I mentioned a new project last week that I’ve been working on for the past month but wanted to run past my writing group before launching. Here it is! This is the first post in a new series reflecting on creativity in an AI-shaped world—blending essays, writing prompts, and “case studies” featuring my own AI-assisted creative work.

Although I’ve written similar posts on my blog before, that focus is now a little more “official.” My plan is to publish on this topic weekly, while also continuing to post my usual mix of photos and essays. The only real difference you’ll notice here is that every Monday (or maybe Tuesday, if I’m being realistic, as “real life” often gets in the way 🙂 ) there will be a post on this topic.

I am also publishing these same “AI and creativity” posts over on Substack and LinkedIn. Once I get things smoothly rolling on those two platforms, I’ll set up links here to let you “subscribe” or “follow” over there, in case anyone would prefer to receive only the AI-related posts in a separate email.

And now, without further ado, my new adventure!

Compass rose with the eight principal winds (from Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compass_rose)
User:Vloeck, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

“Hello, World!” is the phrase programmers use to mark a beginning—to test a system, send a signal into the void, and see what answers back. It’s the digital equivalent of tapping a mic and asking, “Is this thing on?” A small, ritual gesture, but also a declaration: I’m here. I’m starting. Let’s see what happens.

I’m borrowing that tradition to launch an ongoing series of posts as a space for exploring creativity in an age shaped by algorithms. This is my “Hello, World!” and I’m sending out this first signal to others who feel both curious and cautious about the rise of generative AI.

Teaching humanities and communication at a small engineering university means I spend a lot of time around students who are fluent in code and curious about creativity. Their openness to generative AI as both tool and toy reminds me that fear needn’t be the only response to something foreign and new. There’s also wonder.

In fact, my biggest surprise, personally, with this new technology has been rediscovering the sheer fun of creative practice.

My second biggest surprise? Just how polarizing the subject of AI can be. Bring up generative AI, and suddenly it’s like the relatives talking politics at Thanksgiving—some people are all in for a good discussion, others . . . not so much. The topic sparks excitement, anger, fascination, or fatigue, depending on whom you ask.

This new “AI” series is my way of staying steady and centered in that swirl. I’m not here to debate the ethics of AI or whether it should even exist. That horse is already out of the barn. What interests me more is what this technology means for creativity, for meaning-making, and for being human. As AI reshapes not just what we create but what “creativity” means, how do we keep showing up . . . and why?

Those are the questions I want to explore in this series—through essays, prompts, reflections, and conversations with others navigating this weird and wondrous terrain.

What does it mean to be a creative human being in the twenty-first century? How can we stay grounded in creative practice, even as the very definition of “creative” shifts beneath our feet?

By “creative practice,” I don’t just mean writing or painting in order to complete finished products. I mean the daily act of making, observing, shaping, experimenting—the slow, stubborn art of staying awake to the world.

For me, creativity isn’t just about having ideas. It’s about doing the work. And not even just doing the work but about being curious and noticing beauty. It’s about grappling with both art and utility, mystery and mechanism—and finding joy in the process.

Sustained creativity is a kind of wayfinding, a slow, intuitive navigation through fog without a compass, drawn forward by signals you can’t fully explain. You listen for resonance in the vast hum of the universe, tuning to the chord that sounds most like you. When you hear it clearly, even just once, you recognize it. Not with your mind, but your whole self. That unique fold in time and space that fits you exactly.

And you say: Yes. This.

In that recognition, you begin to put down roots and become anchored in a home of your own making, not on any map but in the truth of who you are, a sheltered pocket of creation that belongs only to you.

This is the work. This is the way.

I’m not a scripture-quoting person, but the gist of those words is similar to a biblical idea: “This is the way; walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

Something out there (God, a higher power, “the universe”) will tell us the way if we can just quiet the noise of the world to listen for that guidance. Doing the work of creative practice is one way to find and focus on that signal. The act of work itself—in the very “doing” or “making”—is often seen as something sacred: an offering, a listening, a way of integrating the self with a higher power and the deeper currents of being:

• In Daoism, the Way (Dao) is not a path you force, but one you follow by attuning yourself to the natural order. To “create,” in this sense, is not to impose but to respond—to move in harmony with what already is. This spirit of wu wei—effortless action or non-coercive doing—encourages letting go of ego and control, letting the work take shape without striving for a specific result. True creativity, in this view, arises not from control but from deep alignment, where presence matters more than product.
• In Jewish tradition, the word Avodah means both work and worship, while in Christian monasticism, the rhythm of ora et labora—prayer and labor—treats ordinary tasks as acts of devotion. Spiritual practice and daily effort are not separate but integrated, entwined.
• In ancient Greece, poets and artists called on the Muses—divine daughters of memory—not as a metaphor for inspiration (as we think of “the muse” today) but as a living source. Creativity wasn’t seen as self-expression but as receiving a gift, a visitation from something larger and beyond.

