April Newsletter
In This Issue
- Editing Four Books at Once, An Editor Trying to Keep Up
- AWP Writing Conference in Seattle
- The Artificial Future of Books: All About Chat GPT
- Parting Photo – A Sunny(ish) Day on the Puget Sound
Editing Four Books at Once, An Editor Trying to Keep Up
The title of this email section is unclear. It is impossible to edit four books at once. Perhaps rewrite to something like “Editing Four Books in One Month.” That’s not quite right either. It implies the editing for all four books will be complete at the end of the month. How about “Toggling Between Editing Several Books in a Vaguely Similar Time Period.” Joking aside, this month I have breathlessly tried to keep up with four whipsmart writers who are churning out amazing content. Amy Dressler, Shayla Dugan, Celaine Charles, and Chenelle Bremont are keeping me on my toes. I can’t wait to share more in the coming months. Here’s something I can share – author Amy Dressler’s new headshots! I love her energy and the joy that shines through in these photographs taken by local photographer Jenny Jimenez.
New Headshots of Author Amy Dressler
AWP Writing Conference in Seattle
I made it to Seattle for two days of the AWP Writer’s Conference, a huge event with 8,000 attendees according to their email. I met up with poetry writer Chenelle Bremont (pictured below) at Café Flora on East Madison Street. A sign of the times, the streets were covered in graffiti and two of our favorite coffee shops were both closed due to staffing shortages. The conference itself was held at a brand-new facility called the Summit Building. Spacious meeting rooms, escalators for days and dark wood and black steel unfolded into a modern, open, and airy facility. I especially loved the rooftop garden overlooking the old brick-front Camden building.
Tess with Author Chenelle Bremont
Tess at the rooftop garden in Seattle
Tess’ friend Erin Sharkey’s new book A Darker Wilderness
At the conference I met up with author Erin Sharkey (check out her new book A Darker Wilderness) who was visiting from my home state of Minnesota. Erin and I went to high school together and it was lovely to catch up on what we are both doing nowadays. She was promoting her book which is a collection of essays described as “a constellation of luminary writers reflecting on the significance of nature in their lived experience.” Her book is available as ebook and print.
Speaking of nowadays…
The Artificial Future of Books: All About Chat GPT
If you haven’t heard of Chat GPT, it is an artificial intelligence website where you can type in any question and receive an answer instantly. The implications of artificial intelligence-based writing on the creative world are far-reaching. What if you could type in “Write me the first chapter of a romance novel with an enemies-to-lovers storyline” and get back a fully written chapter in a matter of minutes?
While that (good? bad?) promise looms on the horizon, this month I tested out the current-day capabilities of Chat GPT. While it excelled at creating quick outlines or listing possible character names, the writing of full chapters was less impressive. The text, in my humble opinion, felt wooden and lacking human emotion, with multiple echoes and unoriginal, repeated content.
At the moment it would best be suited for assistant-style tasks such as helping with story structure, world-building, or very rough first drafts later to be improved upon by a human author. Perhaps if an author created a very detailed outline with all the psychology already determined, they could input that and potentially get a first draft out of it. Character is the main driver of reader interest, and while the algorithm could output basic scenes and blocking, it failed at creating compelling characters with believable human psychology or turning unique and interesting phrases.
That’s not to say it can’t learn these things. (Cue ominous music.)
There are a multitude of open questions about Chat GPT. What are the copyright implications of artificial intelligence-based creative output that used previously published works to build its knowledge? Will all books start sounding the same? Will the massive volume of books already being created using Chat GPT crowd out any new and original works on the marketplace that took more time to create? What impact will this have on price, quality, and creativity?
And then there are less straightforward questions. What is the true relationship between author and reader, and what if that author is actually a robot? How will that make a reader feel and how does that make us feel about our own human intelligence, and our existence here on earth? Okay, I’m getting a bit existential but it’s merited. This is a big deal, guys!
One thing is clear: if an author uses Chat GPT, anything that is input, it will learn from. Which creates a moral quandary. Do we become early adopters to stay up-to-date with technology, adapt to the times, and be part of the conversation about how and when it is best used in the creative process? Or do we reject it to avoid being part of advancing its capabilities, leading to the possible eventual demise of human authorship?
As a technology-forward-thinking editor who loves automation and making life easier, I’m compelled by its potential. As a creative author who believes in the cathartic process of writing, the magic of the creative process, and the human connection between the author and reader, I’m concerned to say the least.
If history is any indication, standing in the way of progress is futile, and change is coming. Much like filmmaking is now shot on video and delivered by streaming, the practical and financial reality of speeding up the writing process by having a virtual personal assistant will likely also become the norm.
My hope is that authors will find a way to use this tool to heighten their creativity instead of being lazy and letting it create unoriginal copycat works. It’s possible that it will expand creativity in ways that I cannot yet even imagine, much like moving to video made the visual arts more available and cost-effective, leading to more unique stories, niche content, representations on the screen, and more. Only time will tell.
Parting Photo – A Sunny(ish) Day on the Puget Sound
Artificial intelligence has nothing on a sunset over the Puget Sound. My husband and I took a getaway to Ruston Point in Tacoma and it was worth the effort. Check out Salt and Copper for dinner if you have the time. The view is incredible!
That’s all for now.
Thanks for reading my newsletter and being part of the Egret Lake Books community. Please feel free to forward it to one or two friends who like books and ask them to join!
Tess Jones, Editor, Egret Lake Books
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Talk to you soon!