In my post, Birth of an Author, I touched on how, for many of us, writing a book is part of our collective consciousness. It’s some weird, powerful driving force that leaves us feeling as if we haven’t succeeded as a human being during our time alive if we fail to accomplish this expected achievement.
Why do many of us feel this way? I can’t speak for you. I can only explain it from my perspective. For me, a part of it likely goes back to the ancient art of storytelling. The act of before I pass, I must have left behind a story interwoven with artifacts of my journey and experiences. For some that information will be meaningless or have no value. Others, however, my consider the relics as priceless. For them, it helps to piece together the history of humans and their accomplishments. Or it assists them to trace their lineage.
So, what has stopped me from authoring a novel during all of these decades that have passed? The answer is a tragic tale. The problem began in my formative years with emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. It then progressed to educators who wrote me off as someone who would never amount to anything. My father would often tell me that, too. That morphed into a deeply troubled young person who entered the military at the height of a recession in 1982 because I was directionless and not only needed a job, but a place to live and food to eat. Military life then led to trauma being compounded with more trauma until eventually serious mental illness set in. As it did, my ability to write began to die one brain cell at a time like a fading dream.
I won’t lie. With my past and my mental health challenges, writing is hard. All these thoughts and characters are swirling in my head, dying to be brought to life, but until now there was no means to do so. Perhaps a new piece of software could solve this; I would scold myself. Maybe the more powerful computer that just got released can do the trick, I would chide myself. Is it a writing location problem, I would ask, adding to the torment. It was all foolery. None of that stuff worked to help me finally author a book.
What did finally work, you might ask with curiosity. The golden age of artificial intelligence. The advent of AI chatbots like ChatGPT.
You might ask, what was so special about this chatbot thingy? The answer lies in the interface. Instead of sitting in front of a blank page and being overwhelmed by not only having to begin filling it with words but also doing so correctly and in a manner worthy of reading, I could tell an AI tool what I saw in my head. Never, ever, misunderstand the power of being able to do that from the lens of a damaged mind like mine.
It’s like a blind person having sight for the first time.
Whether you are unlocking long-buried thoughts or overcoming writer’s block, an AI tool like ChatGPT can help.
Again, how you might ask. It’s straightforward: just converse with the AI tool and tell it what you see in your head for a writing scene. Don’t worry about perfect spelling. Don’t get caught up worrying if you’re going about being an author the right way. Move beyond every fear or obstacle that ever stopped you from creating and just do it. The AI tool will allow you to do that.
That’s how I took my first step to authorship. I even wove the tale of that creative process into a character in my book, AI Machination: Tangled Webs and Typed Words. My book has a chatbot named Oliver based on ChatGPT. In it, Oliver helps my protagonist restore her lost gift of writing. “Just one sentence,” Oliver encourages Brenna Wakefield as she stares helplessly at a blank page.
That’s all it took for me, too. Like ChatGPT, Oliver’s magical response peppered her screen with AI-assisted writing that would build and build from more sentences until an entire chapter had miraculously been written. The achievement then went on to spawn more chapters. That gave rise to more confidence. “I’ve got this,” I eventually exclaimed as the finish line neared.
Like me, Brenna Wakefield was no longer wholly hobbled by disabilities. Make no mistake, she still faced challenges. But she had been gifted a prosthetic device that helped her to overcome them and bring to life the stories that until then had been locked away in her head.
What greater gift besides continued life is there for a writer? Let’s not forget that Ernest Hemingway shot himself with a shotgun because he had lost his writing ability. For some of us, that’s how serious this is.
Use this precious gift from Big Tech, harness this new AI technology, and let nothing stop you in your quest to become an author. The only roadblock now standing in your path is procrastination. And that, too, can be overcome.