Those of us who love literature, especially English literature, would know the blistering satires Alexander Pooe wrote. He wrote open all the warts and wounds that the genteel society knows how to hide behind thick skins.
One wonders how many versions and editions of "An Essay on Criticism" and "An Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot" (from whence comes the title of our blog today) he would have penned in the current context! Why so? Well, being an author is indeed getting apparently easier, but actually terribly tougher, by the day!
Oh, yes, all possible ChatGPT types pose a unique problem. Any theme, any form, nothing is an anathema to the A.I. It can concoct any text of any length in a jiffy. It can, moreover, provide its alternative the next minute.
The problem is that genuine creativity is hence totally lost, like Hansel and Gretel, with thick, knotty jungles everywhere, with no bread crumbs to guide you back to safety! Let us count a few which-es (who said 'witches'? Sure I did not!) that make the journey an absolute impossibility.
To begin with, yes, in every Wapp, alias whatsapp, group, whether it be family or friends, you are sure to find a poet too many (in the making). All of them think that rhyme, however far-fetched, makes poesy!
If that is not enough, there are (m)any numbers of online self-publication sites. You pay them a certain amount, and, voilà, in no time, they make you a BOOK! Yes, a BOOK, you read it right! The theme can be anything and everything, meditative, life advice, how- to-type's; the mode can be anything, poetry to research paper, a book is/gets ready-made!
Such sites (and their entrepreneurial owners out to make monies, eh, writing) advise you about the designing, book cover, blurb, all in the package. Why, they are even ready to ghost-write it for you, and, wonder of wonders, they CAN make it the chart-buster, and for weeks, too. The 'password' is money, money, and money. Everything is indeed 'rated' in all the senses of the term!
People pay to get their 'research' published. To begin with, they pay to get it written! I was asked to ghost-write a few Ph.D's. Now they would rather request such publishers who would never outright reject, unlike me. Rather, these days, the AI might be the re-searcher. Who knows? Sure it is already so at the UG level!
Equally tough to bear is the senti silly stuff on the blogs and the FB. I am saved because I am not on the insta and/or X! How to tell anyone that fluff is NOT good stuff! Sweet sweet cute cute concoctions cause blisters, please!
Let us not even mention the pop culture. Everybody is a rapper these days! So much so that in one of my German classes, I had to concoct an instant one so that my wow students could remember numbers through rhythm!
Well, *All the very best to all the poetasters as Pope would call them* . Well, writing is indeed not cooking up 'many an idle song.' Writing IS truly serious stuff. It is tough. There is no fairy mommy or sugar daddu to help you out.
Writing wraps your brain to begin with. It pries open your heart, and has your soul in a wrench, whether it is creative stuff or re-search. It strains your eyes, moreover, because you can write well if and only if you READ a lot.
And forget not the re-draft! In your mind's eye, every alphabet you concoct appears like a gem. On the paper/laptop screen though, you would realise that it is not even a broken bangle piece which would at least be colourful. Writing, in brief, is not an idle song! It IS heart/hard work!
Oh, my creative angst/ my worries Thou infer canst/let my words be blest/let times forever them test/taste!
Pratima@Writing need not be heavy. It can be very simple language. The central idea, however, must be complex. Only then do you write, and, that, too, okay-ish! Self-reflexivity is indeed a great virtue!
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