Summary

Aimée Brown Gramblin reflects on creativity amidst artistic anxiety and AI's role, sharing personal experiences with writing, nature, and time travel literature.

Abstract

In the article "Creativity in The Time of Artistic Anxiety," Aimée Brown Gramblin addresses the creative community's concerns about AI's impact on their work. She expresses gratitude to her audience for their support as she navigates her use of Substack. The piece delves into her current reading material, including "This Is How You Lose The Time War" and "The Body Keeps the Score," and her thoughts on love, time travel, and nature's inspiration. Gramblin also shares excerpts from her own work, emphasizing the importance of empathy and a bird's-eye view in creativity. She advocates for a future where humanity transcends currency through empathy and mutual respect. The article concludes with a call to uphold creative core values and a quote from Mark Rothko on the evolution of art.

Opinions

Artists and creatives often feel like outcasts but learn to embrace their uniqueness.
There is a palpable threat and panic among creatives regarding the impact of AI on their careers.
Courtney Maum's perspective on using AI as a tool rather than a replacement in creative writing is highlighted positively.
The author values the bird's-eye view as a metaphor for gaining perspective during challenging times.
"This Is How You Lose The Time War" is seen as a complex narrative that is difficult to summarize but rewarding to experience.
The author criticizes a ghostwriting company for offering an insulting rate, emphasizing the importance of fair pay for writers.
Gramblin envisions a future where empathy is magnified, and human interactions are based on dignity and respect, without the use of currency.
The article suggests that creatives supporting each other strengthens the creative community.
The author reflects on the need for silence and space to grow creatively, quoting Mark Rothko's thoughts on the changing landscape of art and the search for meaningful creation.

Creativity in The Time of Artistic Anxiety

On time travel books and stories + nature love

Greetings Creativity Fiends,

Thank you for allowing me to grow and explore how I’ll utilize Substack with you — you are the reason I’m here.

Artists and creatives often feel weird, different, outcasts. Most of us eventually embrace our otherness as a positive trait.

I’d say a lot of us feel threatened and/or panicked about how AI will impact our careers.

Courtney Maum has a brilliant article about how to use AI as a creative writing tool, not a replacement. She’s managed to convince some skeptics to give it a try.

Is ChatGPT Your Summer Intern?

Audible reminded me I had 5 credits available, so I spent them yesterday and paused my subscription. The Gramblin Listening Library is overstuffed.

This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar co-written with Max Gladstone is my fiction listen right now while I continue to listen to The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk for my nonfiction read.

I’m halfway through Gladstone’s book. I think it’s a romance about time travel and bionic humans and metaphysics and nature and birds…

It’s a hard one to summarize & I’m loving being along for the ride. Have you read or listened to it? What’s your take?

“Love is what we have, against time and death, against all the powers ranged to crush us down.”

― Amal El-Mohtar, This is How You Lose the Time War

Today, I’m sharing two excerpts and one microfiction from relevant pieces of my own with links to the complete work as well.

Click on the underlined title to read the stories.

The first I envisioned as a part of a collection of nature essays. It could still happen.

In Which I Imagine Turkey Buzzards Draped Over Evergreen Trees Like Ornaments In An Edgar Allen Poe Story

When I feel lost, I look up to birds for guidance. On our family drives to visit my in-laws I’d pass the minutes by counting birds of prey on the roadside, pondering the bird’s eye view and how it can be more difficult for humans to find this broader point of view; we are landlocked and perhaps more limited in our interpretation and perspective of the world around us. I try to remember, especially during times of struggle, to take many steps back, and observe from this bird’s-eye view.

— Aimée Brown Gramblin, Age of Empathy

This story was a response to a writing prompt for a ghostwriting company that ended up offering an insulting amount of pay per word. I did get this fun time story travel out of the process. It’s also an excellent way to discover my favorite writers and friends embedded in the story.

Teleporting Is Fun, Exhilarating, and Exhausting — Visiting Toad Friends and Other Eclectic Writers Makes It All Worthwhile

Did I mention currency is no longer something we use?

We barter and gift services. Humanity has found a way to magnify empathy and treat everyone with dignity and respect. While there’s no more famine or war, humans are curious creatures and we continue to think big.

We debate and innovate. We explore.

Aimée Brown Gramblin, it’s just foam

Time Is A Human Construct is the kind of microstory you can frame in its entirety in a screenshot.

Reflection: Creatives supporting other creatives build a strong creative community.

What are some ways to recognize and uphold creative core values?

Until next time, love creatively; creatively live,

Aimée

Medium | Twitter

“When I was a younger man, art was a lonely thing. No galleries, no collectors, no critics, no money. Yet, it was a golden age, for we all had nothing to lose and a vision to gain. Today it is not quite the same. It is a time of tons of verbiage, activity, consumption. Which condition is better for the world at large I shall not venture to discuss. But I do know, that many of those who are driven to this life are desperately searching for those pockets of silence where we can root and grow. We must all hope we find them.”

― Mark Rothko

This post was originally posted on Substack on June 11, 2023.

Aimée Brown Gramblin is the founder of Age of Empathy. She became a memoirist in her younger years and is writing them out now in middle age. A regular contributor to The Memoirist, Aimée is a late-blooming pop-culture enthusiast; she’s a contributor to FanFare and The Riff. With a minor in art history, she occasionally publishes art-centric nonfiction.

Subscribe to Aimée’s stories here.