Old skool is in session

keeping it real and joyful in an artificial world

The first draft of my next novel is due to my publisher tomorrow (Monday).

This means that for the past few weeks I’ve been deeply immersed in weaving together plot strands, hanging out with my imaginary friends (the characters) and turning my lived experience and detailed research (in Ukraine) into what I hope will be a powerful, inspiring and informative story.

My lovely artist friend Pearl drew a sketch of me a while ago when we were out for dinner, just after I’d finished talking about my inspiration for this novel - it’s of me aiming my mighty pen like a spear at a missile. Incidentally, when I was in Lviv last summer taking shelter in my bathroom during an air attack, Pearl stayed up late to message with me and try and distract me from the rockets and drones flying about. I’ve had her sketch by my desk so I can look at it as I write, along with a wristband I got last summer in Maidan Square in Kyiv.

There have been moments when I’ve felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the project - and getting it done by the deadline (I currently write two novels a year so it can get pretty intense, hence me not writing to you last week, sorry) - but overall it’s been an incredible experience.

When my dad asked me how the book was going last week I told him that I felt as if I’d stretched my brain to full capacity but that it felt fantastic. I guess it’s a little like physical exercise and that sweet feeling you get after giving your body a great workout.

To have been able to devote myself so wholeheartedly to a creative project and spend so much time in the creative flow has also felt like the deepest of meditation practises.

And to be able to alchemise the anger and fear and frustration and sheer inspiration I’ve gained from all the time I’ve spent in Ukraine over the last couple of years, and what I’ve witnessed in the Ukrainian people I’ve come to know and love, has felt so cathartic.

So when I saw a headline in The Bookseller (the trade journal for the publishing industry) the other day saying that experts now reckon that AI will have ‘created’ its first best-selling book by 2030 I felt so down-hearted.

Ditto when I saw a headline about Spotify beginning to use AI generated bands and music. To clarify, these are completely fictional bands - their images and biographies on Spotify are AI generated and so is their music.

Spotify, who already pay real musicians an insultingly low amount of revenue per stream, are now looking to make even more money - because if the band don’t actually exist and you can artificially generate their music at the push of a button you’re making pure profit.

My first thought upon reading this (right after the ‘what a bunch of twats’ thought) was, ‘looks like I picked the right week to buy a record player! ‘

I’ve always loved listening to music on vinyl, so getting rid of my record player and record collection when I left the UK to travel was hard.

But in a serendipitous twist of fate, the village I’ve landed in happens to have a record store - above a book store! - I mean what are the chances? There are only about ten shops in the village so I feel like I’ve really lucked out.

And I’ve now purchased one of those record-players in a natty little portable case - very handy if and when I start nomad-ing again!

The day my record player arrived, after a day-long writing stint, it felt so sweet to slip a record from its sleeve, place it on the turntable and hear the crackle of needle on vinyl.

And as I danced around my room in my pants (don’t judge me, we were having a heatwave!) I felt so frickin’ happy to be living this life of simple pleasures…

…simple, old skool pleasures.

Writing. Creating. Dancing. Listening to music by real musicians. Listening to an album how it was meant to be listened to - from start to finish.

And these aren’t the only old skool pleasures I’ve been indulging in lately.

Every day on my lunch break I’ve been taking an old skool actual book with a cover and paper pages to a little clearing I’ve found in the woods behind our building and sitting on the grass barefoot and reading, surrounded by daisies.

In the evenings we cook together and talk and laugh together without a single glance at our phones.

And every Friday when I visit my dad, we talk life and love and spirituality, with his new favourite CD of gospel songs playing away in the background.

This week when I was leaving, he gave me £10 to ‘buy myself a treat’. It reminded me of when I was a kid being given my pocket money and so, in keeping with that theme, I hotfooted it to my local record store on Saturday morning and spent a hugely enjoyable 30 minutes or so flicking through boxes and boxes of vinyl searching for treasure, just like I used to do on Saturdays as a teen. Yet another simple pleasure.

Whenever I hear about the latest developments in the world of AI - such as children starting to befriend their Chat GPT, giving it a name and identity and preferring it to human friends because it’s been programmed to be nauseatingly sycophantic, and adults turning to AI for advice instead of their actual friends or a qualified counsellor, and don’t get me started on what fresh hell AI is being used for when it comes to weapons - I realise that indulging in simple old skool pleasures is swiftly becoming an act of resistance.

And I have to tell you - I AM HERE FOR IT! Because I bloody love being a human!

I love the fact that I have spent over 25 years teaching myself how to write and honing my writing craft without using any kind of robot technology to do it for me.

I find it nothing short of miraculous that, because of my years of hard but oh so satisfying graft, I can fill myself up with real life experiences and emotions and then sit down at a laptop and alchemise all I’ve been through into a 100,000 word story that pours out of me.

100,000 words that I have put together all by myself with no artificial assistance.

And this is a point worth emphasising.

We’ve got so used to calling AI by its initials that I think we’re forgetting what the A stands for…

Artificial.

As in, not real.

Real intelligence is what we all have inside of us.

Why would we want to lose our ability to create and think critically, which studies show is already being eroded in people who are becoming dependent on Chat GPT?

When I was in Lviv again recently I had a fascinating coffee and chat with a friend who is at university there and she was telling me how she and her fellow students are now finding it hard to write their own papers.

These are super intelligent humans, but their use of AI is having a detrimental effect on their ability to organise and present their thoughts.

I went through a phase a while ago when I’d get really angry about AI - especially when it came to people using it to create things like books, or art or music.

‘But that’s cheating!’ I kept thinking every time I read or heard someone say that they were using Chat GPT to help them write a book (and I mean help with the creative parts like the characters and the plotting and even what words to use).

But it seems like there are so many things vying for our anger right now - it’s like a ‘piss me off pick-n-mix’ out there!

So, here’s my cunning plan for how to stay joyful and sane in an increasingly crazy artificial world - and you are more than welcome to join me.

I am going to deliberately and defiantly seek out simple, old skool pleasures wherever I can find them.

Keeping it real (rather than artificial) is going to be my rallying call.

I’m going to spend real face to face time with real friends. I’m going read real books and play real music on real records. I’m going to write real books and create real business ideas using my real intelligence. I’m going to watch independent movies in independent cinemas. I’m going to visit museums and galleries. I’m going to support my fellow artists. I’m going to go for hikes at sunrise and sunset and I’m going to immerse myself in the real beauty of nature. And one day, I will finally achieve my longheld dream of spending some time living in Paris - the city where I’ve always felt free to be my realest self.

I would love to know your thoughts on this subject - especially if you have some favourite old skool pleasures and ways of keeping it joyfully real of your own. Please feel free to share them in the comments or send them to me in a message.

As a final positive postscript - it was my publisher’s summer party this week and when the managing director welcomed us all she made a point of reassuring us that, as a publisher, they had no intention of turning to AI instead of real authors. I’m sure I wasn’t the only author in the room to feel relieved to hear this.

And as a comedy extra, here’s a photo from the party they put on their Facebook page. I’m the one loitering in the background looking as if I’m plotting some kind of mischief (I was actually trying to sneak a cheeky canape!)

Until next week, here’s to celebrating the miracle that is our own unique and very real intelligence, and here’s to having fun with it instead of handing all the fun over to the robots!

Siobhan