What does it mean to write?

Some musings on being an author in the time of AI

I’ve been thinking about generative AI a lot lately. To be fair, I’ve been thinking about it for several years now, but until recently, I didn’t want to wade into it via my newsletter. The trouble is, many of you follow me for posts about publishing and writing, and it’s becoming borderline impossible to talk about either of these things without discussing AI.

I don’t really want to discuss how AI is effecting the industry as a whole, or what its presence means for the business of being an author. This was covered by Jodi Meadows recently, and I don’t have much to add to the excellent points she makes in this post. Instead, I want to talk about AI from the creative standpoint, which is a bit more philosophical, but I hope you’ll hear me out.

I understand that people think AI is the future, and I can see the various ways in which it makes certain administrative tasks easier and more efficient. But I just do not understand AI at all when it comes to artistic endeavors.

I’m an author. I write books. And I truly struggle to see the appeal of using generative AI to “write” a story. Putting aside all the obvious reasons to not use these LLMs (negative impacts to the environment and communities, the unethical theft of IP committed in order to train them, the dangerous reality that we don’t truly know how they work, etc), I’m baffled that some people even want to “write” this way.

It truly doesn’t make sense to me. How does one even consider themselves to be “writing” when something else produces the text? This is akin to Musk hiring gamers to play Diablo IV for him and then claiming he’s one of the top-ranked players. (Um, no you aren’t Musk. Someone else is. You weren’t the one playing the game.)

The same logic applies with writing. If AI is writing your novel, I just don’t see how you’re the author. The machine wrote the book and you just slapped your name on the cover. Even if you edit and revise the words it spat out, you’re still not the author. You’re an editor of AI output. (Output that only exists, mind you, because the AI was trained on the stolen work of your colleagues.)

One of the pro-AI excuses I see a lot online is something along the lines of “But not everyone has the same skill set” or “Some people need AI to help them write,” and I’m sorry, but I just don’t think these are valid reasons to turn to these LLMs.

If you want to write a book… write the book. I’m begging you. Your draft might be bad, but that’s okay. Being bad is the first step toward getting better.

Authors who don’t like genAI aren’t telling people to not use it because we’re gatekeeping, or trying to keep folks out of publishing, or want writers to struggle. We know writing is hard. We know it takes time, and we know it doesn’t come easily to everyone. But writing with AI isn’t a magical solution for success, folks. It’s just not. If anything, it will actively make you worse at writing because you’re handing the creative reins to a machine.¹

Instead of getting your own voice and style on the page, and infusing the story with your unique viewpoint and lived experience, you’re accepting a story that was strung together off stolen IP. By letting a machine speak for you, you are choosing to say nothing. And that might be the whole point of writing to begin with: to SAY something—and to share those thoughts, worlds, and characters with others, in turn.

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No one gets good at something overnight. The Olympian spends a lifetime training and honing their skills. So does the photographer, the musician, the carpenter, the painter, the writer.

To get good at something, you have to do the thing. It’s as simple and as hard as that. Yes, our baseline skill levels might all be different, but to be an author—a person who authors a book—you have to write. And to write well, you have to put in the work.

It’s true you might not be very good at first. But you’ll get better with practice. It may take hours upon hours, but that’s how you grow.

If you don’t have those hours or the desire to put in the work—that’s okay! It just means you might not actually want to be an author. It’s okay to NOT be something.

Years ago, back when I was still a full-time designer and had only just started to write seriously, my then Creative Director bought a book for everyone on the design team. It was called Rework, and it was about start-ups. Organizing one, building schedules, working as a team, time management, etc. There was one section in the book that stuck out to me then and still feels as relevant as ever to me today:

There is always enough time if you spend it right . . . When you want something bad enough, you make the time—regardless of your other obligations. The truth is most people just don’t want it bad enough.

I read this at a critical moment in my writing endeavors. I had just completed my first ever manuscript. (It wasn’t very good.) I had several more book ideas, and wanted to try to get published, but it all felt so overwhelming. Even still, I knew I wanted it badly enough. I’d been carving out the time up until that moment, and I had no intention of stopping.

