Calvin and Hobbes is one of the best comics I ever read as a kid. If you have not ever heard of it, i would highly recommend go take a look. The comic only lasted only ten years, and I do not remember anyone that was not funny. The one above I have used many times at work including for my bi-weekly team building one. Bill Watterson in his 10th anniversary book said, “The quality of a strip is determined by the quantity of the ideas in the waste basket.”
Why do I mention that quote and the comic? If you read the blog consistently, there is a large gap between the last post and this one, and I wondered myself why that was true. I looked in the lists of posts I started, but none have met the bar I set for myself. And though I have always prided myself on last minute panic to often right these, that has not worked out as on Sunday morning there is no moment of inspiration.
Unlike Mr. Watterson where he ripped up comics and put them in a physical trash, when writing electronically you often keep the bad ideas in a ‘trash’ folder. I was thinking about other stories about artists who had a lot of ideas that were thrown out. In New Jersey music mythology the Bon Jovi album Slippery When Wet had thirty tracks written for it. At a local pizza parlor, a bunch of kids there helped pick the final tracks, the rest went in the trash. I also wrote about another example earlier in my blog I talked about an artist I knew and his destroying of canvases that did not meet his quality standards.
My quality standard is only part of the problem, but there is another issue. I experiment a lot with GenAI to help me write code. I find it a perfect companion to assist me in coding, and even better help me understand what I wrote years ago. When I try to help it with my writing, it is awful. I was not sure why. I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts Re:Thinking with Adam Grant and the September 27th Episode (yes, I am running behind Sorry Adam) with John Legend. John Legend was helping another artist, and I am going to paraphrase what he said to that artist “I do not like that song because it sounds like anyone could write it.”
When one of the GPT’s writes something, it sounds like something that anyone could write, it does not sound like me. This is a bar that I seem to subconsciously think about. I look at it and say it is awful, but I am not sure why. Really what it is, it does not sound like I wrote it. It sounds like someone else wrote it for me. Honestly, I do use tools to help my grammar and spelling.
There may be more gaps coming, and although I mentioned in an older post that I have a lot in draft, those do not meet either of my quality gates. I am fortunate that I do not write for a living, that this is a labor of love as well as something that allows me to be creative differently from my job. I always maintained profound respect for many of the authors I blog I read, and the ones that post more than one a week. I am amazed how they can constantly keep up the quality. For Bill Watterson who had to make strips for a daily comic must have been incredibly stressful for the ten years. I value the people who read what I write, and rest assured that when I choose to post, it will meet my standards. I also want the words to be mine, and that when you read something you know that I wrote it, not something anyone could write.
This opinion is mine, and mine only, my current or former employers have nothing to do with it. I do not write for any financial gain; I do not take advertising, and any product company listed was not done for payment. But if you do like what I write you can donate to the charity I support (with my wife who passed away in 2017) Morgan Stanley’s Children’s Hospital or donate to your favorite charity. The fundraising site had to be restarted, and NYP Hospital made changes to their donation sites. I pay to host my site out of my own pocket, my intention is to keep it free. You are welcome to comment, but note it is moderated, and all spam will be removed.
This Blog is a labor of love and was originally going to be a book. With the advent of being able to publish yourself on the web I chose this path. I will write many of these and not worry too much about grammar or spelling (I will try to come back later and fix it) but focus on content. I apologize in advance for my ADD as often topics may flip. I hope one day to turn this into a book and or a podcast, but for now it will remain a blog. AI is not used in this writing other than using the web to find information. Images without notes are created using an AI tool that allows me to reuse them. The room of canvases smashed with axes was AI generated, I am not that good of an artist.