Artificial "Art?" - IWSG October 2026

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. This month, I’m delighted to cohost with Ronel Janse van Vuuren, JH Moncrieff, and Jemima Pett! To read other contributors, click here

October’s optional question: Many people are calling for writers who use AI to disclose it. Most who employ ghostwriters do not admit it. Do you think authors who use ghostwriters should have to disclose that, too?

My sense is that ghostwriters usually write for people who are not writers themselves but have a story they want to tell. Ghostwriters enter into contractual agreements, get paid for their writing, and understand that they won’t necessarily receive credit for it. It’s a business agreement for which they are compensated. They go into the process with their eyes open, so to speak.

My experience reading stories that have been ghostwritten has been mainly memoir, where the subject of the story shares their history with a ghostwriter, who uses their writing skill to shape that information in a way that pleases readers. I suspect that most people who read, for example, celebrity memoir, know that there was someone behind the scenes writing, or collaborating with the subject, to make sure the story is written well. To test out that hypotheses (and I confess to using AI here), I searched recent memoirs that were ghostwritten. Several examples came up, (Michelle Obama, Prince Harry, Michael Jackson). Each example mentioned the ghostwriter by name. I guess what I’m trying to say is I don’t think people who use ghostwriters are trying to keep it a secret.  Ghostwriters employ their craft to earn a living and get paid for the service they provide. Similar to a copywriter, or a technical writer, a ghostwriter uses their talent and skill in the way they choose. Seems fair enough to me.

I feel differently about AI. It seems like cheating to me if a writer employs artificial intelligence to concept or create and/or write a story. We already know that AI improves itself by replicating styles of previously published works, work that was created by humans and in some cases, theoretically subject to copyright laws. To me, in that regard using AI to “create” is as bad as plagiarizing. An author doesn’t deserve credit if they’ve used artificial intelligence to develop the story, the same way no writer should receive credit for “borrowing” another human writer’s story. 

That said, I fear in the not too distant future, writing a book using a human brain will be considered old fashioned. Think seventy-five years ago and riding in a horse and buggy instead of driving a car. I suspect folks in the future may say, "Why write using a brain when it can be done so much more efficiently using AI?" 

Ugh!

What are your thoughts on ghostwriting vs. AI?

Tuned IN II. IWSG April 2026

 

Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Thank you to this month’s co-hosts, Melissa Maygrove, Cathrina Constantine, Kate Larkinsdale, and Rebecca Douglass. For links to all contributors, click here.

Optional April question: If you have a playlist (or could put one together) that either gets you in the groove to write or fits with one of your books, what is it? What type of music or what songs?

I’m not in the habit of playing music when writing, but once, ages ago, when my subject matter had Irish connections, I turned to a Celtic playlist while drafting. Inspired by the result. I wrote a Middle Passages post about that magical experience here.  Other than adding a few commas, I’m not sure I could write it better today.

That said (or read), after that expressive time, I went back to writing in silence. For me, concentration requires quiet, but as I discovered recently, apparently silence during cooking isn’t as important. I had some interior house painting done a few months back. At the end of the day, one of the painters mentioned my voice.

Huh?

It turns out the painters, father and son, perform in a band and had been listening to me singing away in the kitchen while they worked in the living room. I wasn’t aware I’d opened my mouth. I guess that goes to show that while I prefer to write in quiet, music is a part of me.

Anyway, back to today’s topic. Intrigued by that post I wrote so many years ago, and in the spirit of IWSG participation, I turned on some tunes while drafting what you’re reading right now. You never know. Maybe I’d grasp a shadow of that long ago Celtic muse. Instead, the first song blasted me back to a party in a linoleum-floored college dorm room where a group of us belted out the chorus. Back to the present. This time I was aware and it was probably good there was no one in my house,  because I employed my high school chorus instructor’s lessons to sing from my diaphragm. That is to say, loudly.

So much for writing.

Next thing I knew, I’d spent long minutes replaying the details of that particular college evening [insert youthful drama here], thinking how back then, every joy lit our insides like skyrockets, every hurt plunged us into arctic oceans. We had yet to experience the depth of the ways in which life would have its way with us. I wanted to reach back to that naïve girl singing her heart out, and say, “You think today is a big deal? Brace yourself, honey. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet!”

Let’s just say the music-generated nostalgia didn’t help me get this blog post written.

Or did it?

What kind of music do you listen to when you write? What songs catapult you back to the past?

Back to the Future - IWSG February 2025

 

 Welcome to IWSG Day. The goal of this blog hop is to share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a haven for insecure writers of all kinds. IWSG is the brainchild of our ninja leader Alex Cavanaugh. Co-hosts for February are Joylene Nowell Butler, Louise Barbour, and Tyrean Martinson. For links to all contributors, click here.

February optional question - Is there a story or book you've written you want to/wish you could go back and change?

Funny you should ask. The first book I ever tried to write was such a disaster I put it away, took a couple of writing classes, and moved on to other things. When I thought of that first attempt at all it was only to consider how not being able to write it propelled me forward.

But over a year ago, I found myself at a low point. I had no interest in starting anything new but wanted to keep writing. Rifling through a drawer, I discovered a printout of that first muddle. Sorry to say, it was even worse than I remembered. But the timing was good. Pulling that mess together would certainly involve a challenge.

