Andrea Gibson Part 2

The other night at work, this customer handed me his card and told me he had just written a novel and that if I was an avid reader, I should look him up. I told him I was a writer myself and I would definitely check out his work.

I will refer to this guy as Chris to protect his identity. When I got home, I scanned the QR code on the card and it brought up his website. The first two sentences were all I needed to read.

"Chris is not your average author. An IT professional channeling cutting-edge artificial intelligence into breathtaking narratives, Chris is redefining modern storytelling."

In other words, this guy put together a 350 plus page "novel' using AI. Now I am sure it took some effort, assuming he formatted and proof read the story himself. I am not trying to shit on this guy's parade. I am sure he is proud of the work he has done, as he should be.

However, this type of thing makes me want to give up on my writing. For the past decade, I have worked diligently on this craft. I spent some time in one of the most brutal writing groups you could imagine, where I learned to take any amount of criticism, whether warranted or not. I have a blog that now holds 530 pieces of my writing, both poetry and prose. This doesn't include the poems I have written for people on my Etsy page. I have sold over 100 personalized poems to people all over the world for birthdays, anniversaries, memorials and other special occasions. 

Knowing that there are people out there publishing books that were written by a computer program is depressing to me. I have dug through every emotion a human can have and put them on paper. Artificial intelligence has no soul. There are no guts to those words. I have really been considering giving up this hobby.

Most of the time I feel like I am just screaming into the void. I am putting my pain to pen for everyone and nobody all at the same time. Why do I even bother?