post 12: use your heart

[Originally published on Substack: Jan 16, 2025]

The writer's life I imagined in my early youth was very ideal, which I say without derogation. As I encountered writers who infused a great deal of sincerity and risk into the writing they did, it was so clear that the artform’s potential was beyond its commercial viability. It was spiritual and particular, its grammar was non-standard, and it asked for more from its readers than consumption and categorization. This seemed to be true for genre fiction and literary fiction alike. The questions writers and readers asked of each other were thoughtful, if not loving.

Over the course of my adulthood, in many of the spaces I’ve entered, I’ve noticed an increasing number of writers and readers who resent or poo-poo the kind of engagement that was and is ideal to me. An attentive eye was hailed as snooty, full of itself, difficult. A probing question was received as an inquisition, an annoyance, cringe. It felt so corporate — why did it feel so corporate?

Probably because writing has become so corporate, in a very material sense. Professionalization: what does this mean? It means there is money to be made when you do as you're told. The writer's workshop is less about writing than networking, and you shouldn’t question it if you want to reap its benefits. Friendship is a business alliance. Teaching is a brand. Craft is an amassment of accolades and appearances. How were people so engrossed by fictional dystopias seduced by a literal one? Were the stories that once riveted them only entertainment to be consumed and categorized?

It is ironic that writers who have spent years extracting maximum value from drafts, strategizing about how to write them as quickly as possible, and rolling their eyes at writers who want to be inspired, were taken aback by the rise of generative AI. Is this not the creative culture that has been built and rewarded for years? Book as product, author as brand, drafting as irksome necessity and words a day.

AI is a symptom of a cultural condition. Treat it with honesty and a willingness to change.

Recommended Reading:

“How Creative Writing Programs De-Politicized Fiction” by Annie Levin (2022)