One of the questions I get a lot these days is this: “With the dawn of AI, can writers even make a living from their writing anymore? Can writers make use of AI in their writing and still be legit?”

I thought I would address the issue candidly and then tell you a story to illuminate my point:

First it is important to note that AI is a tool, but it’s no substitute for learning to write.

AI doesn’t know how to write more than a chainsaw knows how to sculpt. But in the hands of a capable artisan, AI, like a chainsaw, can be a suitable tool to speed the process of creating beautiful art. Most writers these days have never taken the time to learn their craft. They don’t actually know good writing from bad writing.

Even worse? They consider feedback from their family and friends –– people who are also terrible writers, by and large— to be the arbiters of their skills as writers.

This was a lesson I learned early in my writing journey. I wrote a terrible novel-length piece of serial killer garbage that hinged on the reader not knowing until the end that the killer was female. It was terrible. Seriously. But on the day I finished it, having spent every waking hour on it for months, I thought I had written “Ulysses.” And so I sent it off to literary agents and publishers, dreaming of my day in the sun and the forthcoming riches.

Stand Back, Stephen King! There’s a new Sheriff in town.

Seriously! I was that arrogant! I was like the six year old who wants his art project framed and hung in the Louvre! Reality check. My shit didn’t even deserve to be hung in the loo! In my defense, it was 2003 and I was barely 31 years old—a child. Settle down. If you’re that age, I didn’t mean you. You’re still a savant. I, however, was still a child.

Flash forward a couple of weeks from the day I sent out my “masterpiece” and I finally got a semi-positive response— from an agent who changed my life forever and sent me on a journey of learning and self-loathing from which I will never recover. The agent’s name is Toni Lopopolo. She didn’t sign me. She wasn’t interested. She doesn’t even know, as I write this, that I exist. But nevertheless, she is the one responsible for the deaths and heartbreaks, anguishes and torture, my characters experience today.

Toni either recognized in me the seedling of something that might eventually grow into someone capable of churning out a passable sentence, or else she had a really well crafted form letter she sent out to idiots like me who still thought agents were the hired help. In either case, it took.

Toni told me the names of three books. I can’t even remember now what all of their titles were. I do remember one of them was “Self Editing for Fiction Writers,” by Renni Browne and Dave King.

Great book. If you have aspirations to write and haven’t read it, read it now. As to the other books Toni suggested, they were great too, but at this point I have read so many books on writing that they all blur together. I only remember the title of that one because it was the first one I read. Toni followed up by telling me to go learn my craft.

At first, I was incensed. Did she not realize who I was? You laugh (perhaps) but I was not laughing. For two days, I stewed over the idea that someone had the audacity to tell me to go learn. Just who did she think she was? I mean, I had even put it through a spell checker!

Then the first dash of inspired thought hit me: Stephen King was earning $50 million per year at the time. They were protecting their kingdom. They had to be! What else could be the issue? After all, I was clearly fucking brilliant. Obviously they just wanted to know I could play the game.

You have to understand something, dear reader. At the time, I had pretty well convinced myself that Toni Lopopolo was the gatekeeper. I needed her approval, no matter the cost; because at the moment of her approval, I would surely be granted my due at a large celebration dedicated to my brilliance and achievement. Stephen King himself would be there to pass me his crown and scepter, bowing to me and yielding his throne while massive throngs of people clapped and cheered.

See? I told you I was a child. How’s it hangin,’ Steve? Don’t get too comfortable. That’s my spot.

So I decided to “go along” with their little ploy. I would read her “little books” and polish my manuscript. Who knows? It was 90,000 words. It was at least in the realm of possibility that I had missed a typo somewhere. Right? And then I would resubmit, proving my contrition; and, despite the slight delay, be ushered henceforth into my kingdom.

I ordered the books. I read the books. I was so astounded I ordered more. I read more. When I finished those, I read even more. At last, I realized they all said basically the same things: “Dude, your writing fucking sucks. How dare you even own a pen. Perhaps stick with boxes of crayons. In fact, on second thought, you’re not ready. Go fuck your life up a bunch more and come back when you know enough of the nuances of human emotion to be able to bleed properly on a page. No crayons for you! Make your own writing implements, because you suck too badly to be entrusted with any of the ones we made for people who can actually write.”

Or something like that.

So, being the belligerent sort, I of course continued to write. I even called myself a “Master Story Teller.” After all, having done a bunch of reading of the subject, I was clearly qualified—especially since my writing was (and it actually was) better than the 300 other schleps in the various online writing groups that I took part in.  And so I wrote and grew and eventually didn’t fit in that pond anymore.

For a time, I put down my pen and I stewed. I couldn’t stand reading fiction anymore. All I saw were the “mistakes.” Every single published author broke all the rules I had just so painstakingly learned. You see, I had learned all of the rules but had not yet learned them well enough to know how, where, why, and when to break them. “If you see an adjective, kill it.” “Any word you need a thesaurus for is the wrong damn word.” “Make every character want something, even if it’s a glass of water.” Etc, etc, etc.

I went through a period where I did not write and all I read was non-fiction. I went through another where I would write and write and never show it to anyone. I went through another where I showed people bits and pieces of works in progress that never amounted to anything. I wrote because I couldn’t help myself. I wrote because I was full of stories. I wrote because I sucked at it. I wrote because I was bored. I wrote because, as it turns out, it’s true what they say: “Writers write.”

When I read “Verity,” by Colleen Hoover because I was trying to impress some woman I was infatuated with and that’s what she was reading, my eyes were re-opened to fiction. By now, Audible was a thing and as a long haul truck driver I had 70 hours per week to listen to fiction again. I took to it like a man walking through the desert takes to water. I read it all. Good books. Bad books. Short stories. Novellas, Novels and on and on and at last I fell in love with fiction and then again with writing.

I knew the rules. I broke the rules. I kept to the rules when it mattered. I found the real ones. I found my voice. I found my way. I found my craft, and I found my zone.

I write short stories because I love them. I am too ADHD to want anything to do with being a novelist. I write stories that can be consumed in just a few minutes and written in just a few hours or days. When I returned to publishing my work, I decided to keep the monicker “Master Story Teller.” I  didn’t keep it as a point of arrogance, but as a constant reminder that talent and desire only take you so far. If you truly want to tell great stories (and I do truly want to tell great stories), CRAFT IS KING.

Toni Lopopolo lit a fire in my life that rages on—all consuming. I loathe her and I love her—though (again) I’ve never met her. She told me to learn my craft, and for 21 years that’s what I have done.

And now we have AI — but AI doesn’t know craft. It never can and it never will—just as a chainsaw in the hands of one man will operate differently than in the hands of another. If you give a $20 child’s guitar to Eric Clapton, can he still make beautiful music? If you give Eric Clapton’s guitar to a child, will the child become a musical genius?

The tools of writing are changing, but the fundamentals stay the same. AI is a terrible writer in the same way a chainsaw is a terrible sculptor. In the end, the tools are less important. Use them. Don’t use them. I don’t really care. Because in the end, great writing is about what it has always been about and what it always will be about: Craftsmanship! Learn your fucking craft!

Sev

PS… Toni, if you’re out there, thanks for lighting the fire; but did you have to make it burn so much?