Writing Groups Are Awesome - Tumblr Posts

you can speak to other writers for advice. You can post snippets and get feedback. You can trouble shoot on social media.

Writing groups were a thing long before generative AI entered the picture. Why do people act like this is no longer a thing?

The thing that really gets me about the NaNo AI thing in a this-would-be-funny-if-it-weren't-so-frustrating/infuriating/tragic way is that yes NaNo is about writing and creativity, building habits and creating etc.

But it's also about community and a lot of the bullshit reasons they cite for promoting AI tools are problems that are solved inherently through community. Things like "some people struggle with certain aspects of writing" and "some people don't know what do at this point" etc.

They say you need AI because you can't afford certain services but you can speak to other writers for advice. You can post snippets and get feedback. You can trouble shoot on social media.

Obviously they fucked up with their forums but prior to that they had tonnes of resources for structuring, editing and the craft in general - both technically and creatively. They could have focused on rebuilding that instead of pushing AI tools that scrape people's work and aren't anywhere near as nuaced as humans are.

Community on the internet is dying so I'm not saying it would be easy (see every single post by a fic writer on tumblr for the past three years as fandom is treated more and more like a commodity) but a large org like this should be better placed to try right?