Writing for Love

A few days ago, I had an interesting conversation with my friend, Randi Gray Kristensen, who teaches freshman composition at George Washington University. Halfway through our discussion about AI, I suddenly realized that she was approaching the topic as a scholar, and I was coming at the issue as a writer. "In this wilderness of information," as Randi put it, she was concerned that students would turn in papers they had copied from Bard and pass it off as if they had written it. Randi emphasized that she taught her students how to formulate a thesis, gather facts not subject to AI hallucinations, make inferences based on the evidence, and deduce logical conclusions based on sound premises. This is why in academic circles, scholars like Randi ask questions such as "Who did the research and for whom? How was the research conducted, and who paid for it? Did reputable scholars in the field review the results?

On the other hand, I am not worried about whether other writers use AI to get grants or win writing contests which I entered in the hope of earning a few shekels to pour back into my research and writing. I am sure that in the future – or maybe it’s happening right now – there will be a writer who will win a prize or a $1 million contract for a book that ChatGPT wrote. Good for them! I will cheer them even if I have lost--but not too loudly--because they are living their dream of what it means to be a writer. For me, being a writer doesn’t mean winning prizes—although they are nice—or, as my younger self believed, becoming a darling of critics. If I did, I'd have stopped writing long ago when I published my first collection of short stories, "Uncle Obadiah and the Alien."

I love the stories in that book, especially the title story about a Rastaman, Uncle Obadiah, and his encounter with an alien. When my publisher at Peepal Tree told me the book would be reviewed in a prestigious literary journal, I was elated. I thought that I was now in the big leagues. But not for long. Whereas I felt he would compare Uncle Obadiah to Miguel Street by V.S. Naipaul, an early influence, he blasted the collection. But he didn’t stop there. He wrote an e-book to ensure no one ever bought the book. I was so depressed I couldn’t write for another six months. I was angry, but he taught me an important lesson. I had to ask myself, for whom am I writing?

After picking up the broken parts of my ego, I realized I needed to return to my first love. Writing for myself. I remembered writing the first draft of “Uncle Obadiah,” one of the first, if not the first Caribbean sci-fi story about a Rastaman whose ganja crop is destroyed when an alien who resembled Margaret Thatcher crash lands in his ganja field. Preposterous, isn’t it? Or is it? I loved playing with the idea--never mind that it deals with neocolonialism. I wanted to discover how Uncle Obadiah, a man committed to ideals of peace and love, would face not only the loss of his means of income but also the destruction of a 6-foot statue of Haile Selassie he’d built with his own hands. Would he continue to be attached to something outside of himself? Perhaps it was a lesson I hadn’t learned, or maybe I would soon learn?

I brushed off the insult, and I started writing again. I wouldn’t let any "guy," as Brother Bob would say, stop me from writing. I view AI in the same way. I will continue to write for myself. To discover the patterns in my life and those around me and transform these experiences into a poem, short story, novel, or an essay like the one you’re reading.

So, if I have any advice for young writers--I’m being asked this question nowadays – is it the gray hair that’s giving me away? --I’d say write because you love it and don’t worry about the other things. Yeah, I know, you gotta eat. And trust me, I’ve done things that gave me night terrors. They will pass. But never give up because of "guys" or AI. For as Brother Bob would also sing in “Ride Natty Ride,” “And it's the fire, it's the fire/ That's burning down everything/ Feel the fire, fire/ Only the birds have their wings." Write because you love it. It's the only way to live and create.

By popular demand, here is the link to "Uncle Obadiah and the Alien": https://www.amazon.com/Uncle-Obadiah-Alien-Geoffrey-Philp/dp/1900715015/ref=sr_1_4?crid=2ETZSX5TYOX0G&keywords=geoffrey+philip&qid=1685044100&sprefix=geoffrey+philp%2Caps%2C150&sr=8-4