MAKE SOMETHING!

 I'm not normally one to use my limited daily writing time to update my blog instead of actually working on my books—particularly when On Days It Rains is so close to completion.

And yet here I am at six in the morning, blogging.

Apparently, something has been bothering me.

I've spent the better part of the last year finding my way back into the writing world after a long absence. And while I've met some wonderful people along the way, I've also noticed something that has left me increasingly frustrated.

I came back to writing because I wanted to tell stories.

And talk about stories.

In fact, two new writing acquaintances have even taught me that I enjoy a little poetry every now and then.

But instead, I've discovered that apparently there are two other careers available to writers:

Professional AI outrage.

And full-time political commentator.

I'm exaggerating, of course.

Mostly.

I have opinions about both subjects. Probably more opinions than I need. They are reasonably well-informed opinions, and some of them are opinions upon which I would gladly die on the proverbial hill.

But when I sit down at my desk—or lounge on the sofa or patio with my Chromebook—I don't particularly want to spend my limited writing time arguing about either one.

Quite frankly, I don't particularly want to listen to it or read about it, either.

I want to talk about characters.

Bad sentences. Good sentences. Why a scene isn't working. Why a character suddenly did something I didn't expect. Books that knocked me sideways twenty years ago. The weird little things that make a story feel alive.

I came back to writing because I missed that conversation.

And all those different worlds.

Yes, I Have Thoughts About AI

Let's get this out of the way.

I have thoughts about AI.

Lots of them.

I understand why writers and artists are concerned about generative AI. There are legitimate questions surrounding copyright, attribution, consent, training data, artistic labor, and what it means to create in a world where machines can produce something that resembles creative work.

Those are worth discussing.

But somewhere along the way, discussion seems to have become identity.

If someone uses AI to generate their novel, that's one conversation.

If someone uses it to check punctuation, identify a grammatical error, brainstorm a possibility, or ask why a particular sentence isn't working, that's another.

AI is a tool. A laptop is a tool. So was a typewriter. So was a word processor. So, for that matter, was the library.

And yes, I've laughed myself silly at some of the ridiculous AI-generated videos floating around social media.

"AI slop"?

Fine.

Sometimes the slop is hilarious.

Sue me.

What I find exhausting isn't that people have strong opinions about AI. It's that the subject can become the entirety of the conversation.

At some point, I'd like to get back to talking about what we're actually making.

Because that's the part I care about.

And Then There Is Politics

The other thing I've encountered is the writer who seems to have become a full-time political commentator who happens to write books on the side.

Again: I have political opinions.

I have strong political opinions.

You might even be surprised by some of them.

But I don't particularly care whether you agree with me.

That's the point.

When I go looking for writers, I want to find writers.

I don't need another person telling me what the latest politician said, which party is destroying civilization this week, what cause I should be fighting for, or which manufactured outrage deserves my attention before breakfast.

Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick.

Do you not have anything to say about writing?

About books?

About language?

About art?

About the strange little creature that lives inside your head and occasionally makes you stay awake until two in the morning because a fictional person has suddenly decided to ruin your carefully constructed plot?

That's interesting.

Tell me about that.

Tell me why you wrote the book you wrote.

Tell me about the character who wouldn't cooperate.

Tell me about the sentence you rewrote seventeen times.

Tell me about the book you read when you were twelve that changed the way you saw the world.

Tell me about the place that inspired your fictional town.

Tell me about the painting that made you want to pick up a brush.

Tell me about the poem you didn't understand until twenty years after you first read it.

Tell me something original.

Something strange.

Something thoughtful.

Something creative.

That's What I Came Back For

Maybe this is just me getting older.

Maybe it's because I've spent enough time away from writing to realize how much I missed it.

Or maybe I'm simply tired of every corner of modern life becoming another arena in which we're expected to choose a side, declare our allegiance, and loudly demonstrate our righteousness.

I don't want that from writing.

I want imagination.

I want curiosity.

I want people building worlds that don't exist and filling them with people who somehow feel more real than half the people we encounter in actual life.

If you want to fight a battle, write one.

Create a completely fictional world.

Invent a noble cause.

Give your hero something worth losing everything for.

Give your villain a reason for believing he's right.

Make me care.

Make me think.

Make me laugh.

Make me uncomfortable.

Make me wonder what the hell you were thinking.

But please—

make something.

That's what I came back to writing for.

And that's what I hope the writing community can still be.

Not another battlefield.

Not another echo chamber.

Not another place where everyone is shouting about what everyone else should think.

A place where we talk about stories.

Because there are still an awful lot of them waiting to be told.

And that's not just the truth.

That's the Word of Godbey.