Counterfeit creativity is robbing our species blind. We are sacrificing our souls on the altar of cheap, fast, free and easy, but at what price?

For most of human history, creativity had a cost. A painting required years of training, mistakes, dedication, practice, and courage. Music required months and years of pain, blisters, practice, rehearsal, performance, and courage. A novel required years of reading, learning, grammar, structure, practice, failure, perseverance and courage.

Even mediocre art took effort.

AI changes the creative math.

Now anyone with an internet connection can generate:

• a novel outline
• a painting
• a marketing campaign
• a song

…in seconds.

Which all raises an interesting question.

If something looks creative but required no creative effort, what exactly are we looking at?

Not fraud.

Not plagiarism (exactly).

Something new.

I’d like to introduce what I call counterfeit creativity.

Counterfeit Creativity

Counterfeit money looks real enough to circulate, and counterfeit creativity works the same way. It mimics the appearance of creative work. It seems to have structure, style, aesthetic cues and emotional beats, but the underlying process is fundamentally different.

Authentic creativity comes from struggle, lived experience, experimentation, and failure. Counterfeit creativity is generated through statistical pattern reconstruction. It produces something that looks like creativity without the creative journey behind it.

For now, it seems there are plenty of people left who can sense the AI Uncanny Valley, but that window is closing, and closing FAST.

Many people can’t immediately tell the difference because humans, historically, have judged creativity by output not process. Thus, if something reads like a novel, looks like a painting, or sounds like music our brains classify it as “creative.” But that assumption was originally wired in a world where output and effort were inseparable.

AI just broke that link.

The “Crapification” of Everything

I would love to say this problem happened just with the advent of AI, but end stage capitalism is merely the sterile syringe that delivered the literary lidocaine inuring us to what CRAP looks and sounds like. We are going to zoom in on the writing world, since that’s the water we swim in.

Early on, when I began this blog, I exclusively geared my content toward authors who wanted to traditionally publish. It wasn’t because I believed the Big Six were that special, but I appreciated WHY we might need a world with gatekeepers.

Additionally, though I could see the many benefits that could come with self-publishing and indie publishing, I saw the inherent dangers. How it would let out a genie we’d never get back in the bottle.

The democratization of publishing happened on other fronts as well, though. Remember Huffington Post? Arianna Huffington IMO single-handedly obliterated the print medium and all the writing jobs that once went with it. The exposure dollar economy was the warning shots.

Show up, write your best for us and you can tell the world we pay you great money let you post on OUR site where we make millions using an unpaid workforce. Tell a bunch of writers this will lead to bigger things, they post their BEST and promote it on all their social networks…and with every click we make ad money.

LOADS OF IT.

Pay the Writer

I know when I drop terms like late or end stage capitalism, I risk the eye rolls, but hear me out.

Creatives have always sought to be paid for their work. Yes, it might be au gauche or tawdry, but we don’t care. We spend years mastering something that others derive joy and value from? We should be compensated just like everyone else.

That and we like to eat and the power company doesn’t accept poetry as payment.

In earlier times, creatives had wealthy sponsors. Later, the markets aligned to give ways creative people could be paid/rewarded meaningfully for our hard work and years dedicated to honing a skill. Newspapers, periodicals, dime novels, copy, marketing, ads were all ways creative professionals could make a living while producing the next great work of art the world enjoyed.

Read Stephen King’s On Writing, Steven Pressfield’s War of Art, Robert McKee’s Dialogue and they all share stories of the paid “crappy” gigs these masters took on while working on the “real art.”

Late-stage capitalism describes the point where market incentives inevitably drive everything toward cheaper, faster, and more scalable versions of itself, even when that process strips away the craftsmanship and meaning that once made the product valuable.

Systems no longer optimize for creating value, but for producing the appearance of value as cheaply and quickly as possible. Pay the writer became…use the writer.

Or the musician, songwriter, painter, illustrator, animator, etc.

Tell them they are special, pay them in attention, then up the operational tempo to such a high level that literally no human artist could keep pace (relevant). Meanwhile use all the real art that creatives built to train the synthetic version that you’ll SELL them later when they are so desperate to remain in the loop they’ll audition for their own extinction.

The Art is Fake but the Rot is REAL

The real danger isn’t that AI can generate content, it is that AI is flooding the world with creative-looking artifacts detached from human meaning.

Imagine a future filled with books no human truly wrote, art no human felt, songs no human performed. You know what? Since we are already here, why do we even bother with museums? Expensive to store, insure, restore, preserve. We could just 3-D print some replicas. I mean is anyone REALLY going to be able to TELL if that’s the ACTUAL Mona Lisa?

