As we dive headlong into a new year, artificial intelligence continues to loom large, like an alien spaceship hunkered down in the sky above the Empire State Building. It is the most intriguing class of technologies I’ve seen since the advent of the web in the late 1990s.… Story continues … “Never let AI write your first draft”
Category: Rough Drafts
Unfinished or quasi-finished prose that hasn’t been published elsewhere
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Haiku changed my life
One crisp autumn day, on a whim, I started sending haiku to a few friends via email and text message. I had a new phone and was interested in its SMS capabilities. The only things I found that I could get via SMS were sports scores and stock updates.… Story continues … “Haiku changed my life”
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Collaboration and photography
… Story continues … “Collaboration and photography”COMING UP: MINDFUL WRITING WORKSHOP. I’m co-hosting a workshop on Haiku for the Turn of the Year with Marion Pernoux, a somatic arts therapist and Reiki master, on December 7 in San Francisco. Click here to learn more and register for our mindful haiku workshop.
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It’s Clippy’s world now
When Microsoft first introduced its Office assistant, “Clippy,” it was ridiculed by many. The cutesy animated paperclip came across as goofy, but the real problem was how annoying Clippy was: He popped up unexpectedly way too often, interrupting your work to offer inane recommendations you would invariably reject.… Story continues … “It’s Clippy’s world now”
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How to write like Neal Stephenson
I was standing in the futuristic, multi-story atrium of NVIDIA’s “Endeavor” building when I saw Neal Stephenson leaning against a railing.
“I bet you’re not a lefty,” I said.
The award-winning science fiction author had been a speaker earlier that day at Google, which was hosting Imagination in Action’s Next Revolution of AI summit, a two-day conference event packed with experts from the upper echelons of tech, venture, and academia.… Story continues … “How to write like Neal Stephenson”
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What it’s like to attend a Renaissance Weekend
Last weekend, on a sunny balcony overlooking Monterey Bay, with cocktail chatter in the near background and sea lions barking in the distance, I talked about love with a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army Special Forces.
My new friend spent 10 tours of duty first as a grunt, then as a Green Beret sniper and medic.… Story continues … “What it’s like to attend a Renaissance Weekend”
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Introduction to Listening Poetry
This summer, I took a five-week course from The Good Listening Project to learn the craft of listening poetry: poetry that arises from deep listening in a one-on-one conversation.
A listener poet is someone who spends time with you, maybe twenty minutes, and then writes a poem for you about whatever is on your mind or in your heart.… Story continues … “Introduction to Listening Poetry”
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Good listening leads to better thinking
A fellow consultant recently asked me for advice on writing and publishing more consistently. He wasn’t asking me to ghostwrite for him or to edit his work, as I do for many of my clients. He’s an excellent writer and is able to make time for it. … Story continues … “Good listening leads to better thinking”
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Writing with (and without) AI
Artificial intelligence complicates things for writers.
It’s complicating everything for everyone these days, sure. We all have AI in our faces all day long, whether we want it or not (and mostly we don’t).
But for writers, the existence of chatbots that can generate text — let’s not call it “writing” exactly, but content — seems like an existential threat.… Story continues … “Writing with (and without) AI”
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What is content? What is writing?
Like many writers who take their craft seriously, I had an uneasy relationship with the word “content” for a long time.
Once, in the late 1990s or early 2000s, I went to a digital marketing conference and heard a man onstage — a real pioneer in the emerging field of digital content — say, “I’d like to find the person who coined the term ‘content’ and kick the living shit out of them!”… Story continues … “What is content? What is writing?”