Across all these traditions, mindful work becomes a kind of devotion, an affirmation of something greater than the self. And I do find something sacred about the act of creation, something that feels like listening, like prayer. At its best, creativity connects us not only to ourselves but to something elemental, timeless, and universal.

Perhaps even a brush with the eternal.

Some mighty lofty thoughts, these. Which means it’s probably a good time to circle back to the more down-to-earth question behind this series: What does creative work look like now that AI figures into the mix?

I believe creative practice isn’t just about how we thrive. More fundamentally, it’s how we survive.

I’ve been thinking lately about what it really means to keep growing—to stay awake, to stay human. One quote that keeps echoing in my mind comes from Beat Generation writer and artist William S. Burroughs:

When you stop growing you start dying.

And here’s another, even scarier quote, also from Burroughs’ 1953 novel, Junkie (which is subtitled “Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict”):

You become a narcotics addict because you do not have strong motivations in any other direction. Junk wins by default.

That second quote haunts me. If making art is how we grow, maybe it’s also how we resist the pull of passivity, numbness, and death that constitute the “junk” default of idle hands. In the absence of strong intention or purpose, inertia (or something darker) takes hold.

Creativity considered from this perspective becomes a form of resilience. Not just for poets and painters but also for educators, storytellers, and anyone else who helps others find meaning in their work.

Sustaining a creative life offers both lift and gravity—a way to rise toward possibility without drifting away from what matters. It keeps us growing, threading new insights throughout the fabric of who we are. But we also need a solid frame, a way to hold steady as the world rapidly reconfigures itself, weaving past and future into patterns we don’t yet recognize.

We are living through a complicated, transformative era where the old and the new are deeply entangled. Rather than retreat or rush to resolution, I want to inhabit that tension and let it shape my creative growth.

That’s what this new series of posts is for: making sense of this uncertainty through reflective essays and stories from my own creative life in the shared company of everyone else trying to figure out what the world just became (and is still becoming) now that AI has joined us.

In my next post, I’ll share more about my background as a writer and teacher (going back to my dissertation on plagiarism and my grad school days as a TA), how I first began working with generative AI, and why I’m committed to seeking answers to the questions creativity now asks of us.

For now, here’s how I envision the rhythm of this series. My plan is to alternate weekly between 1) general reflective essays on creativity and creative practice (like this one) and 2) my own ChatGPT-assisted creative work—short stories, poems, and discussion of the “collaborative” process behind them (like my “Blind Pig” post at the end of May).

I hope you’ll enjoy this experiment in exploring both sides of my unfolding dialogue between meaning and making.

Creative Wayfinding: Five Invitations for the Week

Each “AI and creativity practice” post will end with a set of creative prompts drawn from that week’s topic. As a starting point, here are a few invitations to reflect on your own creative practice:

1. Signal Listening – Write or sketch something inspired by a signal you’ve been picking up lately—something quiet but persistent. A thought, an image, a fragment of melody or memory. What is it trying to tell you?
2. Fog Navigation – Describe a time you made something (a story, a photo, a decision) without knowing where it would lead. What pulled you forward? What did you find along the way?
3. Creative Compass – Make a short list of things—objects, places, routines, people—that help you feel most like yourself when you’re creating. What centers you? What derails you?
4. Fold in Time – Reflect on a moment when you felt totally present in your creative work—like you had found a small, hidden fold in time and space. What made that moment possible?
5. Creative Practice Inventory – Take five minutes to jot down your current creative habits—no judgment. What’s working? What’s missing? What’s calling to you now?

However you engage, I hope you’ll keep listening for the signal.

This is the work. This is the way.

Let’s begin❤