296 Barrier Canyon Red, by Betsy James

Molecules and Metaphor:

Betsy James
On Writing and Teaching Speculative Fiction

On AI, Art, and Writing

AI fiction: It’s here. And there will still be an undercurrent of real writing, as there has always been. And people will figure that out.

What few seem to understand is that real writers and artists don’t do what they do for an end product but for the process. For the journey itself: where it takes them, what it reveals to them. They do it because they, specifically and personally, are struggling to explore something, to work something out for themselves. And because the true experience of writing fiction is as deep and rich and potent as exploring an unknown continent.

It’s a process utterly separate from “Is it marketable?”

Corporations crave bucks. Publishers refer to books in the singular: “We need product for the spring list.” Writers and artists whose goal is fame or a comfortable living will learn to manipulate AI to produce product for the market.

Meanwhile real writers and artists, whose goal is to discover how to speak who they are, will swing on into the wilderness: listening for what’s alive, wrestling with their craft, struggling to speak their hearts—laughing, weeping, singing.

Most of them won’t make a living. But few of those who chose that exploration have ever made a living.

They made a loving.

Betsy James is the author-illustrator of more than twenty books. Her novel, Roadsouls, was finalist for the 2017 World Fantasy Award, and her latest speculative fiction, Practicing to Be Lightning, will publish in 2026. She lives in Albuquerque, NM, where she writes, paints, teaches, and hikes in the wilderness. Find her at www.betsyjames.com