Y’all can breathe now. I am being sarcastic. But, hopefully I made my point.

My largest concern with AI “art” hasn’t just been the creative professionals it displaces, but what it’s doing to humanity as a whole.

Never underestimate the unique human capacity to get used to some seriously LOW standards. I learned that lesson my first “hamburger day” in a public school lunchroom. Every kid was excited for a slightly greenish hamburger facsimile (some even bought TWO), while I was clutching my foodie pearls. How could they be excited to eat THAT?

Then I was there long enough to sample what the “normal” food was like and it made more sense.

My biggest concern about AI art has always been the impact on the audiences. Even now. We no longer go to the movies. Most are unwatchable. If we DO go to a movie, you know what is a WIN?

It was…watchable.

I used to think the creators of Idiocracy were onto something. Now? I think they might have had a crystal ball, and they also woefully underestimated just how dumb we humans can be.

The #1 movie in America was called “Ass.” And that’s all it was for 90 minutes. It won eight Oscars that year, including best screenplay.

Narrator of Idiocracy

We aren’t going to need to travel thousands of years in the future to grasp that we are hurtling toward a world where all the top shows are some poor dude getting hit in the ‘nads in clever ways (yes, that is a real thing from Idiocracy).

Dealing with Counterfeits

Since the point of my posts are to educate and empower you, what is the answer? The United States Secret Service oversees most of our money/financial crimes. They also go after counterfeiters. Do you think they train years and years on every fake out there and what to look for?

Nope.

They spend years and years understanding AMERICAN CURRENCY. How do the bills feel? They learn how to tell a real c-note with their eyes closed. Because they know the real thing so intimately, they don’t need to concern themselves with the fakes. The fakes practically pop out.

There is a good reason the best writers are also avid readers. Read the excellent works, train, practice, fail, get up, do better and hone those skills. Write excellent stories. I know we are all under a lot of pressure to be content mills that feed the public’s (supposedly) ravenous appetite.

But why are they so famished?

Years and years of increasingly empty creative calories and artificial art.

Not only is it unsatisfying, but it warps the palate.

Take a person used to drinking cheap sodas and eating junk food then try to give them good food. They won’t like it at first because it will taste strange. Layers of artificial ingredients are masking that what’s being served is inedible, empty and possibly toxic and yet people binge on the stuff.

Same with counterfeit creativity. We have a narrow window where there are enough people around to remember what art used to feel like. With all the AI slop in circulation, get to work. Superlative art will rise. Audiences will find it and stick like glue because it resonates with their souls.

Counterfeits are always costly. Counterfeit money can implode a country just as sure as fake art can bankrupt a culture.

This is why it is critical now, more than ever, to cherish real art before we drift into a world that can no longer even recognize it. If we do get to a point that no one can tell between Monopoly money from the real thing, only then will we be out of a job. Until then, we are still in the game.

But I warn y’all… tempus fugit.

We don’t have forever.

What are YOUR thoughts on Counterfeit Creativity?

Other than it goes with counterfeit cleverness? Personally, I am exhausted with all the AI slop. AI cannot create art. Period. It is a tool. The paintbrush doesn’t make the art, the artist does. The keyboard doesn’t make the story, the writer does. And, for me? There is a certain je ne sais quoi missing from AI “creations.”

That said, do you think we could hit a time that humans won’t really recognize art? Or is it too deeply wired in us? If everything “looks real”, who will remember how to tell the difference?

Do you think that removing the human from art could eventually remove humanity from the human? I know we writers love these existential arguments, but I think this is a good one. If all the art is shallow, derivative and superficial, wouldn’t we eventually see a culture that is shallow, derivative and superfi—–

Houston, we have a problem…

The post Counterfeit Creativity: The High Cost of Cheap Art appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Change is part of life. Anything that is living, should be growing (or even healing) which means it changes. Only dead things remain the same. This is true with people as well as industries.

Last post, we talked about the darkest moment, what it is and why it is so critical to story. It is at the darkest moment that the protagonist finally lets GO of the old self, the old ways, the old thinking and embraces the new.

Now, here is a critical point. Not ALL stories have a “happy ending.” Unless one is writing romance and a “happily ever after” is part of genre canon, our story does not have to have a happy ending, BUT it must always have a satisfying ending.

Yet, what does that mean? What is the critical component of the darkest moment that transforms the protagonist into a hero?

