My Writing Journey Competition

The Writer’s College hosts the semi-annual My Writing Journey Competition, and my essay won the contest in July 2023.

I wrote the 600-word piece from the perspective of when I received the “best writing tip I’d ever received,” which was in the mid-eighties.

The story is true. Mrs. Lovejoy, English class, the The Miller’s Tale paper, and her emphasis on rewrites. I, er, slightly embellished the banter, but I did sing her the Schoolhouse Rock adverb song.

Like most of my cover art, my image for this piece was prepared from the Nightcafe Studio AI generator using the prompt “Ferris Bueller writing an essay.”

Check these out.

Okay, ignore for a moment that the third one is literally writing on a keyboard with a pen. Still, the composition in some of these pieces - the color, the imaginative backgrounds, the pinups on the walls, the shirts and jackets from the 80’s, the likeness of the Ferris Bueller character - it just amazes me how far AI has come in the last couple of years; even the hands are nearly there.

In just a few years’ time, in fact, AI will be writing most of what we read, and, admittedly, computers won’t necessarily need the best writing tip you, I, or anyone received. They will write perfect, stagnant prose, consistently, all of the time, and I agree we’ll lose something from that, something real and meaningful. But I’ve optimism.

AI's prevalence will make the written word - the clever, witty, or insightful turn of phrase - even more valuable, rare.

In the near term, AI will emulate, recite, and plagiarize others, so let it. Good art is always about taking original, creative risks, and this isn’t what AI can do.

The risk-takers, the human mind, will create the most compelling art.

So do not fear AI. Embrace it. Instead, pay attention and look for the delta, the differences, where AI can’t go, and niche yourself there.

Consider that a writing tip for the next decade. :)

R