What Kind of Batteries Does Fiction Require?

Or… what do you truly need to power your art form of choice?

I hate technology. 

I hate technology because I love technology. 

I hate that I have no sense of direction anymore because my inner compass has an arrow pointing in one direction only to a sign that says “Check Waze.”

I hate that I am beholden to the magic rectangle in my pocket (Thank you, Steve Jobs) that contains all my everything. My schedule, email, access to all my social media, banking, various messaging platforms for work and family, audiobooks, my… wait, lemme check… my 341-day Duolingo streak.

This past Wednesday, the monthly gathering of Morning Writers assembled via my Zoom account. We had a fantastic, engaging conversation on writing using the five senses. We shared ideas in person, and in the chat, we suggested helpful websites and books in person, and in the chat, we shared our writing exercise results in person and in the chat. Like a good host, I pressed “Save Chat” numerous times. I even opened the text box before the start of the meeting to confirm it was there. All good. As we concluded, I saved the chat one more time and ended the session for all. My next move was to copy the chat, put it into a Word document, and send it to the membership.

I couldn’t find the chat! (Bet you didn’t see that coming!)

The text window was blank. My valiant search was coming up empty. A flush of panic washed through me like I stepped into a sauna, and my mouth lost all moisture like my tongue was wearing my favorite grey sweatshirt. (It really was a good session.) Where the fudgy fudge was the chat text? I would say the blinking cursor answered me as effectively as getting math answers from a dust broom, but it merely flickered with ignorance, not helping one damn bit.

This process worked before. Why did it not work now? Tell me, my 7 1/2-year-old iMac, why? 

Ah, screw you, Apple spinning wheel of timeless doom.

We still accomplish the arts we love in traditional ways. Paint is applied to a canvas with a brush, conductors wave a baton in the air and lead musicians in live concerts, sculptures are still carved away by hacking away bits and chunks of the source material, and for how many millions of years have people held a stick of some kind and created an image on a surface, paper or otherwise?

My day job requires me to vibrate my lips into a metal cup and to change the length of the tubing attached to said cup to create different musical pitches. This process has not changed for trombone players in over 700 years! The earliest trombones, then called the sackbutt (I’d ask you to refrain from giggling, but what can I say? It’s an unfortunate name), operated the same way they are today—mouthpiece, tube, bend, more tube, another bend, and the bell. 

We all know that technological advancements have made the art process “easier.” 3D printers create knickknacks at the push of a button. A computer can produce a full orchestral score in minutes. Type a few words into ChatGPT, and you can create your own version of “The West Wing” (Sorkin reference, check!) taking place in outer space with houseplants as the cast. But are they better? Don’t get me wrong; I’m thrilled a typographic error of my words is easily corrected with a backspace, and not the arduous process of applying correcting ribbon or huffing the delicate bouquet of White Out as it glops all over my paper. 

Word processors, silk screen, graphic design, lighting, ELECTRICITY… they’ve all contributed to the arts and the rest of our lives in numerous ways. I’m not pining for a life off the grid here. Nuke my food, summon Netflix actors to perform at will, and pay my outstanding invoices all from the comfort of my kitchen table? Yes, please.

There is a purity of life in the “acoustic” world as we get lost in the machine. I could cue up a recording of Richard Strauss’ An Alpine Symphony at any time. Still, the anticipation of one hundred musicians on stage hundreds of feet in front of you, beginning the musical ascent with held breath, and the magic of uniform performance and action is something vastly special and a wonder to experience.

A return to basics…

Writing coaches will often recommend performing an exercise or even accomplishing the day’s work by way of a hand-held writing instrument on paper instead of typing it. There is an instantly meditative symbiosis between brain and hand this way, compared to furiously touch-typing your way toward reaching your daily word count. And if you’re like me and value the relationship between quality paper and a reliable fountain pen, the experience is extraordinary. Try it. You’ll see.

Everything we create in our lives can be called “art.” Thursday’s dinner, a well-timed and emotionally sound text message, the doodle in the margin of your notepad, stacking folded laundry. As technology continues to rise and humans attempt to reinvent the wheel (I’m looking at you, cryptocurrency), life seemingly is more manageable. As a result, it’s becoming more difficult. The learning curve will become an insurmountable slope. I’m not saying to bring down the technocracy and return us to middle Paleolithic times. As the machines continue to rise, we can embrace their advancements, but it is essential to hold onto the fundamentals that got us here in the first place. Not as a rebellion but as a reminder and a refocus. The purity of art…

Is this a thinly veiled attack on the rise of AI in the arts? Bet your ass it is! I don’t trust any program that can spit out comedy in a nanosecond that has never laughed or can recreate a romantic tale that has never had its heart broken. I’m not asking the people to revolt with graphite pencils and tubes of paint. Advancement of any kind is a sign of a progressive society, and I’m all for it. I’m asking for more moments of all-natural, homemade art, simplistic solutions to complicated problems, and a strict adherence to the human part of the humanities. Otherwise, what’s the point?

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not fronting the idea of rejecting our advancements and adopting a lifestyle that makes the Amish look like the Jetsons. Technological advancements separate us from wild beasts. And yeah, this was drafted, edited and posted using my iPad and not a legal pad. A return to fundamentals now and then remind us where we came from and what made it great in the first place.

I promise to figure out the special mojo of saving the Zoom chat next time. Or maybe I should read that famous writing craft book everyone talks about, “Save the Chat.”

Keep fucking writing, my friends.