Writers

I write more with AI because it makes writing the same as reading.

Writer ✍️ | Creepy stories: unnerv.ing 👁️ | Essays: paragraph.xyz/@driftless ⚡️

Any chance you could elaborate a little? I have no idea what you mean here.

There is nothing more powerful in this world than words.

I mean that when an AI is writing alongside you, they are generating new prose that you read and then write (or edit) in response to.

Writing has always been in dialogue with other writing, through the act of reading. Writing with AI collapses that distance into the text itself. You are both writing it and reading it at the same time.

Not only is this cognitively easier than "pure" writing, its pleasure is akin to the pleasure of reading. Plus, I've found it opens new time in the day for writing when I would otherwise be too tired. At night for instance. Usually I read before bed. But now I can also write, because it's less taxing with AI, increasing my daily output.

Yes, writing is usually like that. One of the delights of writing is when you discover something about the work—when a character does something surprising or speaks to you in their own voice.

But with AI, these moments are stronger and more frequent. Because there literally is another voice speaking to you.

It's not quite "you do this half and I'll do this half" because both of us are doing the same work, but from different angles. It's like a dialogue, but since it's happening in text, it feels like reading and writing at the same time.

Okay, thank you, that makes a little more sense. 

But isn't writing part reading anyway? Don't you read as you write, section by section or at least if not like that, before you rewrite?

Isn't what's happening here just that you're sharing the writing load as you with any writing partner, and you're writing half as much as you normally would?