Any other person would resign themselves to whatever fate, whereas a protagonist-turned-hero, accepts what has happened, that “all is lost”…but presses on anyway with the hope that a) everything was lost for a good cause/reason b) the stuff that was lost needed losing c) what lies ahead will more than make up for what was lost.

Acceptance vs. Resignation

We all have “stuff” we don’t like. Maybe it is a personal flaw (out of shape) or something in life we dislike (unemployed or underemployed). It might be a crazy family we love but struggle to have good boundaries with. Whatever.

They key to positive change in anything is acceptance. If we don’t get to a state of acceptance, then by default, we are in denial. If you are unfamiliar with the Kübler-Ross, 5 Stages of Grief, I recommend checking it out. There is a LOT of applicability to dealing with all forms of loss, not merely losing a loved one.

***For the record, change implies some kind of loss.

According to Swiss-American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, we go through five stages whenever we are hit with bad news (a death, a bad diagnosis, a heartbreak, losing a job, natural disaster, major upsetting change, etc.)

• Denial
• Anger
• Bargaining
• Depression
• Acceptance

According to Kübler-Ross’s idea, we won’t neatly scroll down these stages one by one. We could get stuck on one, like anger. Or, we might vacillate back and forth from, say, depression back to anger to acceptance, then slip up and be right back in depression. So on and so forth.

Yet, note we must make it to then through acceptance in the final stage. Until we accept the situation, we cannot move on, and, until we move on, there is no room for new hopes and dreams.

This last bit, to me, is the kicker. We need to make room for new hopes and dreams. That is where acceptance, to me, differs from resignation.

Resignation is the shadow-side of acceptance.

In fact, if we look to a lot of villain origin stories, they fell prey to resignation whereas the hero takes up the mantel of acceptance.

Be the Hero in Life & Career

All change involves death of something.

When I chose to become a career writer, by default, the dream of being an attorney died. I’d applied for law school while I was fiddling with the idea of going pro. Somehow, I didn’t get the letter I’d been accepted into the class of 2005 at my law school of choice. I’d assumed I had NOT gotten in, and so I accepted a job as a technical writer…the DAY I got the letter for freshman orientation.

I could have reasonably gone back on my word. But, that isn’t me. I felt it was a sign that being a writer was the right way forward.

Theoretically, I could have managed both (I still could have accepted a slot in law school). But could I? Really? No. I was at a crossroads. I needed to accept that, while it was amazing I got into such a prestigious school, I really wanted to be a writer.

***For the record, y’all make me SO grateful I became a writer.

I had to let one dream DIE for another to LIVE.

No sooner did I decide to get into writing as a career that I realized everything was changing. While it was an exciting time to be an author, it was a terrifying time as well.

And yes, I had times I thought that maybe I should just hang it all up and go to law school. OMG, I chose wrong! What did I DO? On and on. But to be locked into that kind of double-mindedness is maddening.

I’d decided to be a writer, and, as a writer of the 21st century, that meant I had to accept that the publishing paradigm was not only going to change DRASTICALLY, but the pace of change was only going to accelerate.

I still have to accept this. It is never easy. Yes, I wanted the dream where all I did was hide in my little dream cottage and write novels fans adored. My agent, editors and PR people would handle everything else. But that is not reality (and never really has been).

Change and Learning to Pivot

IF I want to keep this writing dream, then I need to accept all it entails. Because if I don’t, it only sets me spiraling back through anger, depression, denial, and on and on.

Pivoting sounds like such a pretty and painless word, doesn’t it?

Um…yeah. All fun and games ’til someone takes out a knee.

I don’t know about y’all, but I JUST about figure out, say WordPress…then they New and Improve it, and back to the beginning. It feels as if I am constantly having to reimagine, rethink, reinvent…because I am. In ways, this is good because it prevents stagnation. At the same time? I feel like I need Digital Dramamine from all the ups and downs and twists and turns.

When I came back from presenting in Idaho, I posted, Aspiring Writers Need to Quit, Now! Why? Because I was blessed enough to hear a lot of speakers who completely turned my thinking on its head (which doesn’t happen that much).

When I arrived at the conference, I was in a terrible state of burnout. Why? I needed a paradigm shift.

I’d gotten stuck, which happens.

Remember that list? Bargaining? Depression? What had gotten lost—other than ME—was my why. WHY did I want to be a writer? Then, once I remembered my WHY, I had to accept that IF I still want to be a writer in the 21st century, that can look a zillion different ways (unlike pre 21st century authors).

