On AI and Writing
BRXND Dispatch Sent
The problem, I think, is that good writing is fundamentally anti-consensus. For writing to be above average, it shouldn’t sound like everything else.
SHELF No. 04
Writing is power
Writing craft, persuasion, and the influence of prose.
Craft
10 RECORDSPREVIOUSLY FILED
Text as Music
Jera Value Sent
A blank canvas that colours every sentence by its length so you can see the rhythm of your writing, inspired by Gary Provost.
How to Write? Longhand on paper? Typewriter? Word Processor? Scrivener or Obsidian?
Unapocalyptic (Substack) Sent
“Each tool creates a separate set of constraints on your creativity.”
You Have to Believe in the Gods
Numb at the Lodge (Substack) Sent
This Christopher Nolan guy—what does he actually like? What does he want to point his camera at? Most film directors are deeply horny and fucked up people, which is why they keep catching allegations. There is an erotics of the image. Not for this guy. His camera is never impolite enough to linger over anyone’s arse.
28 slightly rude notes on writing
Experimental History Sent
“If you want that perfect brush stroke or that exquisite shot, then you have to squeeze your neurons until they scream.”
How I learned to just fucking write
Substack Sent
“That pattern would follow me through my creative life until I found a way to write or make art that allowed me to bypass my inner critic.”
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Everything You Know About Lorem Ipsum Is Wrong
YouTube Sent
“In which I accidentally become the world expert on the placeholder text Lorem Ipsum.”
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Why the best writing advice is often the weirdest
The New Yorker Sent
Everything about the book is mortifying, and it totally set me free.
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Why writing still wins
Medium Sent
“There's a referendum on the value of writing, and writing is winning.”
AI & voice
15 RECORDS
The Thinking is All That's Left
BRXND Dispatch Sent
“I believe we’ll see a style emerge that looks less like traditional essays and more like “jagged collections of bangers” thrown together without the usual transition paragraphs.”
PREVIOUSLY FILED
LLM Counter-Defaults
AIxDESIGN Sent
Cool little doohickey that writes the custom LLM instructions to override your bot's conversational style.
Please Use AI
The Courage to Live It Sent
“because no one wants to hear your words, the actual poorly written words of a parent (you) who changed hundreds of diapers for said child or fed them in the middle of the night from your actual body”
If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you
Numb at the Lodge Sent
“Nice little personal essay you’ve got there, lady, but I know what you really are; time to get my knife out, time to start digging around under your skin until I find the wires.”
After AI stole his clients, one Big Tech ghostwriter is using AI to get them back
Fortune Sent
“What can the future look like for me?”
AI learns language from skewed sources. That could change how we humans speak – and think
The Guardian Sent
“Machine-generated text reads as smooth and polished, but it loses the meanders, interruptions and leaps of logic that communicate emotion.”
Using AI makes writing more bland, study finds
NBC News Sent
“The LLMs are pushing the essays away from anything that a human would have ever written”
Why wouldn't you use AI to publish a book ??
Substack Sent
“What does it mean that to publish a book with as little labor as possible is the system working at its efficient best?”
The Science of Why AI Still Can't Write Like You
Every Sent
“Most people are wildly inconsistent writers.”
AI Style Guides: How to Help AI Write Like You
Every Sent
“It takes what you know instinctively about your own writing and makes it legible for a machine to use.”
The Science of Why AI Still Can’t Write Like You
Every Sent
“Most people are wildly inconsistent writers.”
What is happening to writing?
resobscura.substack.com Sent
“I find myself deeply energized by the potential of these new tools, while also wondering what their mass adoption will do to everyone’s brains.”
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On the existential terror of AI-generated music
The Red Hand Files Sent
“What does this say about us, that we so passively acquiesce? Are we not the valiant knights, the truth-tellers, the beauty-makers, who journey to the dark side, slay the dragon, and bring back the dripping treasure? Are we not the guardians of the world’s soul?”