This was unique to other pursuits in my past. Like when I wanted to be a singer-songwriter as a teen, for example. I had a guitar and loved writing music, but when I tried actually recording stuff, I never wanted to do more than one take. I quickly realized I just liked messing around with my guitar. Writing music and playing for myself, alone in my room, was enough. I didn’t want to spend more time on it—and that was fine!

But writing? Pursuing publishing? I always found the time. Even now, after five years of heartbreak and no new publishing contracts, I’m still finding the time to write and revise, carving out the hours between family time, my day job, and all of life’s obligations.

When you want something bad enough, you make the time.

If you can’t find the time to write your book, this might be the universe’s way of telling you you don’t actually want to be an author as badly as you’ve told yourself you do. And trust me, it’s okay if you don’t have the time, energy, or drive to write a novel. IT’S OKAY. Just carry on with life and don’t write that book.

But if you want to write a novel? Write it. One word at a time. If you keep putting words down you will finish. I can’t say how long it will take because not everyone’s twenty-four hours look the same, but you will finish if you don’t give up. You will finish if you keep carving out the time and don’t let yourself quit.

And once you finish, you can edit that draft, and with each revision, your manuscript will get better.

This is called writing. That’s the process.

If you turn to genAI instead, you’re not putting in the work. Heck, even if you “only” use it for brainstorming or outlining or one small part of the process, you’re still outsourcing your creative thinking to a machine that functions off the stolen IP of others. What an insult to those writers. What an insult to yourself! Don’t smother your own voice. Don’t rob future readers of your unique perspective.

I’m begging you to do your own thinking. I know it’s hard. I know it’s uncomfortable. But that discomfort is actually critical to becoming better. Working through that friction—not skipping it—is what helps a writer grow. And it will be worth it! The euphoria you feel when you puzzle out something on your own is unmatched. When you nail that character arc. Fix that plot hole. Stick the landing. YOU did it.

This is the whole point of writing. To dream. To think. To create. To have an idea and wrestle it from your brain onto the page.

Let yourself be bad at it. I’m still bad at it often! My first drafts are nothing like my final books. And sure, my first drafts today are better than my first drafts twenty years ago, but again, that’s only because I put in twenty years of work.

Be bad so that you can be better. And if you don’t have the grit to be bad at it, consider that it’s okay to simply not pursue that thing.

We all have limited time on this earth, and we should spend it doing things we love. If you only love seeing the book on the shelf and the money in your bank account, you’re actually in love with the result of publishing. And look, I love these two things as much as the next person. I have bills to pay and there’s no high quite like seeing your novel on bookstore shelves.

But if you don’t love the actual writing? If you want to skip or speed through it or have AI do it for you? Then I’m sorry, you don’t actually want to be a writer. You want the glory of having published, without having to put in the work.

Writers, write. Or at least they used to. But in this new landscape, I’m no longer sure that’s true of all writers. Some, it turns out, ask AI to produce books for them.² They publish novels made from the stolen IP of their colleagues, and skip some or all of the actual writing.

That’s not me. I hope it’s not you. If it’s not you yet, but you’re considering using AI to “write” your books, please ask yourself why you want to write to begin with. If it’s for more than the end product and cash… if you really do want to write a novel, I’m begging you to use your own brain to do it.

Writing with genAI isn’t writing. It’s theft, it’s killing our planet, and it’s holding users back from true growth. On a philosophical level, a personal level, and a craft level, I simply don’t get the appeal. I don’t think I ever will.

Until next time,

Erin Bowman is the critically acclaimed author of numerous books for children and teens, including the Taken Trilogy, Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden, and Dustborn. A web designer turned author, Erin has always been invested in telling stories—both visually and with words. Erin lives in New Hampshire with her husband and children.

1. If you think this sounds dramatic, a recent MIT study found that “ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.” In short, AI is eroding critical thinking stills.

2. James Frey, for example. Plus, I see additional examples floating around on social media often: screenshots of an ebook with an AI prompt left in the middle of the text.