In the old days, I had only a handful of options. Now? There are so many options I actually think my brain vapor-locks daily.

Say Yes to Acceptance, No to Resignation

When we fall prey to resignation, it makes us angry, bitter and rigid. When we are rigid, we don’t bend, we break. Or, for us overachievers/drama queens…we shatter.

It was really hard to blog for a while, not only because so much was happening on the family front, but my career felt like it imploded with the pandemic.

Did it? Yes. Did it really? No.

My career didn’t DIE, it merely changed. I was in a different season. In autumn, the trees aren’t dying, they are preparing for winter. This is when they’ll rest and drive their roots down deeper so they can be stronger in the future, thus be able to weather spring storms and summer droughts.

We don’t CRY in autumn, most of us LOVE it! If we don’t cry for the trees, why do we cry for the me-me-mes?

I had to grieve the old, accept that the changes keep coming, and that I have to stick-and-move if I want to remain in the game and see the SPRING.

If I DON’T? That is totally okay, too.

Writing CAN Change BACK into a Hobby

Not everything we love has to be monetized. It also doesn’t need to be permanent.

If you get a chance, go check out that post I mentioned earlier. Also, grab the book, Dear Writer, You Need to Quit, that inspired the post.

Also, since it is FRIDAY, I am going to leave y’all with an interview with ME. I know, it feels so self-serving, but it really turned out very funny. I hope it’s the shot in the arm y’all might need as we press into a new school year (I can see y’all sniffing the school supplies).

If you ever want to feel really brilliant, just know I did all the dumb things so you don’t have to. I met Carissa Andrews at the same conference in Boise and just WOW! I was floored when she asked to interview ME over at Author Revolution Podcast.

Psst! Carissa runs the Millionaire Author Manifestation.

Carissa is an internationally best-selling author with 15+ titles. She’s reached the status of millionaire author, and so she took what she learned and now uses that to help other writers.

Wow, right?

Unicorns DO Exist (I met her)

Y’all can go check out her website for all her testimonials and classes. Suffice to say, I was very honored and humbled she cared to interview ME.

We talk a lot about the ups and downs of this industry. The podcast IS long, so maybe listen on your phone. I can be FUNNY or I can be BRIEF, so I choose funny.

Anyway, when we accept that YES, being an author is amazing…but it is also crazy as a bag of frogs? We can then move forward, get UN-stuck from the Feedback Loop of Despair, and open up to for fresh dreams and new roads untraveled.

What are YOUR Thoughts on CHANGE?

Do you struggle with change, and telling the difference between acceptance and resignation? I did. People were always telling me I had to accept whatever and I took that for giving up (resignation). Only recently did I hear a podcast that pointed out the difference.

Do you struggle with acceptance, too? Get stuck back in the other stages of grief? Is change overwhelming? Am I the only one who wishes we could have a PAUSE button for the CHANGE?

I LOVE COMMENTS! Would also LOVE y’all top check out the interview. If you don’t want to listen via Youtube, I linked to all the places y’all can subscribe to Carissa’s podcast.

To prove it and show my love, for the month of AUGUST, everyone who leaves a comment, I will put your name in a hat.

I actually have landed agents for people who’ve won this contest. Agents like me because I make their lives easier.

If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. For those who listen to the PODCAST, y’all get THREE times in the hat.

What do you win?

The unvarnished truth from yours truly (and maybe even time with an agent).

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less). People with superlative writing, I (with your permission) have been known to pass you onto an agent.

Anyway, I look forward to reading your comments and your writing!

The post Change Happens: Acceptance vs. Resignation appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Les Edgerton

Today, is Les Edgerton’s last post in this series. We’ve been extraordinarily blessed to learn from him, so I hope y’all will give him a digital hug or round of applause. Les will soon be teaching on-line classes for WANA, so I’ll let you know when those are available.

Take it away, Les!

All of the points we’ve covered in this dialogue series are intended for one purpose only—to help writers avoid the red flags that improper dialogue can create for agents and editors… and readers.

And that’s what they are—red flags. That doesn’t mean that breaking any of these “rules” or conventions will doom your mss from being taken, but it does mean the presence of them can cast a negative light on your work. And, I imagine we all want to avoid that!

Also, there will be a great many examples of novels that break these precepts. There are many reasons for that. Contrary to popular opinion, novels don’t make it into print simply because they’re quality writing. There are many other factors at work. Factors that the writer may or may not have control over.

For instance, novels are published because the author has made a personal connection with a publisher. When an editor knows someone and likes that person, it’s not uncommon for that person’s book to be taken over another more worthy one. Happens all the time.

