Can AI Cure Writer's Block?

Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates was coming off a period of unemployment when he became a staff writer for The Atlantic. He was finishing his first book and had to write an eight thousand word piece for the periodical nearly fifteen years before ChatGPT was launched. In an interview with The Atlantic in 2013, he offers advice for young writers that applies to writers of any age.

If you are a young person, you should keep going. There are a lot of young people who want to be writers, but what happens is the older you get the path is so tough and you get beat up so much that those people will eventually go to business school, and they go and they become lawyers and if you find yourself continuing, you will have a skill set because you will have worked for a certain period of time that other people just starting out won’t, and the competition will thin out…Perseverance is key to writing.

Note how he says perseverance is the key to writing, not a high-end computer or a trendy writing application or even a fancy writing desk in a private studio. 

Writing takes perseverance. By persisting in the pursuit of a worthy goal, a writer can succeed, come what may.

People quit, and they go to business school or become lawyers, not because they didn’t have the high-end tech, trendy computer applications, or fancy desks in a private studio. They quit because shit got hard. 

They quit because there was not the kind of certain and steady path to success that a career in business or law provides. They quit because when you’re sitting alone and it’s just you, your thoughts, and an intimidating blinking cursor, the possibilities of rejection and ridicule intrude on that quiet space.

ChatGPT made writing easier, but it did not end the struggle. ChatGPT won’t end writer’s block. It will make the path easier, but you have to muster your own strength to navigate it.