Hello and welcome to this month’s Writing Resource Roundup! When I was making my goals for 2024, I decided I wanted to learn more about AI and the ways it is shaking up the writing industry. While I still have so much more to learn, I’ve come across so many thought-provoking voices and resources related to AI that I wanted to pull some of them together and share them with you.
Before I get into that, however, I want to start off by saying I know how controversial this topic is in the writing community. I’m not intending to adopt any particular stance through the resources I’m sharing, as I haven’t actually fully formed my stance on the use of AI in creative industries yet. I am, however, trying to be curious rather than afraid of this new technology, and I’m trying to remain open to multiple perspectives. To that end, I’m sharing resources across the spectrum, including some that promote a pro/curious perspective on AI as well as some that take a more cautious stance.
First, I'm particularly excited to recommend Mignon Fogarty’s AI Sidequest Newsletter. If you’re already a fan of Mignon Fogarty, also known as the Grammar Girl, then you’ll love this newsletter. I’m not much of a newsletter reader, but I never miss a single AI Sidequest. Each short, thought-provoking newsletter provides a quick snapshot of how AI is shaking up and shaping our world. I particularly appreciate the newsletter’s refreshingly neutral take—each newsletter provides stories about the ugly and bad as well as the good and the downright funny about AI without taking any particular stance on the subject as a whole. If you check out only one resource from this roundup, make it this one!
If you want to learn more about incorporating AI into the creative writing process from a pro-AI stance, don’t miss Joanna Penn’s collection of blog articles, podcast episodes, and recommended resources. Joanna Penn, a successful fiction author in her own right, is openly pro-AI and incorporates AI into her creative process, and I’ve learned a lot from her optimism regarding the future for writers and books.
If you’re ready to explore incorporating AI into your writing process, it’s important to consider how you can do so ethically, and this article from the Alliance of Independent Authors (of which Joanna Penn is an advising member) is a great place to get started.
From the more AI-cautious side, I found these thoughts from a small publisher very illuminating. They state that they do not accept work that incorporates any use of AI, and as I read their statement, I felt compelled by one of the reasons they give: “Using AI to cut corners, in our view, only cheats the writer of the full experience of being an author.”
Okay, one more resource. This article, written by well-established author and editor Tiffany Yates Martin, contains a thoughtful, eyes-wide-open exploration of the new landscape everyone in the writing and publishing community now finds themselves in. Here’s a taste: “If your creativity is a part of who you are, if it feeds your soul, if it helps you understand and make sense of the world or connect with others, all those things are still valid. Perhaps now more than ever in the face of technology rendering so much of humanity obsolete.”
I hope the resources I’ve included here sparks something positive for you: curiosity, openness, maybe even empowerment, excitement, and hope. Here’s one final thought: AI has presented many with opportunities to worry, to fear. For some, it also provides many opportunities to dream, to explore, to create. But regardless of where you fall currently on the spectrum of the great AI debate, I think we can all agree that it also provides us with an opportunity to examine what it means—truly means—to be a writer, an artist, an editor, a creator. And I think those are never bad conversations to have.
Happy writing!