I was recently talking with a friend about how crowded the internet world is for writers, which led to a discussion about SEO, search engine optimization, the tricks people use to get their name to show up on the top of a list rather than buried six pages in. We decided to "play" with some AI tools to see what happened.
I'm not a great fan of AI because of its many unknown and unintended consequences, which could turn out to be horrific, but I recognize its growing value in medicine and scientific and technical research. The speed of calculations alone is an asset for many, and where we can harness it, AI can be invaluable. My experiment with it is barely a pebble on the beach.
We started with Gemini 2.0. This version is free, but not the most advanced so you may not get the most complete and thorough answers. If you're a writer and want to know what will come up if someone googles you, this will help you find out. On the screen is a box where you write your question. "Does Susan Oleksiw write novels?" Depending on the information collected you may get an answer that mentions one or two, but you know this isn't complete. You can then ask, "Do you know about TITLE X?" Gemini will say no, and pull up the information, adding it to the basic set. It will even thank you for bringing this title to its attention. You can type in whatever you want Gemini to know about you, and the next time you search your name, you'll find more information. Yes, you're planting information you want the reader to receive in a search.
The next step was turning this into a podcast at NotebookLM, Audio Overview, another Google feature. This was almost too much for me. My friend sent me the link—she knew how to do it all—and I listened to two voices, one male and one female, describe my work. I didn't set up the Audio Overview myself, but I could see the steps to take (and am glad I didn't have to take them).
The audio overview discussion used a lot of key words probably taken from the dust jackets or back covers and possibly from reviews. The conversation was necessarily shallow, with synonyms of the key words filling in for a lack of depth. Nevertheless, there's something surreal listening to two fake people talking about your work for half an hour, saying nice things even if most of it is meaningless and repetitive. NotebookLM offers several options for creating work from your research, the podcast being only one of them. And it's free.
So how do I feel about all this? Well, first of all, before I started working on this I made several notes, in a pen on the back of an old envelope, a stack of which I keep in a desk drawer for just this sort of task. I like to keep my notes on paper. I keep my appointments in a bound calendar (Moleskine), and always edit on paper, with pen in hand. Under duress I've been known to use TrackChanges. But I admit that I was impressed with the ease with which the google apps accomplished something that would normally take me days to get done. On the other hand, these apps have the same flaws I first noticed well over twenty years ago. There is a tendency to shallowness, superficiality, repetition, and lack of imagination once given the material. That said, I think they can still be invaluable for writers.
Gemini 2.0 is the more important of the two because writers can feed in information about their work to get lesser-known publications included in a basic search result. But I'm still not an enthusiastic supporter of AI because I've seen what happens with students who rely on technology because it's quick and easy. But containing this genie is almost impossible at this stage not least because those who can don't want to do so. Hence I will continue to lock out AI from my computer programs and Photoshop, and whatever else comes along. But I'll use some forms of it in limited circumstances.
The links are below for the few writers who remain as far behind the times as I am and want to give this stuff a try.
https://gemini.google.com/app
https://notebooklm.google.com/
One Writer's World
Into a New Era
Transit
February 20, 2025
As I look at this date, and then the date on the previous post, I'm appalled that I have been silent in this space for almost a year. It hardly seems possible, but it is. My niece occasionally asks me if I've been posting regularly on Thursdays as I said I intended. Fortunately, our conversation moves on quickly and more than shaking my head in chagrin, nothing more is said.
A lot has happened in the last year. As you might imagine, a lot changes for someone when their life partner of 55 years dies. My experience hasn't been so different from other women losing a partner. I passed through the stage of seeing something interesting and thinking, I should tell Michael about that. He'd loved hearing that. Then came, I wish I could tell Michael about that. And after that, the less interesting, Oh, look at that. My response to minor catastrophes was about the same. I'm now at the stage of wondering where I left that very useful screw driver, or maybe it's time to check that pipe that runs so close to the outside wall—it has been pretty cold lately. And out of six hammers, one is just right for my hand.
I suppose the major change is what happens when there's more time of a different sort. There's less focus because there's no time crunch; the mind wanders and bumps into unexpected thoughts. I'm at the stage of thinking I meant to try that, to spend more time there. I have more time and I have less time. The result is less fiction and more photography—and yet it's all narrative.
This is an ongoing transit. I use the word transit because transition seems to imply an end point, and I'm not convinced there is one. Instead, I seem to be on a spiraling upward or sideways or somewhere, changing and discovering and trying things out. There will be more to report, but this is enough for now.