WordSisters

Tag: Writing

  • In Honor of a Compliant Computer

    Years of corporate living, reinforced by people who could shut down my technology, taught me to update operating systems and apps with a healthy degree of skepticism. I will eat a cookie from the first batch of a new recipe with little concern. I will not download a new operating system, office productivity program, or unsolicited app update until the pros prove that bugs won’t push me into a mess far beyond my problem-solving skills.

    AI, whether best friend or evil three-horned creature, now asks what I want to write when I open a blank screen, makes suggestions about words that might strengthen my writing, nitpicks commas. This is all more irritating when what I am writing is purely creative mutterings. Nothing like a computer to correct how leaves moving in a breeze look like when I am the one sitting in a garden chair staring at trees swaying. AI questioning if the language of a three-year-old character is authentic when I am quoting my granddaughter is as aggravating as having a younger literary agent say I don’t know what a man her father’s age is like. I’m lucky enough to be married to a man of that age.

    Now Apple, Google, Microsoft and all the big players have snuck their AI tools into the process of writing a friendly note to myself, a one-paragraph bio, a blog, a character sketch, a chapter. If I don’t remember to disinvite the AI crew, it is as welcome as having a client read rough copy over my shoulder or chairing the group writing of an executive overview. 

    With this blog complete, I’ll give AI an opportunity to do a quick edit and appreciate the results. The newest version of the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” series could be “If you Give an AI Program a Few Keystrokes.” Please go speak amongst your AI creators until I call you to my table.

  • To Louis and Octavia

    An enthusiastic three-year-old ran craft materials to the kitchen table. She had a project in mind, a puzzle to build out of tongue depressors. 

    I was not enthusiastic about the project which, as many projects, would lead to painting which might lead to painting herself. In fact, I was tired and working hard to be gentle as she taped sticks together. When a washcloth became necessary, I got it damp at the sink, looking at her head bent over a row of painted wooden sticks. 

    The oak table where she worked on a protected area was made in 1902 when Louis Cravillion married Octavia Orde, my paternal great grandparents. How I miss my Grandma Tavy. My grandmother died following childbirth, so Octavia cared for her grandson. As a woman of the age, I am now, she cared for me. I sat on one of these chairs while she braided my hair, ate meals she cooked, or colored. My mother worked in town.

    After my great-grandfather died, we had moved in with her. My parents remodeled the kitchen and dining area storing this oak table for a new Formica and metal model. Eventually an apartment was finished upstairs so she would have her own place. The table returned. Eating breakfast in my designated chair, it was possible to watch everyone come to the new post office across Main Street. Patterns were cut to make clothes, cookie dough rolled out, homework completed.

    After her death, the table was refinished and set up as my parent’s game table. As they downsized, it came to be mine. Our children ate and did homework and projects on a glass surface that protected the oak. Today’s artist is one of their children. 

    Stories of six generations of my family have been exchanged here. Men have returned from wars to a first home meal, baptisms and weddings celebrated, hard decisions made, children loved. Great grandma’s quiet and calm presence participated in half of its history. I see her hands now show in mine; her brown eyes look back from our mirrors. I can only hope I carry some of her wisdom to those who sit at this table, her blood mixed in their veins. I am not so tired.

  • Anything I’d Recognize?

    Writing paid part of my tuition and living expenses in both high school and college. Stringer work, editing school publications, working in media relations, internships, freelancing. I stepped out of journalism school into local newspaper work then the wild world of advertising before settling into corporate communications.

    Now, a retiree from the briefcase world, I would love to have some years back from when creative writing took second, third or fourth place behind big obligations. There have been successes, some brilliant like being a part of a regional Emmy award-winning team, Midwest book awards, C-Span Book TV. Maybe there could have been more.

    When Joe Tachovsky and I wrote 40 Thieves on Saipan, folks who discovered I was co-writing a World War II history book had many questions. Some would follow me to share personal stories about uncles or grandparents who served in the war. I handed out business cards like a realtor at an active open house.

    Response is less enthusiastic about freelance work and falls dramatically into the same interest zone of talking about high school dance competitions in a gathering of day traders when I share that I write contemporary fiction. “Anything I’d recognize” is a standard response or its companion “Would my wife recognize your books?” If lucky, someone asks how you think up your stories and a brief conversation opens. 

    It’s probably fair.  Social media, family, sports, travel take a lot of time. Bumping into a writer is kind of like listening to a bar band. If they don’t know how to play your favorite song, you disengage. 

    Anonymity isn’t limited to B list writers. Years ago, I stood next to a crowd growing around a hotel counter at a major conference. Voices were rising as news spread that the staff did not recognize Nikki Giovanni when she attempted to check in without a reservation. Giovanni, who died in 2024, was one of the world’s best-known African American poets and someone who spoke out on social issues. But chances are mixed that that reservationist was one of the 50% of Americans who read at least one book a year and even more minute that she was in the 12% who read poetry.

    Some days a writer may as well talk with their characters, cause few other people are paying attention. But I wouldn’t stop working just because of that.