Keep Holding On

(question the product not the process)

I was at supper last night with some friends who run an independent movie production company. They were staying with the composer Max Richter. Max started telling me about the time he was invited along to DeepMind to talk about the process of composing. They played him bits of AI Beethoven, which he said was better than expected, for about 10minutes, and then just more of the same. What interested him is how uninterested they were in the process of composing, seeing problems as things to be fixed, on the way to getting the finished product.

We’ve spoken quite a bit here, in these chats, about process versus product. I am all for product. If you want to make something happen, whether it’s dinner or a poem, then do that. Obviously, dinner happens most days and poems don’t, but trust me, I believe in working hard and finishing things. I don’t have time for unserious people who always have an excuse. There’s always a good reason why the novel doesn’t get written. Just write it.

So… as someone who likes the end result, why do I like the process better?

Process is the interesting part! You have a good idea, you can see a shape in the mist. You walk towards it, you listen carefully, you look for tracks. Clues. And you work with that little bit of nothing that starts to build into a little bit of something. That’s wonderful.

Outsourcing your creativity is not smart. I’ve said that if you want to produce factory-fiction, that is; standardised, user-friendly, market-led, beginning-middle-end-format-prose, then by all means get your AI buddy to do the work. You keep the money, and get on with your sonnet-cycle by candlelight. Just be honest with yourself and others. That way, you won’t sell your soul.

However…

If you are SO BAD at writing that you need at AI buddy to help compose your sentences, then please do something else! There is no shame in not being a writer.

Non-writers passing off as ‘writers’ is a bore. We are likely to get a lot of that soon. Especially from non-readers who see a product opportunity.

Listen, I am not objecting to hobby-writing. That’s different. If writing gives you pleasure then do it! My experience of not-very-good writers who want to write their memoirs etc, is that they really enjoy the actual writing. The last thing they want is AI to do it for them. That’s lovely. And if you use AI to help get your thoughts in order, it can be great for you. There’s an impressive AI buddy for Seniors called ElliQ, and she will do just that. You tell her your stories and she helps you along, finding patterns and threads. I find it moving and inspirational. That is not my fight with AI.

My fight isn’t with AI at all. It’s with the anti-creative surge that wants to apply a standardised process to art. To make it all into consumable content that can be copied, repeated, reproduced, on loop. It makes money, and that, of course, is the point, because money is the measure of everything.

Money is not the measure of everything.

Replying to me, and here on Substack generally, I find so many people who want to explore their creativity, but feel depressed because they aren’t getting anywhere. That falls into two parts. If you are doing your work and it’s bringing you interest and joy, and yes, difficulty too, then you are getting somewhere.

Building an audience is different - and not guaranteed. You have no control over the outside world. None. That’s why I get a bit worried when I discover how many sites encourage writing as a group activity, with support from other writers, and mainly positive feedback. If that helps you, fine. But the struggle cannot be shared. You do this. No-one asks you to do it. No-one makes you do it.

Writing is a love-affair without a partner.

There is nothing as intense, as all-consuming, as distracting, as vital, as heart-breaking, as all or nothing, as the relationship with your own work. It’s why writers aren’t always (often) great as your Significant Other. A writer already has their Significant Other.

When writers were mainly men, wives and girlfriends put up with it. They were driving the Support Vehicle. Women writers, I think, are struggling to find their model. It’s NOT about being selfish. Everyone in a writer’s world deserves respect and attention. Yet, there is a solitariness that can’t be avoided. In fact, I believe that avoiding solitariness, or trying to avoid it, sets up a lot of anxiety. It’s your work. You can’t be always checking in with others and needing feedback.

Of course, AI is poised to be your best friend here. Always there to give encouragement and feedback. Never alone.

Are you sure?

Aloneness. Difficulty. Struggle. Doubt. Determination. Humility. Certainty. The long road of experience, where you learn to hear your own voice. And what is not your own voice. Product will never be your own voice. Process will surprise you.

The trouble with process is that often nothing seems to be happening at all. That’s why it helps to be a gardener. Nature takes her time. You water, you feed, you try to create the right conditions, then, always by surprise, there’s a green bean or a sunflower. It’s hard work, and worst of all, for a world that is entirely risk-averse, it’s unpredictable work. You might end up with nothing. You might be working and waiting longer than you want to. Your seeds might not be what was on the packet.

If you ask yourself, well what is the point, that’s fair enough, but remember that the process is the point. This is what you say you want to do. Don’t cut it down to size. Let it grow. You never know where that beanstalk will take you.