It doesn’t mean I don’t have a business plan or stuff I’m doing. I’m just not doing TikTok. Will I get in on whatever the “next new social platform” is? Who knows? Maybe. I could almost see the utility of it if I’d jumped on 3 or 4 years ago, but at this point it’s a yorkie chasing a race car.

AI. Specifically generative AI for writing novels. This is another one of those things that… I don’t think you’re a bad person if you do it, I understand why some use it. And I also understand that MOST authors are NOT basically “writing their whole book with AI”. At the same time… I feel like something real is lost when one uses an AI writing tool. And it doesn’t spring out of some “tech phobia” or “Luddite” nature.

And maybe it’s the length of time I’ve been writing. I can understand why this would be more appealing to someone with only a few years of writing under their belt. Learning to write and tell stories is hard. But I’ve been doing it since I was twelve years old. I was seriously ignoring my math teacher and writing novels. (Don’t ask how I even graduated because I have no clue, I was writing fiction during all the boring classes. I basically had to self teach myself the BIG gaps in my knowledge from using school as a place to write novels instead of learning school stuff. I did well in English/Lit though.)

When I was 12, I wanted to be R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame.

So basically I’ve been fortunate enough to be writing for DECADES. And when you write for that long, writing becomes a spiritual act. It is touching magic. At some point you come to realize it’s not “just you” doing the writing. There’s something “bigger” “magic” “spiritual”. When people speak of the muse, they aren’t being “cute” with you, they’re telling you their lived spiritual and artistic experience.

I’m sorry but I’m not replacing this experience with a computer algorithm. It’s important to me that all my ideas are my ideas. Yes, we are all inspired by things, but there is a processing and a combination of many things going through a human mind, that you have to ponder and contemplate and bring your own thoughts and feelings to. And while you might get a “cool idea” from AI, it’s not a naturally arising idea.

While AI might spit out paragraphs of reasonably good or even clever prose, it’s not YOUR words. It didn’t come from YOUR soul or YOUR brain.

I just can’t even see the appeal of this. I also know that a lot of AI isn’t like you can just type a few prompts and it spits out a whole book. It tends to do much shorter chunks, but even then, you’ve got to do a LOT of editing and shaping, and honestly, I just like to write.

I’ve gotten to a point after decades where I write really clean rough drafts. What you see as the final book isn’t usually that different from how it spilled out of my head and onto the page. Just like a concert violinist brings decades and tens of thousands of hours of practice to a performance that just “comes out perfect”, so, too, does a writer with decades of experience bring that ENTIRE history with them into their writing each new book.

Basically, what I’m saying is… EVEN IF I didn’t find it a completely soulless way to create that disconnects me from the Magic that helps me write, it would be MORE work to do it that way than to just let it pour out from Inspiration.

Yes sometimes there are blocks. Sometimes I don’t know what to write next. Sometimes I write myself into a corner, but I always find my way out. And after forty books I have the full faith that I always will find my way out. And there is something about that process and that struggle that I don’t want to skip because it adds depth to the story.

Again, this is not an “attack” on those who use AI tools. I assume most are just trying to make the process easier on themselves. And most probably don’t have decades of writing experience. Or they see writing as less of a magical act than I do, which is also legitimate. No artist can be forced to see their art in the same way another artist does. Nor do I think they are “immoral” or “evil” or going to “tear down the fabric of creative society” or whatever.

I’m just not into it.

Now, I’m totally on board with using AI images to create supplementary graphics/fun side things that aren’t the story. And I’ve wrestled back and forth with temporary AI narration for some books I can’t yet afford to get into audio. But honestly I have so much on my plate and that’s such a very small priority that I’ll likely have everything done with human narrators before I would even get around to it because to make a reasonably non-painful AI narration requires a LOT of editing and that’s a lot of tedious labor I’m not really down for especially when I have no shortage of work to do already.

I’ve thought though about the accessibility issue, so people who can’t eyeball read have access to all my stories. And I’ve also thought about the fact that the AI could help fund the human narration because no one who truly understands audiobooks would ever choose AI instead of Human. They choose AI instead of “nothing”.

I’m an audio listener. It’s the only format I will read in. So yes, human narrators are what makes an audiobook art.

So that’s all I have to say about that. If you do anything I’ve talked about in this blog post and you’re mad at me, you haven’t understood my points at all. Please re-read before getting irate about my personal relationship with my art.