I’m not even doing NaNoWriMo2024.

Toilets overflowing. Cats throwing up all over the place. Absolute chaos. And it’s still October.

I really want this to be a sign from the Universe that big things are headed our way because I don’t have a heap of good explanations otherwise. If I’ve learned anything in my manifestation journey over the years it’s that things are usually crappiest right before a windfall. The funny part is, it doesn’t have to be that way. I think the Universe just likes to check our vibration by throwing some hurdles our way.

What’s up with NaNoWriMo this year, anyway?

Disclaimer: Statements expressed in this article are strictly my opinion. If you disagree or have a different opinion, that’s okay. I’m not an expert on everything. I’m not always right. I’m just writing from my experience as I know it. Your mileage may vary.

I’m not doing NaNoWriMo this year because of the AI controversy. If I wanted an AI to do all my writing, I could sit here and feed some prompts and have a 50K word count in about a day and a half. All I would have to do is a little editing to make it sound more like me. When it comes to NaNo, I feel like that’s kinda cheating.

If I go to the trouble of pumping out 50K words and more I want to publish the darn thing. I can’t ethically publish something under my “brand” if I didn’t actually write the whole thing. Ghost writers are one thing, but AI is another entirely. I don’t even feel like it’s a collaboration at that point. What? I wrote this awesome novel with the help of my good friend, Saras AI?

You know, I think the use of AI art is fine in limited context. My own drawing is kinda meh and by letting an AI do it, I get something halfway presentable quick for a blog article that I know is never going to be used for sales. I would never, ever sell something I wrote using AI artwork. At that point, I’m doing the art myself or hiring it out.

I think I would feel differently if I had a disability that prevented me from participating.

NaNoWriMo is meant to be kinda fun on top of being a challenge. I mentioned Saras AI. It’s a voice to text transcribing process. I think that’s just fine if you’re neurodivergent or if you have some kind of physical disability that prevents you from writing effectively.

We have a lot of actual text to speech stuff around here that we can use. I have one son that’s got some pretty significant dysgraphia, dyslexia, and dyscalculia. We run the gamut of issues around here. We let the kids use speech to text and stuff like that, and it’s fine.

That’s great. You know, I think that’s awesome for them. And if you’ve got a disability, or if you’re neurodivergent, and you need an AI to help you, or if you need another program to help you, that’s perfect. That’s what it’s there for. Do that. Great.

But it’s not something I would do, just because I know I can do it without the extra techology. And if I do 50,000 words, I want to sell it. If I sell it, then I don’t want an AI to take credit for it, or should say, I don’t want to take credit for the AI. I would even go so far to pose the question of if AI does the work, can a writer truly claim they wrote anything beyond a few prompts?

Is wanting to see original works an “ableist” thing?

Yes, and at the same time, no. I have a friend that’s missing a hand due to an accident involving homemade explosives. Would I expect him to crank out 50K words in one month by typing it all out?  Heck no. I hope he would have the sense to use speech to text or some other assistive technology. That’s only fair.

If Chat GPT writes the entire book based on a couple of prompt? I sure as heck hope he doesn’t try to take credit for writing the whole book. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look too good when the author credit sounds like, “I wrote three lines of prompts to help create this novel.”

For a different example, if a long time NaNo participant in years past had suffered a stroke and maybe was still having some trouble typing and/or forming complete sentences- it’s probably okay for them to use an AI to put out one more NaNoWriMo novel. I would recommend just doing it for fun, but at the same time, maybe that persons fans really wanted one more book from them. Maybe it’s just for the writer’s frame of mind and self-confidence.

I think the worst thing we can do is cram everyone into the same mold.

I know the temptation is there for some people to use AI to cheat the system and hit their total word count in record time. I can edit a lot faster than I create most days. Knowing that, I don’t want to participate in NaNoWriMo because I know there are authors out there who will use and abuse AI, people who really don’t need the assistive technology.

There’s no way to police NaNoWriMo for AI content by people who are really just kinda lazy and didn’t want to put in the work of writing a 50,000 word novella. Amazon and other literary platforms are filling up with books written by AI every day now. People are selling “digital content” on YouTube and elsewhere because it’s easy to look like a rogue scholar when AI does the work for you. It’s like putting a robot on an assembly line and then taking credit for building the car.

At the same time, I sincerely hope people who need the assistive technology take full advantage of it for NaNo this year and every year going forward. AI and other tools do make life significantly better for people who need it. Please, regardless of what side of the AI argument you may be on, have consideration for those whose circumstances greatly differ from your own.

I’m fortunate enough to have a niche AI hasn’t fully conquered yet.

I think AI has a tough time writing science fiction/fantasy material because it can’t make up technobabble, magic spells, and other “weird” stuff. Likewise, I think it struggles with anything related to tabletop roleplaying games beyond generating random lists and prompts. (*By the way, all of the d12 tables on this site are 100% my human creations.) AI hasn’t developed a lot of the nuances to write a decent adventure yet. I’d say give it a year or two.

AI is capable of learning a lot of information very quickly. Somehow we haven’t had a Skynet type situation yet, but AI can teach itself a lot of things rapidly when allowed. Can it pump out a deep space cyberpunk fantasy romance novel? I have doubts it would be that good yet.

The other thing AI hasn’t necessarily mastered yet are the nuances of human speech and politeness. Alexa struggles with my requests every day because I say “please” and “thank you” a lot. She also doesn’t take compliments very well. It’s not a request, Alexa dear, it was just me being nice to you. Luckily, we humans can be kind to other humans and still be understood.

Thank you for being here today with me. I appreciate you. Please embrace the things that bring you the most joy.