Zoë Ferraris's Blog

As a writer, certain emotions fascinate me. The one I am preoccupied with at the moment is adoration . This friend of mine—I call him...

One of the charges that gets leveled at “medieval” medicine is that since doctors back then obviously didn’t have the technology or...

For those of us who dream of such grandiose things as unity consciousness for Earth, we’re at the point in the story where we realize that the forces against us are getting big enough that we have to actually take action.

Again.

We can’t just sit around eating gelato and binging Hulu this weekend. We have to go out and actually slay some monsters.

Again.

Except the sword is rusty. The horse is dead. The joints need Tiger Balm.

We have a couple of allies—like those two people who follow you on Instagram because they like your bird photos.

This is the bad news.

The good news is that everybody loves this story. It’s the story where the heroes, who are weak and clueless and have everything stacked against them, head out into the perilous world because they’re the only ones who believe in good anymore.

Who believe in love.

Can they slay the monsters? Of course not. Are they going to try? Of course. Will they figure it out by the story’s end?

You’re never going to believe what’s going to happen by the end, because right now it just looks like a hopeless case. It’s so hopeless, it makes you angry.

But don’t worry, this is what stories do. They take you to the very depths precisely to boomerang you up and further up.

The only catch? You get to decide where this story goes.

What is unity consciousness?

It’s people spending more time focusing on making sure everyone is prosperous.

Everyone is happy. Everyone has their needs met. Everyone feels safe.

It’s people not having time to hate each other because they’re too busy helping the world.

It’s people not focusing on what’s wrong with you, but on what’s right.

It’s asking what we can do to improve. To add abundance to. To add love. To heal.

But wait, you say, what about that dude who says “These people have to get on a train to Poland?” You just going to try to love him out of that?

No. Love means safeguarding. Love means stopping harm.

How can we work together to make this world prosperous and safe for everybody?

And I mean everybody?

This is, obviously, a tremendous question, which is why I welcome your responses and feedback and ideas and input—all the time.

But it all starts with your mindset. So try to picture, for a moment, unity on Earth. We’re SO FAR FROM IT, so it might be a leap, but I encourage you to try. What does it look like?

Meanwhile, why not drop the price of an urban coffee on helping people in Gaza?

And it's excellent fun

You’ve probably read a bunch of advice on amplifying creativity. Meditate! Brainstorm! Think outside the box!

There’s a lot of great advice out there, but this is my go-to, and it’s very simple. It can be summed up in one word.

DESIRE.

Let’s Begin With Manifesting

This is where it starts. I actually came to it through photography.

Every day for years I would take a break from writing and go for a walk. At some point, I started bringing a camera along. I live on a national park and often have close encounters with birds and wildlife.

While I was doing this—and without really realizing what I was doing—I began asking for things to come into my experience. One of the first things I wanted to see was a coyote. I had only ever seen one in my twenty years on the Presidio.

My first assumption was that, in order to do this, I was going to have to learn a lot about coyotes—where they lived, where they hunted, where they were likely to be.

But the thought of doing all of that just to take a photograph didn’t appeal to me. I am the ultimate lazy photographer: if it crosses my path, I will take a picture.

However, I began to notice that when I really pinned my hopes on seeing something, I would see it.

When I mentioned this to my husband, he said: “Tell the universe exactly what you want.”

I decided that I wanted to encounter a completely chill coyote in broad daylight where I wouldn’t miss seeing it.

A few days later, my husband and I were walking, and a guy came up to us on the path to warn us that there was a coyote on the hill fifty yards ahead. I went running.

She was sitting on a hillside in the sun, enjoying the hell out of her life. When I approached, she looked straight at me contemplatively, and sat there patiently while I took dozens of shots. When I finished, I lowered my camera and studied her for a moment. She studied me back. Then she stood up, and we both walked away.

Inspiration

I continued practicing “manifesting” things, and it just kept on working. I got super specific, like “I want a butterfly to land on my arm” and “I want to see a vulture standing still, with its wings spread out.” I always, always got what I wanted within a day or two, and the whole thing just kept blowing my mind.

