a writer writes

some scattered thoughts on ai

i love when things are easy. those bullshit plastic devices they sell on infomercials that address some already-simple aspect of life (like putting a toilet paper roll on its holder or taking the greens off a strawberry?) i had to bar myself from ordering any of those back when i was still smoking weed, because i knew that once i called and paid for so much as one spaghetti squash spiralizer it would be over for me and someday my kids—or, if i don’t have kids, eliza’s kids—would be clearing out my hoarding dungeon after my death and being like “damn, this bitch did not want to do tasks.”

all this to say, i am the last person to scold anyone for making the miserable and complex daily project of living a little easier. i didn’t cheat that much in school, but that was only because i was bad at it, not because i was morally opposed to it; that said, my mom and i recently visited our friend, a somewhat recently arrived afghan immigrant to the us and mother of four, who proudly told us that she makes a point of not cheating in her nursing-assistant classes because “i’m smart, i don’t need to!” and i felt sort of ashamed of the times i did write out the quadratic equation on my palm before a ninth-grade math test or whatever. (what are you going to do, high school? retroactively take away my diploma?)

when it comes to the “should we be using generative ai to write?” question, though, i am somewhat immovable. not bc i want to be a little cop or whatever, but because…you don’t have to write! you don’t have to try to be a writer! you can do literally anything else if the act of writing is so unimportant to you that you’d rather let a computer do it for you! obviously, there are practical, harm-reduction-y uses for gen ai application and it’s not going to go away just because i Don’t Approve Of It, but you will simply never get me to believe that journalism or screenwriting or fiction should be written that way.

none of this is because i believe writing is some inherently lofty and noble pursuit that everyone has equal time and opportunity to engage in (my friend meaghan o’connell makes some good points on this topic); i had the incredible privilege of being raised by writers, and one of the main things they actively communicated to me about writing was that it’s…a job, not a calling or a sacred duty or even necessarily an Art Form. right now, though, when there are fewer writing jobs than ever, i feel genuinely appalled at the idea that we should compromise on the rock-bottom standard that writing should be…written. by a real person.

i actually thought ‘a writer writes’ was something one of my parents must have said to me at some point, but when i thought harder about it, i realized it was a quote from a jennifer weiner novel. ‘cannie, a writer writes,’ weiner’s protagonist’s mom tells her mildly when she’s mulling quitting writing after some harsh feedback, and i think there’s an incredibly freeing and important lesson in there. a writer doesn’t necessarily publish; a writer doesn’t necessarily ideate on writing; a writer doesn’t have to do panels or interviews or sell a lot of copies, but a writer writes. or, to put it another way: when i was succumbing to the beast of unmedicated adhd and watching friends reruns until 3 a.m. my last year of college instead of writing my senior thesis, my creative writing professor told me: “the first thing you have to give up is not writing.” in other words, stop telling yourself stories about the thing you’re going to write—how good it’s going to be, how true, how necessary—and start writing it.

i’m not saying you have to write every day or on any kind of set schedule to call yourself a writer (after all, who the fuck am i?? i’ve been trying to do 300 words of non-work writing a day for the last few months, and i’m about ten days behind), but if you’re outsourcing the hideous and banal and often-exhausting work of thinking about something and setting it down in words to ai, you are not writing. you are not strengthening the mental muscles that allow you to look at what you wrote yesterday and make it better today. you are not even allowing yourself the possibility of confronting an idea and letting it swim around in your brain while you shower and wash the dishes and walk the dog; maybe you think you’re just in it for more elegant synonyms or help breaking a scene, but you are skipping the meat-and-potatoes, rote, boring scaffolding work upon which the soaring heights of your writing might just depend.

i have a friend who says she’ll be more angry at her now-young daughter for eventually using generative ai to write than for smoking, drinking or getting a tattoo, and i think that’s exactly the tack we should take. ai isn’t going away—it’s fucking here—but that doesn’t mean we have to joyfully bend to its whims or let it take up residence within our writing practices. in the immortal and stupid words of glennon doyle or some other well-meaning milf: we can do hard things.

currently listening to: jenny lewis, always

currently watching: the simpsons. i had to take a little break because i was watching so much of it, but now i’m so back

currently reading: a waterlogged 2024 copy of the new yorker i found wedged behind my toilet. keep in mind i moved into my apartment in november 2025…….?

xoxo

emma