There's been a couple of things recently that I've had to come to terms with in my writing interests. There's been a growing discomfort for me using National Novel Writing Month as a challenge to keep myself writing, and this recent controversy over the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the creative process is basically making my decision final (via Meghan Herbst at Wired):
National Novel Writing Month has long been known for its quirky, homegrown approach to creativity: Write a novel during the month of November! Just jot down 50,000 words while you’re knocking out holiday shopping and basting a turkey! But last Friday, the 25-year-old nonprofit, known as NaNoWriMo for short, shocked many in the writing community when it published a controversial statement detailing its position on AI. In it, NaNoWriMo asserted that the “categorical condemnation” of artificial intelligence has “classist and ableist undertones.”
The statement went viral on social media over the weekend, drawing fire from longtime participants and well-known authors, some of whom credit the completion of their first novels to the organization. Four members of NaNoWriMo’s writers board, including science fiction/fantasy writer Daniel José Older and fantasy writer Cass Morris, have now publicly stepped down from their roles in response. One of the organization’s sponsors, Ellipsus, which advertises itself as a “principled alternative to Google Docs” and is staunchly opposed to the use of generative AI in its products, has officially withdrawn its sponsorship.
In an email to NaNo’s board, Older, the New York Times best-selling author of the fantasy series Outlaw City and story architect of the multimedia series Star Wars: The High Republic, called its position on AI “vile, craven, and unconscionable.”
“Your heinous re-configuring of language used to fight actual injustices into a shield to cover your transparently business-based posturing is unforgivable,” Older added. (As of this writing, NaNoWriMo has not responded to a list of questions from WIRED about the statement and fallout...)
The thing about AI tools is that by just setting up certain keywords and parameters, an "author" can get the computer algorithms to pull together all the words and format of sentences and paragraphs to create any written text you want within minutes. The problem is that the AI really doesn't generate on its own: It cuts and pastes from anything it can find on the Internet ranging from copyright-free materials to stuff that is copyright-protected (and quickly crosses the line into theft).
We're not only talking about the high risk of plagiarism, we're talking about the reality that the "author" is not partaking of the creative process at all: in short, cheating. We're not even getting into the reality that the AI draft is going to be a narrative mess.
For the NaNo leadership to be that dismissive of the creative process brings up the question how much respect they have for the craft of writing at all. It is not "ableist" or "classist" to question the possibility that your NaNo participants are cutting and pasting every Ray Bradbury story into a 50,000 word travesty. (side note: still need to tell you all my Bradbury story)
When I was working on my various NaNo projects over the decades - since 2006 I believe - I played by the Scout's Honor rule of doing my own writing, going either by an outline or by the seat of my pants. If I was taking on an existing work, I made myself focus on counting the new words for the counting instead of backsliding into the existing stuff of the earlier draft.
With this AI stuff, I would be uploading existing work - not my own, either - into a word stew without regard to the actual characters, dialog, scenery, or narrative choices I would have in my own head.
I wouldn't be writing my own stories. THAT'S the problem here.
The issues I've been having with NaNo recently is something that's been building up for me over the last few years: The dread that instead of writing as a challenge I've turned NaNo into a chore. Every novel project I've had remain sitting in dust unfinished, because once the NaNo calendar was done - November - I just couldn't focus on continuing it. And when I revisited those works, I realized I was pushing myself to finish in such a way that I didn't respect the existing draft to keep it going (or even diving back in to salvage what I had).
So this AI business, along with the earlier scandal that the NaNo leadership tried to force their regional liaisons to sign NDAs after a nasty scandal involving a moderator and teens - is giving me the best possible reason to end my relationship to NaNoWriMo.
In the beginning, it was a good thing for me. Kept me writing in some way or another even as I juggled short story works that I got published elsewhere. But along the way, the challenge became an institution, devoted more towards appeasing corporate sponsors and less about the writing craft. As to my own inability to finish what I started, none of this is helping my mental state as I look at restarting some of my writing projects for my own benefit.
Good luck to all my fellow writers out there, and find your own ways to get motivated.
Hiring a copy editor who is in possession of a shotgun and an egg timer wouldn't hurt (especially you, George RR Martin! FINISH WINDS OF WINTER YOU LAZY SONOFAB----).
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