Or, an author may have had one or more successful novels already published and the current one may not be as good as the mss lying on the same desk as an unknown author, but the lesser quality novel will be taken. Again, happens all the time.

Sometimes, even though the novel breaks all kinds of rules, something in a novel like this may simply appeal to an individual editor. Maybe it’s the voice. Maybe it’s the setting—my first novel was taken by accident because of its setting. The Death of Tarpons had been rejected 86 times before I sent it to the University of North Texas Press.

That’s EIGHTY-SIX times!

That was in the days of snail mail submissions, where you had to pay the postage for the mss to the editor and also provide return postage. That was during a time when my family ate a lot of beans and really couldn’t afford to buy the tons of stamps I needed. I had made my mind up that once I reached 100 rejections, I would “retire” the manuscript.

What happened was that it landed on the desk of UNT’s publisher, Fran Vick. Unbeknownst to me at the time, UNT had never before published fiction. If I’d known that, I never would have sent it. Anyway, Fran’s secretary had unwrapped the day’s mail and as it by chance happened, mine was the first mss on Fran’s desk. Her normal routine when presented with a fiction mss, was for her to not even read it, but just stick a standard rejection notice in it and have her secretary send it back.

Luck was on my side!

As Fran related to me later (I’ve just revealed a happy ending and taken all the tension out of this, haven’t I!), her secretary was bringing her her morning cup of coffee and something happened where she had to remake the pot. That gave Fran an extra five minutes or so before she began her “official” day, so, for want of anything else to do, she picked up the first page of my novel and began idly to read it. If it wasn’t for her secretary’s failing to deliver her that cup of coffee, none of what happened next would have ever happened.

It’s what she read on that first page that induced her to keep reading. The novel was set in Freeport, Texas, the town I grew up in. Like most first novels, it was an autobiographical, “coming-of-age” novel (there’s a cliché for ya!). The thing is… Freeport was Fran’s hometown!

What editor can resist reading about their own hometown, especially when that town is a tiny burg like Freeport? A New York City editor, glancing at the first page of a mss and seeing it’s set in NYC isn’t going to be nearly as intrigued as an editor from Freeport, Texas reading a novel set in… Freeport, Texas!

As it turned out, Fran also knew my grandmother who was prominently on the page immediately and was instantly drawn into the story and read it all the way through, got on the phone, and offered to buy it.

So, there’s luck involved sometimes. Although, the book was well-written, so it also pays to be ready for luck when it appears. Fortune favors the prepared! The book went on to be well-reviewed and sold very well and earned a Special Mention from the Violet Crown Book Awards.

The point is, there are so many factors out of your control that can lead to or prevent publication. But, there are factors that you can control and among them are adhering to contemporary writing styles and conventions. And that is the impetus behind these precepts. To help you avoid many of the red flags that may prevent your mss from getting a fair and thorough reading.

Okay? Best of luck to all of you and your writing endeavors!

Blue skies,

Les

Les, THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH. We really appreciate you taking so much time from your packed schedule.

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of April, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of April I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

Les Edgerton is the author of HOOKED, THE RAPIST, THE BITCH and others.

The post A Final Word from Les Edgerton–Fortune Favors the Prepared appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Quick announcement: Speaking of phasers on “stun….”

Have trouble putting down and enforcing boundaries with yourself? With family? Always putting everyone else ahead of yourself? I am teaching a new class called Good Fences–The Writer’s Guide to Setting Boundaries and it is only $15 so I hope you will take advantage. This class is perfect for those who want to do Nanowrimo. I’ll help you learn the Art of the Loving NO.

***Class fee does not apply to meth-addicted howler monkey with a sidearm to guard your office door.

So what are your thoughts about “targeting” other people. I know we need to figure out who our potential readers might be, but to me? “Targeting” is part of what is making too many writers act worse than a Jehovah’s Witness genetically enhanced with DNA from a used car salesman. Do you agree? Have you been the target of targeting? Do you think I am over thinking this?

I love hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novel, or your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

And also, winners have a limited time to claim the prize, because what’s happening is there are actually quite a few people who never claim the critique, so I never know if the spam folder ate it or to look for it and then people miss out. I will also give my corporate e-mail to insure we connect and I will only have a week to return the 20 page edit.

At the end of October I will pick a winner for the monthly prize. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in the biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left to write great books.

The post "Targeting" is for Enemy Warships, NOT Other People appeared first on Kristen Lamb.