Tag Archives: books

Tuesday Thoughts: A I A I NO!!

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I think my eyes have gone square from staring at the screen all day. After a lazy Christmas, I started back to work on an editing job I’m doing for one of my clients. Editing is a slow job, and frankly, nowhere as exciting as writing. It’s handy, though, insofar as I can fit it around other things, like pretending to write a novel and housework. I like to take my time, reading sentences aloud to make sure that they sound right, double checking grammar and punctuation, and sometimes I even learn something new if I need to verify something in a dictionary or thesaurus.

Working freelance means that I can work when I please. It suits me, especially now that chronic pain has made its way into my life. However, the reality may be that my editing days are numbered, thanks to AI. Who’s going to pay me to do something that an algorithm could do for half the price, if not for free?

It will come as no surprise to you, dear reader, that I consider the written word to be important. I studied English literature for four years, reading masterpieces that came from the quills of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, progressing to Austen, Bronte and Dickens, then edging ever closer to the modern day with Elizabeth Bowen, George Orwell, Helen Fielding. I learned that the longer nineteenth century novels were serialised, due to the cost of printing. As we moved into the mid-twentieth century, novels became shorter (three to four hundred pages). Becoming a published author was a feat that was increasingly slipping out of reach.

However, thanks to the invention and widespread provision of the internet, it seems that any auld gobshite can write and publish whatever, whenever they like. It doesn’t even have to be “good” or to a publishable standard whatsoever (and many instalments of this blog should be treated as cases-in-point). All considered, it’s probably the worst time to consider a career in writing. The market is saturated. We’re told that publishers have gigantic piles of unread masterpieces in their offices, loitering around the shredder. Writers really have to love what we do, otherwise many of us wouldn’t even get up out of bed in the morning.

And if that wasn’t enough, we’re now competing with AI as well. The irony shouldn’t escape us that we humans were the ones to invent and hone AI, and now we may well be surrendering our jobs to them. AI has been around for some time; it’s not a new phenomenon. When I was studying in Maynooth in 2019, some of my classmates joked that they were going to put their essay ideas into some sort of essay generator and see what came out. (They didn’t, thankfully!). Now, AI seems to be able to do it all – content writing, editing, even fiction writing. Which sort of makes sense, right? After all, there are basic formulae for certain types and genres of writing. In this respect, writing is like maths.

But writing is not like maths. The truth is, that even when a writer follows a pattern, for example, start, middle and end, he/she squeezes a little bit (or a lot) of his/her soul into the work. A little personality, a deeply hidden fear, a scar that never quite healed properly. For many, myself included, writing can feel like flashing at the world behind the safety of a screen. Often, it’s a cry for help, understanding and solidarity. Say what you like, but how can a preprogrammed algorithm have the same effect?

Think back to when you first started reading. I know I loved Enid Blyton’s “jolly goods” and her descriptions of the Famous Five’s midnight feast; I related to Roald Dahl’s Matilda at a time when I, too, felt misunderstood by the world around me. Dahl himself had experienced a troubled, violent childhood at the hands of his teachers, and no doubt he found writing to be therapeutic. Don’t dare tell me that a reader could connect with an algorithm in the same way.

And yet, many writers like me are fearful of the future. As it stands, many writers are seen as charlatans, daydreamers who sit around all day, hoping for good fortune to fall into our laps (or keyboards!) The only thing we can do is keep writing.

We all deserve the privilege of telling our own stories. And let me tell you, however crappy or unpolished my words may be, I’m certainly not in a hurry to give away that privilege.

Thursday Thoughts: All in My Head

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(written 21 October 2024)

I’m sitting at my computer this morning, while my two dogs snore loudly on their bed beneath my black desk, the one I got last year in JYSK and assembled with the help of then eleven year old Alison. This is what every working day should look like for a writer: Microsoft Word open on the screen, the cursor blinking impatiently as it waits for you to input the masterpiece you are weaving in your head. It’s been almost ten years since I decided to throw any prospect of future employability away and instead pursue some vague ambition to become a writer. 

Most days, I enjoy it. Above everything else, as I have mentioned several times before, writing has often been the only thing keeping my fragile mental health from shattering into bits. If you, dear reader, have any perception of what this feels like, then you can also imagine how frightening it is when you feel yourself being pulled down that dark road of nothingness, and the thing that you normally rely on to pull you out – a string of words – refuses to materialise. Not only were the words not appearing, my will to sit in front of a screen while I bubbled with frustration was also fading quickly.

I’ve been wrestling with mental health issues for years, along with approximately twenty-five percent of the population. Over the last few months, I’ve recognised a pattern which sets the darkness in motion. First of all, I become tired, just like any ordinary person becomes tired. When I’m tired – and I’d wager I’m not alone in this – even the simplest things become overwhelming. There’s an extra load of laundry I hadn’t planned on tackling today. Alison’s bedroom may look clean, but if I open the wardrobe and drawers, I’ll have to deal with the crap in there. None of these things are life and death, as long as you’re in the right state of mind. 

As for writing a novel, well. You might as well say go and climb Everest, because neither seem possible when the black dog comes and licks your hand.

I know in part that the chronic pain I now live with contributed to this round of misery. It’s been four years, and yet I’m struggling to accept that what my mind wants to do and what my decripit body is able for is not in alignment. Lowering my standards isn’t in my lexicon, and that creates problems daily. Often, I go to bed frustrated because that load of laundry lies unfolded in the dryer, or because there’s toothpaste cementing on the side of the washbasin. I am a writer, but I’m also a stay-at-home mum and wife. If my husband can manage his job and bring in a wage, then why can’t I manage mine?

Then, of course, it occurred to me that the above narrative is not helping my mental state, and that the only way out is to be kind to myself. This is in direct opposition to everything I’ve trained myself to do over the years. Tough times? Push through it. Want results? Work harder. After a spell, the messages become nastier. What made you think you could write a book? What’s the point in applying for work, when your last full-time job was ten years ago? Imagine this on repeat all day, like a soundtrack on Spotify; sometimes the order shuffles a bit, but the core messages are invariably the same:  You are going nowhere. You have wasted your life.

Before the summer, while packing to go to Australia for a month, I just said enough. I had just turned forty. I’ve no novel, no marvellous collection of short stories, and not enough work coming in to justify my role as proofreader. But why do I rely on these titles to give me my sense of self-worth? I came in here into my office and took out Conversations about Activism and Change, which may be the closest to a published book I’ll ever achieve. And while it isn’t perfect, I now leave it on my desk as a reminder that I am capable of conceiving and completing a project. I can handle the monotony of transcripts and editing, and editing, and more editing. Now, I can be proud that the book has made a contribution to Irish disability history. A book that came from a throwaway comment to a friend about yearning to record the people’s history of the movement.

At the moment, it often feels as though I’m watching my own life from the outside, like a boring silent film, but I have started to chisel away at the glass and hopefully soon it will shatter completely. I’m impatient by nature, but now I’m coming to accept that I can’t just bounce back into the life that I drifted away from this time last year and expect to pick up from where I left off. That said, my friends have all been incredibly patient and understanding and have helped me in rejoining society, physically and mentally. I also know I need to be kind to myself. Losing so many friends in the space of a few months has hit hard, and I need to readjust to loving them in a different way to what I might like. But I am getting there, and it seems that writing might be the key.to unlocking my life, after all.