Today, what was once a wreck of a novel is now a solid piece of work I like. The red-ink comments of a trusted reader are sitting beside my computer. She suggested I rewrite one scene to make the stakes higher, but I'm happy to say that other than that, her feedback was positive, her changes few.

Honestly, I thought this book was a lost cause. Even now I’m surprised I had the nerve to dive into it again. So in answer to this month's question, I can’t say I “wished” to return to this particular story, but I’m delighted I proved to myself that I could.

Do you have stories you wished you could go back and change?

Young Love IWSG May

 This is my May post for Alex Cavanaugh's Insecure Writer's Support Group.  To read more writers helping other writers, click here.

I’m cheating.  I wrote this essay five years ago, when the idea of writing as a focus in my life was new.  When I found it a few days ago, I liked it so much; I decided to edit it for IWSG. Back then, I was only writing blog posts.  By now, I’ve accomplished more, but this essay feels pure and clean, elemental if you will, and a reminder to cherish the joy.  So here you have it…a resurrected post from April 2009.

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott, sits on my bedside table.  It is a library copy, and I admit here in print, I’ve bent down at least five page corners containing things to reread and remember.  The other night I was plowing along, marking these inspirational comments because they are real and they teach and they guide, and I came to a quote that stopped me dead.  The author didn’t write it.  Before she was published, Lamott submitted a short story to what she called, “an important magazine editor,” and the guy sent her a note saying, “You have made the mistake of thinking that everything that has happened to you is interesting.”

Whoa.  Big swallow.  My blog—all about me.  I am experiencing a crisis of faith here, so please bear with me.

You see, I had no conscious plan to start a blog.  The first essay poured out of me as a result of the trauma of a sudden elimination of employment.  Writing it made me feel whole and relieved, like discovering the last segment of a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle under the couch with the dust bunnies during a good spring cleaning.  And so, I kept on.

I look back at some (a lot) of my entries and think, “Yuck,” or “Does anyone really care?”  To my credit, sometimes I think, “Wow, I wrote that?”  But, it doesn’t matter, because I am so completely in love with the effort, the words that bubble up day after day.  Some mornings I approach the computer wondering whether there is anything left to write.  But so far, something always spills out of my fingers, and when I’m done I think, this is me on the page as best as I can get it, as honestly, and clearly as I know how to write.  

Of course, I hope this practice is helping me to improve, but hear this.  I’m just grateful to be doing it.  Lamott comments on that horrific response from the editor with the following: “…the note ended up only helping me because it didn’t stop me.”  Turning to another folded corner I read this:  “Writing has so much to give, so much to teach, so many surprises.  The thing you had to force yourself to do—the actual act of writing—turns out to be the best part.”   She's so right.  Even harsh criticism is bearable because the thinking, the imagining, the creating, the editing, the revising, the massaging–even the hair pulling, this giving birth to words is, as the author points out, “the best part.”  

So, taking a bent page out of Anne Lamott's book, I'm not stopping either.

Use it or Lose it - July IWSG

This is my July post for Alex Cavanaugh’s Insecure Writers’ Support Group.  For more entries, read here.

When the blank page becomes too much to look at, I start typing and see what comes.  This is one insecurity with which I am “secure,” if that makes sense. Whether the outcome is good or bad, when I let them, words always surface. 

Over the three years during which I have been writing regularly, I’ve situated myself in front of the computer many times with no hint of what to write about (this is one of them).  When it happens, I perform a “brain dump,” placing my fingers on the keyboard and typing whatever is going on in my mind.  It’s like lubricating the brain.  The gears may stutter at first but then they click into place and the ride is long and smooth.  The results aren’t always the most cohesive pieces, but nonetheless, writing occurs.  

While we are editing/revising a particular project, it’s easy to get caught up in the “what if” of what we’ve written—to worry about developing more conflict, cutting and pasting to insure logic, and analyzing points of view.  Is the story compelling enough, does it makes sense, is it realistic?  Are there comments readers have suggested that need addressing?  All of these things and so many more are critical to a well-crafted piece.  But when we get bogged down in the technicalities, it is easy to forget the delight that’s produced by the pure writing—by the idea that blossoms in your brain and sloshes through your fingers like the refreshing torrent of a cool spring river.  None of the “hard stuff” if you will, can happen UNTIL the ice melts and the waters flow. 

  

I’m 4,000 words into a new project I have been struggling with since about page two.  I don’t have a real idea of where the story is going and the topic is difficult.  Each word feels like the drop of blood produced when they prick a finger and check for lead. When it’s time to work on it, I drag myself the computer saying, “Oh I don’t know.  Am I really going to finish this one?”  

On Saturday, I called my own bluff.  “Just sit down, dummy.  Start typing and see what comes.”  And I did.  There was no plan.  Seven hundred words later, I "discovered" what had happened to my main character to put her in her current circumstances.  I’m still not sure I’ll ever finish this thing, but it has new life.  Better yet, during that sit down, the pure fun of writing enveloped me once again.

When you are stuck, or have lost your motivation, when you wonder if any of it will be worth it, just sit down and write—anything.  Don’t edit.   Let it flow, and the joy will touch you again.