And what I began to discover was that manifesting works best when I rely on my inspiration.

If you're enjoying this post, consider visiting my SubstackSTORY MEDICINE for more in-depth content

I’d say: I want to see an osprey.

They’re not common where I live, but I didn’t think about that. I just pictured the osprey in my mind. I pictured myself seeing it and taking a photo.

Then I’d let it go.

If I just hit the trail, I probably wouldn’t see an osprey.

But sometime in the next day or so, I would feel a sudden impulse. Go to this trail. And I would listen to the impulse. I would put on my shoes, my coat, grab my camera bag, and go to the trail.

And I would see the osprey.

Desire

Once I realized that my impulses weren’t random, that they were guiding me to what I was looking for, I began to realize that I was in dialogue with my Inner Self.

And we were communicating in the language of desire.

Now, whenever I want something, I focus on my desire.

And a while later, my Inner Self will respond with an impulse of desire. It will fill me with a sense of adventure, anticipation, or wanting.

It doesn’t tell me what will happen. It just delivers a feeling or an image.

It has enough information to tell me: Today you should head out on your walk earlier than normal, and today you should go to this particular trail, not any of the twenty others you commonly go to. It will even fill me with urgency now and then, to say: If you hurry, you will get there on time.

If I listen to that desire, it will always lead me to what I’m looking for.

Start With This Exercise

What do you want to do today? What creative project is burning inside you? What are you trying to master or make?

Whatever it is, begin by asking. It can be as simple as saying: I want to be more creative.

I want to solve this problem.

I want to finish this chapter.

Sit down, shut your eyes, and picture what you want. When you do this, you’re telling your Inner Self, through the language of desire, exactly what it should be arranging for you.

Then go about your business. But pay attention, because some time—maybe immediately, maybe within a day or two—your Inner Self with respond with an impulse of desire.

You will feel it. You will suddenly have a notion. An interest. A spark will light. Follow it. Grab it. Do whatever it asks you to do.

The more you practice this, the better you’ll get.

I want you to remember one thing: There is no limit. Your Inner Self will happily carry on, fulfilling your next wish and your next.

If you enjoyed this post, consider visiting my SubstackSTORY MEDICINE for more in-depth content

Exploring the intersection of creativity and generative AI

My husband and I were discussing generative art this evening and he relayed this quote, which he heard at work: “Nobody bothers to read something that nobody bothered to write.”

According to him, it was meant as a comforting idea: Don’t worry that people are using chatGPT to write books or stories or anything else, because it's not really writing. No one bothered to actually write it, so nobody’s going to read it.

This idea is based on the premise that AI-generated writing is fake because something wrote it, rather than someone.

It's true that AI-generated writing lacks a genuine, unique vision that comes from living in the world. In a lot of media, AI art hasn't mastered emotion, because it doesn't have the ability to experience it. Humans still need to guide AI in order to produce things that will really grab us.

And humans are doing just that, using the enhancement of an incredible technology to make their art even more powerful.

But if you do that, does it mean you're doing "fake" art?

Where Does Art Come From?

What’s hinted at in the whole idea of “real writing” is that in order for it to be real, there has to be a force of human consciousness behind it, in particular an effort on the part of that consciousness to craft the writing. This is true for any art—music, painting, architecture, all of it.

But here's the rub.

If you’re actually an artist and you’ve spent any time paying attention to your own process, you’ve probably discovered that you’re not entirely sure where all of your ideas and inspiration come from. You might be able to pin down a few of them, or maybe even a lot of them, but there is still an indefinable element of something-that-feels-like-magic that you can’t explain.

Science likes to ascribe this to the unconscious mind. The unconscious is capable of processing 350k more bits of information per second than your conscious mind. Your unconscious is literally an inner powerhouse, capable of calculations that would send your conscious mind into overload.

Metaphysics goes further. Your inner self isn’t just axons and dendrites, it’s actually a non-physical part of you—a spiritual or vibrational entity that makes up most of what you really are.

So actually, when you talk about creating art “for real,” you are talking about the elegant dance of information that travels between your conscious mind and your vast inner space.

