It ignores the fact that writing is the hard part, and that the struggle for language or structure is a precious and necessary part of forming a real idea. In a way, these AI writing tools feel like the reverse of my first writing job: rather than requiring pure work with no meaningful end product, the tools promise the production of a meaningful... See more

The real question, then: is writing a product or an art ? Obviously, it can be either, and is often both; it’s probably most like a vast product-art spectrum, with most writing falling somewhere in the middle.

This phenomenal article in The Verge follows the inner conflict of a writer who started using Sudowrite to help pump out several of her self-published fantasy novels per year: “ It’s just words , she thought. It’s my story, my characters, my world. I came up with it. So what if a computer wrote them?”

This is a great question, not a stupid one; she... See more

I think of writing a lot like walking. It’s rarely the most popular, the most effective, or the most efficient way of getting to your destination. I don’t always want to do it, and it’s not always technically enjoyable; sometimes it’s boring or slow, sometimes it’s tiring and pointless, sometimes it’s cold or wet or windy and I’m retracing the same... See more