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Writers Are Going to Extremes to Prove They Didn’t Use AI
The Wall Street Journal Sent
I’ll use aggressively casual language, like, ‘hey yo, for real,’ or drop a bunch of exclamation point
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The Great Flattening: Corporate AI Language and Brand Voice Opportunity
The State of Brand Sent
“Corporate America is converging on a single voice. The brands that opt out will own the next decade.”
Publishing
2 RECORDS
The Profession That Does Not Exist
The Baffler Sent
“Young man, you don't understand. You've chosen a profession that doesn't exist.”
PREVIOUSLY FILED
Should you write a Substack instead of a book?
Kyle Chayka Sent
“For many authors, particularly those with a pre-existing platform to work from, hustling to convert a new newsletter subscriber is likely much more profitable (again, on a single-customer basis) than working on a new book.”
Persuasion
3 RECORDS
How to write an artist statement that doesn't suck
The Creative Independent Sent
The point is not to sound smarter. The point is to say what you mean clearly enough that the work can arrive with its force intact.
PREVIOUSLY FILED
Anti-Dystopia
The Futures Lens Sent
“That is anti-dystopian action at its core: doing what makes the world more human, even when you cannot prove it matters in the grand scheme.”
The Narrative is the Business
Native Studio Sent
A Substack post exploring how narrative and business strategy intersect in modern organizations
Creative identity
5 RECORDS
Writer's desk block
Kyle Chayka Industries Sent
“But I once wrote a whole column straight through at five in the morning with my laptop perched on the edge of the bathtub in a hotel room in Cully, Switzerland, trying not to wake my (then very pregnant) wife. It worked out just fine!”
PREVIOUSLY FILED
Strategy needs good words
Martin Weigel / Canalside View Sent
“Strategy is the art of getting other people to do something. In the pursuit of that, narrative is the strategist's tool.”
The year literary publishing learned the power of fandom
Substack Sent
“The first public online community was created in Leopold’s Records, in Berkeley, California, in 1973.”
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Developing creative identity
Michael's Notebook Sent
“A better question for any creative person is: what activities do you want to pursue? What kinds of understanding will that create?”
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We'll soon find out what is truly special about human writing
Psyche Sent
“a willingness to stand behind words, to mean them, and to accept the consequences of having claimed to have written them.”
Reading culture
11 RECORDS
The Novel Is Dead. This Time It's for Real
Will Self Sent
But screens, collapsing attention and a transformed literary economy may finally be killing it for real.
PREVIOUSLY FILED
The Greatest Short Story Writers of All Time
Dan Sinykin Sent
“It’s clear that Joyce Carol Oates is the GOAT. She blows the rest out of the water, even Munro and Updike.”
How—and Why—to Cull Your Book Collection
Literary Hub Sent
“It's time to stop trying to impress some imaginary book critic who might one day look at my shelves.”
The End of Reading Is Here
The Atlantic Sent
“By asking them to read, professors are arbitrarily withholding information from students by forcing them to get it through this more difficult medium.”
Uncovered
Uncovered Sent
Tinder for books. Read an endless stream of free book samples. Reveal and save the ones you like.
Why are you reading fewer books?
In My Tribe (Arnold Kling) Sent
“This not because of “the phones.” It is because alternative sources of information have become more compelling.”
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Reading Maps
Reading Maps Filed
Shows literary journeys, like Kerouac's On the Road, on a map with plotted stops
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How to remember everything you read (stop trying)
X (Twitter) Sent
Step 1) Become obsessed with a meaningful goal.
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American Time Use Survey
iScience Sent
“Rates of daily reading for pleasure have declined over the past 20 years in the US”
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Your inability to focus isn’t a failing. It’s a design problem.
Aeon Sent
“As if the same device that delivers algorithmically curated rage-bait and also the complete works of Shakespeare is itself the problem rather than how we decide to use it.”
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Blind Date With a Book
x.com Sent
“Might be the coolest idea for a book store I’ve stumbled on.”