AI HERE, THERE, and EVERYWHERE

 

If you use text-to-voice to proofread your writing, you’re listening to a creature of AI. I’m on record that I use this feature when going over my stories in WORD. (I should use it for emails, although, to my detriment, I usually fire them off quickly without doing so.) It’s a fine way to catch some typos, akin to the advice to read aloud your own chapters and catch repeat words, typos and echoes.

The mechanical voice is far better at this function because unlike the author or even the author’s human friends, it won’t read aloud what it thinks is likely there, per human logic.  Instead, the machine will sound what is, in fact, there on the screen.

Oops.

 

Then there are the internet searches. The largest search engine (rhymes with poodle) now brings AI results to the top of the first page. DH admonished me to not look at the AI findings and scroll past them. I refuse to ignore the tool because it is usually sound. Usually is the operative word. There are glitches here and there, so looking further should be good practice.

 

AI tools are also fun, as in fun and games. They play with us, creating images and editing photos, not to mention drive digital games.

 

Here is what they don’t do, nor replace. The human touch is unique in finding the road not taken, and AI never seems to. Whatever you do, don’t let it write your stories because you will never get anything surprising or genuinely out of the box.

 

AI is all about formulas, algorithms, and what was done before. Not just the tried and true, but the tried-and-true numerous times. Its best surprise is, like the old Holiday Inn commercials, no surprise.

 

As good (and improving) as AI tools are, perfection still eludes them. Case in point: the AI “natural voice” reader keeps reading every “oh” in my manuscripts as “OH!” (a la “wow!”), even when it’s the sighing kind. “Oh, this is sad,” comes off as either alarming or a cry of joy. The lovely female voice I use is as dumb as a doorbell which, come to think of doorbells, always sound like they mean to be punctuated by an exclamation.

 

Oh, well.

ARGUABLY THE GREATEST PRESIDENT

 

We know Abraham Lincoln saved the union of states, but at a great cost to his mental health and eventual physical demise. Lincoln suffered from clinical depression aggravated by the enormous cost of the war between the states. He was murdered shortly after victory, and never got to know how grateful most of us are to this day for keeping us “one nation, indivisible.”

 

We know about Lincoln’s childhood in a log cabin, and about the tragic loss of his beloved son Willie to typhoid fever while living in the White House. (The Lincolns lost another son twelve years earlier to tuberculosis.) These losses took their toll on Mary Todd Lincoln, and all in all made for very hard presidential years for Abe.

 

Here’s what I didn’t know until just before I blogged about it six years ago here. Abraham Lincoln was a bonified inventor. Almost on this date, May 22^nd in the year 1849, future U.S. president Abraham Lincoln was granted a patent for a boat-lifting device; he was the only U.S. president to have a patent. 

 

We’ve heard that a rising tide lifts all boats.  Now we know Lincoln did, both figuratively and in practice.

The Matter of the AUTHOR NOTE

 

I’m fond of reading Author Notes at the end of novels, but I may be in a minority.

 

To be clear, I understand the reluctance many feel about this matter. I want to be succinct and say that, for me, an Author Note is satisfying to read only if it’s short and personal. Like a cherry on the slice of cake I just managed to finish.

An added zing, a finishing touch. An Author Note needs to work like a decorative bow tied to a well wrapped gift.

 

A good post on this can be found here.

 

For fiction, it’s important not to slip into lecture mode. I’m afraid the tendency to explain, self-analyze, and even apologize— is what many authors pass for their final note. I plead guilty myself.

 

A good Author Note does one simple thing: it ties the fictional story to the author’s life experience in a way that enriches the story for the reader. Too many authors write these notes to make up for what they perceive will be criticism or in response to Beta readers’ feedback. An Author Note shouldn’t be a defense of one’s work, nor added material that should have been woven into the story itself.  Again, I plead guilty to these faux pas.

 

While Author Notes can enrich a novel, I find them a burden when tacked to picture book texts. Writers who have polished their skills writing for the educational market are prone to add Author Notes to trade picture books, sometimes longer than the story texts. Thus, a fictional tale becomes a mini textbook. Publishers seem to love this, because it makes these picture books marketable in both the trade and the educational markets.

 

I’m not a publisher. As a reader, I never liked fiction laden with footnotes, and these Author Notes (as well as “Side Bars”) sink fun fiction faster than I can say PLEASE DON’T.

For the third time, I plead guilty to this, also.

 

So, my take on Author Notes is keep it interesting and above all—

keep it short.

SELF-DOUBT and GUILT

 

Self-doubt is not only an important part of an artist’s toolkit; it’s an essential aspect of being a good person, striving to do better. I think guilt serves a similar function.

 

Where both get a bad rap is when they exceed the boundaries of righting function and become wrecking balls. Being wrecked with self-doubt or wrecked by guilt deserves the boot.

Not helpful, get outta here, you’re only doing damage.

 

This post on the usefulness of self-doubt got me thinking. I was amid second drafting a novel and experiencing something I hadn’t before at that stage. I was liking my first draft.

It read well. How can this be? First drafts are not supposed to read this well. Have I lost my whatever it is that makes writers able to improve on what is, let’s face it, only the first draft?

 

 I was having self-doubts about not having self-doubts.

 

No worries. About a third way in, my first draft showed itself to be a mess in need of urgent triage and surgical repair. I was back to normal self-doubting me, and both breathing and heart rate stabilized.

 

Self-examination, acknowledging wrongs, attempting repairs and trying to do better are great tools. Just don’t let them go amok, because then they think they are the boss and will, if you let them, kill you.

 

Everything in moderation, Maimonides said. This eight-hundred- and fifty-year-old advice has aged well.