Sharon L. Clark, Author

Tag: creativity

A humanoid robot artist paints a picture in an art workshop.

Artificial Intelligence in Creativity: Blessing or Curse?

Does anyone else miss the days when artificial intelligence was used strictly for goofing around? Those ridiculous scripts created by feeding 100 hours of romcoms into a system definitely cracked me up, and my son generated some serious fever-dream images by inputting weird phrases into a different program. It was all fun and games, right?

Then the programs started ‘learning’.

I do not claim to know much of anything about AI other than it’s an atomic topic. From my understanding, programs pull bits and pieces of existing works of art or literature or academia to create something ‘new’ and shiny. Do I use it? No. Do I think it can be helpful? Sure.

Do I think it’s a dangerous, slippery slope? One hundred percent yes.

On one hand, work created by other people is being copied and used without permission or acknowledgement in something cobbled together by another person who then takes credit and possibly gets paid for the result. Maybe the people using it don’t realize that’s what’s happening, or they have no idea how to find the author/artist to give credit. No matter what, it’s already a difficult world for artists of any kind, where talent isn’t appreciated or rewarded.

‘Starving artist’ is a well-known phrase for a reason.

On another hand, artificial intelligence can be a useful tool for lightning-fast research and putting a concept into visual form. Programs like ChatGPT will find the information you ask for quickly, and will even build something with the word count and topic emphasis you want. Or if you have a rough idea of the image you want for a book cover but can’t draw to save your life or feel like the artist may not understand what you want, an AI image generator can build your idea visually. People who need to output a lot of content would find this gadget to be a lifesaver.

With a few caveats, of course.

There are limits to what a computer can do, even when using the most advanced AI. Using ChatGPT as an example again, it is limited to only what is available through the internet and will never know everything that humans know. Because it has access to only what has been digitally catalogued, the information generated may be outdated and incorrect. AI doesn’t have common sense or emotional intelligence, and can’t decipher sarcasm or humor. It will draw in ‘facts’ from anything and everything available on the internet – and I mean EVERYTHING. We know how reliable that can be. It doesn’t have the capability to differentiate between an article from The Onion or NPR or some delusional manifesto-writing lunatic.

Is it that helpful if you still have to vet every source? You may as well do your own research from the start.

There are a lot of opinions about using AI, and this is only one, only mine, and only that: an opinion. I can’t say whether we are heading toward humanity’s future as depicted in Disney’s Wall-E or in the Terminator franchise; that remains to be seen. What I can say is that I am going to continue creating the best way I know how and hope that it continues to make me happy.

What do you think about Artificial Intelligence? Is it a god-send or a device from hell? Will it make creating easier or render humans obsolete? Share your thoughts in the comments!

waiting is fun

Waiting Is Fun

How has it been six months since my last post?

Where has the time gone? It seems that with every year I am on this spinning rock, the days fly past with increasing speed and decreasing recollection of what, exactly, I’ve been doing. But I have been doing stuff – I swear! Mostly waiting. It’s been difficult to move solidly forward with new things when the old things haven’t quite landed yet.

There’s a good chance I’m not the only one who’s still a bit anxious and uncertain about what comes next – what to DO next – after the unpredictability of last year. I’ve had a hard time fully re-engaging with life and plans and all of that. I think Crash Davis in the movie Bull Durham expressed this state of mind best:

I wouldn’t dig in there if I was you. Next one might be at your head. I don’t know where it’s gonna go. Swear to God!”

My little baby novel is still on the hunt for its perfect home. I knew when I started that this process would be a lengthy one, and that I would need to be patient. But doggone it I am not very good at being patient! If I’m honest, I don’t know which is worse: getting all the ‘no thank you’ replies or hearing nothing at all. Recently, I was convinced that this whole writing thing had been a silly little diversion; that it had been fun to play around and learn new things, but the time had come to walk away.

I think my agent would have been less than thrilled with that idea.

So, instead, I’m working on the third or fourth iteration of a romance novel that I’ve been toying with for what seems like forever. I’ve joined a small critique group and, once a month, we share part of what we’re working on and give each other feedback. This has been invaluable as the echo chamber inside my own head can get pretty ugly. On top of that, I’m in a book club that has led me to read some amazing novels that I wouldn’t have picked off the shelf on my own. The club leader spins a wheel to select that month’s genre and then another wheel for a title within that genre. Then we meet to share treats and to “talk about the book.”

Yes, the quotations are intentional. Don’t judge.

But I think my favorite thing is that my writing group has started to cautiously meet in person again. Over the past year, we kept in touch through weekly video conferencing, but there is nothing like being in the same room with some of your favorite creative people. I swear that when we’re all together, the air is different and we seem to gain strength from one another.

Coffee and muffins help, too.

All of these things have helped to fuel my creativity and push me to get back to what I love doing: creating stories. Although it may falter at times, I still believe this is the right path for me and, when everything falls into place with the right story, the right editor, the right publishing house, and the right planetary alignment (you think I’m kidding) my sweet little book baby will venture out into the world and into the hands of people who will love her like I do.

So, I wait.

How is 2021 is treating you? Drop a comment or send me an email and fill me in on your last six months, what’s different, how you’re feeling about, well, everything! I’d love the chance to start a conversation!

Ohhh…So THIS is Where Dystopian Novels Come From

What a wild time to be alive.

The past three months have been, in a word, tumultuous. It seems that a year’s worth of joy, fear, anger, sadness, and love has been crammed into just a few months.

Over one weekend in the middle of March, my son’s senior year ended abruptly, my daughter got engaged, I signed with a fantastic agent, and COVID-19 shut down most of the country. Life as we know it changed, I believe, irrevocably and overnight. Then recent events brought the ugly truth of racial disparity and police brutality into the spotlight, adding to an already volatile situation.

With everything that’s happened, I should have written a library of dystopian novels by now!

To be honest—and I know I’m not alone in this—being isolated at home, uncertain of what the future holds, has made it hard to focus. I find myself avoiding the computer, unable to write anything new as it all seems so trivial. Some days I sleep too much, other days I can’t make myself go to bed. I should be preparing my youngest for his first year of school in another state, planning a wedding with my daughter, talking with my middle child about his final year of college and his future. But it’s hard to make plans when everything can change in the blink of an eye. So what can I do?

I can keep moving forward. I can embrace hope and I can share love.

With the help of my agent, Katie, I am working on chapter-by-chapter revisions of my novel. I have been given the opportunity to spend quality time with my youngest before he flies the nest to start his real life. My middle child has demonstrated strength and compassion by using his voice to try to make a difference in the world. Wedding plans are progressing with my daughter, despite the darkness in our world, and even if it doesn’t look exactly as she’d initially dreamed.

And we all have contingency plans for our contingency plans.

I’ve found that now, more than ever, it’s imperative to stretch your creativity and leave your comfort zone. We must adapt or we die, and right now we are being forced to challenge the status quo and find better solutions—what better way than through creating, writing, and thinking outside the box?

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.”

-Frank Zappa

How are you keeping your head above water these days? Are you pushing yourself, using new creative outlets, or brushing up on ones you’d forgotten? Drop me a comment or send me an email!