One of the reasons I'm hosting The Embrace Your Writer's Block Experience this September – a 4-week program based on my workbook – is because I've seen firsthand how powerful it is when writers journey together.
The prompts work well for solo writers. However, something is different when you know that other humans are writing alongside you. Jennifer participated in a book club I led earlier this year, and she agrees:
These experiences also motivated my declaration last Friday that writing with an AI tool cannot help you feel less lonely. It goes without saying that not everyone agrees me. When I posted some of that content to LinkedIn, another editor commented that she's heard other authors say the same thing:
I'm a firm believer that we can't tell someone else what they do or do not feel. That said, I can't help but wonder if these authors feel less lonely because they haven't experienced the gift of writing alongside compassionate, living-and-breathing human beings. Because for all an AI tool can do — and they can do an awful lot — there are still some fundamental things it cannot do.
Most significantly, I think, is this: an AI tool cannot truly listen.
This claim feels dubious at first. You could claim that all AI tools do is listen. That's why they're scraping the internet, downloading books, and eagerly "conversing" with millions of users. But as anyone who's ever talked with a narcissist can attest, there's a big difference between "collecting information" and "listening."
Consider this comment from another reader, an AI proponent who politely took issue with my post:
To me, the most striking parts are his two parenthetical statements: an AI tool listens by trying to figure out "what it thinks you mean" and then responds with "what it calculates will most likely satisfy that prompt." That's not true listening, much less a real conversation. (FTR: this person was not claiming otherwise. I'm admittedly repurposing his comment to illuminate my point.)
From one perspective, you could fairly say that AI tools are doing their darnedest to get you to shut up and leave them alone.
There's a time and place for such uses. If I'm trying to debug a glitch on my computer, I don't want a long, drawn out conversation: I want the clearest, simplest solution possible. And that's true whether I'm chatting with a bot or talking to human IT support.
When it comes to writing, however, you don't want someone who's merely trying to satisfy your prompt. You want someone who will ask provocative questions, pique your curiosity, and expand the realm of possibility.
Good editors understand that their job is not about telling writers how to write better. Sure, they can probably offer some sage advice and teach writers how to sharpen their sentences. There are times when such input is needed. Yet their greatest impact comes from the way they listen and the questions they ask in return. You will grow as a writer – and the quality of your writing will deepen – more from the questions they pose than from the answers they give you.
This is why coaches are taught to become comfortable with silence. It can be pretty dang uncomfortable to ask a question and then wait ten seconds, twenty seconds, or longer for an answer. But that silence is worth its weight in gold. It's in that silence that you find the truest answers to the questions you need to answer as you write.
And you know what? AI tools don't know how to be silent. That's not what they're programmed to do. They're designed to have the last word.
As I said at the beginning, I'm hosting a very different kind of experience that kicks off on September 8th. If you'd like to discover – or rediscover – the joy of penning your own words and the magic of answering open-ended prompts, join me. The writers who commit themselves to the process (like Jennifer) will find the permission to write freely and feel less lonely to boot, thanks to the company of other human beings who are doing the same thing.