On the art of writing, babbeling machines and other important issues
I write with an old waterman fountain pen, and that is the way I take the most pleasure out of the art of writing, (of course I'm taking the presumptuous jump to consider what I do to be art). When, for some reason, one is not available, I tend to use any other kind of pen, a marker, or even a pencil, other than typing directly into the keyboard, or screen. Writing, for me, is tactile. Magic that springs out of the eye-hand coordination. By this point, I bet half of you are already considering me an oldfashioned bugger, but I really don't care, as It is my process. It works for me and I don't really care what works for you, as long as it works. What I can't stand is fakery.
(Image: Creative Commons)
I am quite new to this platform and I got here under the premise that the blockchain process would allow me to absolutely ensure that, whatever I type into this screen, I can prove the time of day that I did it and I can finally sue the family silver out of the guys that usually stole my work in order to amplify their own egos. You see... I am what they call a published author, (and, aren't we all, these days?), and I got fed up with people I don't know, and mostly, with people I do know, stealing my words for their radio shows, facebook posts and even, some books. Once I got fed up, I quit on the online publishing of ideas and stuck to posting just a few menialities to whatever social platform I put my travel photos into, and even that, I stopped doing.
I am an absolute believer in giving credit where credit is due, so, most of my complaints are related to people who don't quote the sources of whatever they happen to put down on paper, or, on silicone. This is why I absolutely abhorr users of AI that publish any kind of material and claim that to be of their authorship. Even the frakkin' machine can't claim it as its own, as I am pretty sure that all that the algorythm does is going around everything that's ever been published and stealing a little bit, or a lot, out of everyone of us that are true creators. Also, I found all I can do about it is to shame whoever I catch doing it, and it will happen a lot, because people won't stop at nothing in search of a dollar.
Last night, I was absolutely delighted by the reading of two posts, here on steemit. One, by @ weisse-rabe, on the very same subject I broached above, that, I find, merits more discussion and further involvement of this community, not to say that it demands that we all think about the meaning of what are the limits we have to posit on the usage of this so called AI. Even if, like me, you don't believe it is proper intelligence but only a very clever group of algorythms, the real problem is the results it proposes and what it allows people to do, and that, we must debate and scream and kick about. I won't be bothering you all with a further extension of this text, but I am sure to get back to this issue in the near future. I just hope you all heed my call and start thinking and talking about it.
The second article I took notice of, was the brilliant essay that @ vonnaputra wrote, on the matter of the importance of running in Murakami's creative process. Have I already mentioned it's brilliant? Well... It is absolutely brilliant (and I leave you the link below, in case you haven't read it yet). You see, it got me thinking about my own process and the quaint similarities it shares with another aspect of Murakami's way of doing it. (BTW: in case you don't know who Murakami is, by this point, you are demanded to go get whichever one of his books, and read it). The quaint similarities I, and, I believe, quite a few of us, share with Haruki Murakami is, starting by writing whatever I write in a foreign language. Then, if I have to, I retro-translate it into my own. In his case, the results of writing in English and back into Japanese provided quite an amazing impact in the resulting style, that made him the acclaimed author that he is. For me, it just unblocks my writing.
As you may have guessed by now, English is not my native language. Damn! It's not even my second language. If I have to, I would rate it in the fifth place among my languistic proficiency. What makes writing in English work for me is I can't really evaluate if I'm doing a good or bad job of it. I don't care about it enough to give a rat's ass about style and music and pronounciation, and that does it for me. I am originally from a latin country. I am Portuguese. My second language is a rather obscure Celtic language called Mirandes which is also a national language in Portugal. Then, I follow the Latin language pattern, by speaking Spanish, Italian and French (and a bit of Catalan). In my head, only in the fifth place start to appear the Germanic languages, beggining with English, that offers this commercial, neutral, pronunciation I use. I wouldn't dream of writing in German for fear of murdering the language. English, sits on the right spot for me.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not bragging, nor, in any way, downplaying the importance of English. Actually, I find it is a superior language in a large number of aspects. It's just that I haven't enough respect for the beauty of it to worry about such things as grammar, rythm and punctuation that I would be bullied about if I didn't get right in any of the latin languages, especially, my own. For me, English is about meaning and Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian are about beauty. I can't find myself in a beautiful mood everytime I wake up, but I can sure be in a meaningful, straightforward mood, so, I found that writing in English, works for me. What works for you?
It really interests me and I would really love to know what my fellow writers use as unblockers, so, I find this theme one of the most important in literary creation. I gave my bit. Now, it's time you give yours. Have fun, think about it, and let me know. I am sure we will all benefit from writing about it.
And don't forget to bin those AI engines... In the end, they will only kill your creativity.
12.01.25 - @hefestus
In annex:
Meditation in Motion: The Art of Writing (by @ vonnaputra)
https://steemit.com/hive-107855/@vonnaputra/meditation-in-motion-the-art-of-writing
This is Natural Intelligence speaking! / Hier spricht die Natürliche Intelligenz! (by @ weisse-rabe)
I expected nothing less from you ;-)))
First of all: I am old(fashionable) enough to write letters ;-)) Yes, real letters that are written on nice, pure paper, put in an envelope and stamped and taken to the letterbox. And yes, there are people who are happy to receive them and reply in the same way... It's amazing, isn't it?
My writing process is not stringent. As far as poetry and short prose are concerned: they just ‘happen’. Thoughts are thought and taken up and processed. Larger projects need time and impetus. I'm lacking both at the moment, so the Steem is exactly the right format to sort myself out...
I think that in the medium term, two camps will form here too - the natural bloggers who literally share their blogs. And the synthetics, who have ‘their’ texts created by an AI and either boast about it or simply collect royalties. The latter are only stopped when an AI is recognised as having personal rights and asserts its copyright. But that's another story ;-))
0.00 SBD,
6.16 STEEM,
6.16 SP
I tend to agree with your ideas on the formation of two camps... There are always two. The proper one, and the other. Also, I'm sure that, as the discovery of plagiarism grows, the debate on this dialectics will follow. As technology advances, here will be a point when declaration of synthetic origin or a seal of human origin will have to be created.
As for poetry... I believe the source of it will remain forever one of the deepest mysteries. At least, for me... I think its downloaded from some heavenly cloud. :)
0.00 SBD,
0.09 STEEM,
0.09 SP
I'm curious: your nickname - there's a manufacturer of machines for large-scale cannabis production with the same name... Does the poetry sometimes come from a joint? ;-))
lmfao! Not really, no. I smoked my last one in Amsterdam, at the sweet age of 35. Can't do it anymore, as it causes me to go into cardiac arrhytmia. It seems to have conflicted with other stuff I was doing back in the day and I'm afraid to do it again.
The monniker comes from Hephaestus, the greek god of artisans, metallurgy, fire, vulcanoes and crapload more stuff. As I'm an artisan that dwells in mettalurgy by trade, I found it appropriate.
0.00 SBD,
0.08 STEEM,
0.08 SP
And I was so sure... ;-))) No, joke: I saw the parallel to Mount Olympus...
It's a shame, though. I'd really love to do some herbal poetry. Unfortunately, I can't. Luckily, It still downloads, somehow...
Maybe I had enough to last me a lifetime. :)))