Given that that space is really vast—so big it contains the majority of the resources that you rely on for the creation of your art—I think it is safe to say that your inner self is doing most of the work.

So the real question is: What is that inner space?

Because this is the space we talk about when we say something’s not real. If you have that space, you are a “real” writer who writes “real” things. If you have that space but don’t use it, you’re a wannabe. If you don’t have that space, you’re just a machine.

What is the Inner Self?

I have been exploring the unconscious space as as a writer and a photographer for many years, and so I approach generative art from where I am now.

Here are the questions that have been preoccupying me: What is the inner space? What is it capable of? How does it work? What does it contain? Most importantly: What does it have access to? And how much of it do I have access to?

For now, here is the short version of what my experience has taught me:

The inner self is far more powerful than we currently give it credit for. It is basically chatGPT on an order that most people wouldn’t seriously believe. (Science is starting to back this up, in numerous ways and in some pretty awesome books, but we still have a long way to go.)

Your Inner Self is NOT just an inert collection of facts and fictions. It is alive and thinking.

It communicates with you constantly, although you may not be listening.

Your inner self thinks and talk all the time, and it’s about 350,000 times smarter than you. (Fortunately, it IS you, so at least there’s that.)

Once you realize what it has access to, you’re going to hit some trippy new age terrain that you never thought you’d waste your precious vacation time to see.

However, AI has something like an unconscious space, too. It is FILLED with information. But as far as I can tell, that inner space isn't like ours. It doesn't think for itself, it doesn't experience emotion, and it doesn't have access to everything that we do.

Are you a “real” artist when you type in a prompt?

Generating AI art is not question of integrity for the user any more than it would be a question of integrity for ANY writer who has ever read a book.

Artists, writers, don’t even mention musicians, are constantly doing exactly what these algorithms do—grasping outside sources of art, data and inspiration and absorbing them into a vast, unconscious, off-screen space from which they then create new art.

Why then should we take exception to someone using an algorithm and doing what we do?

Why should it bother us that a human can now create a whole book based on our writing when in fact they could have done that at any previous time in written history—except that it wouldn’t have been so easy for them?

When you type a prompt into a program and generate a lovely bit of text, are you actually creating that art?

Yes, you are, but here’s the difference.

Artists find inspiration from everything they see, do, feel, and sense. They fold these impressions into their inner selves and then produce creations from that space.

AI artists also find inspiration from everything they see, do, feel, and sense. They take an idea, put it into the inner space of an AI-based program, and then, with the help of the program, produce creations from that space.

In AI art, you’re not only relying on your inner self—you’re leaning quite heavily on the “inner self” of a program.

The strength is that AI art is obviously an incredible enhancement of creation. It can produce in seconds what previously might have taken you months or years—or perhaps might have eluded you forever.

The potential danger of AI art is that it could replace your connection to your inner self. Instead of listening to that inner realm, you begin relying too heavily on a bot.

It seems obvious to me that creating a balanced symbiosis between your own artistic inspiration and the abilities of a machine can amplify your creative process in extraordinary ways.

What About Your Own Magic Machine?

People might continue being snotty about AI art, calling it “imposter” art, or scorning it as empty.

When you soak up the collected works of Gauguin, and then paint a portrait that looks like Gauguin’s, it’s still NOT Gauguin. It’s Gauguin-through-you. It’s your take on a master. It’s you birthing a new form.

That is the artist. Each and every one of us. We have soaked up some serious shit, mashed it up in our complex internal realms, and suddenly this other, sometimes new stuff comes pouring out like it was birthed from a magic machine.

Where does art come from? We don’t know.

We each contain these remarkable inner spaces that we barely understand—in fact, barely even discuss—and when we talk about imposters and plagiarists and the existential “threat” of AI bots, we’re only defending We-Don’t-Know-What.

We don’t know what we are.

So let’s find out, shall we?

As a writer, I look at storytelling through the lens of abundance or lack.

I'll be exploring this idea in more depth here in the coming weeks, but for now, let’s just summarize by saying:

Every principle of antagonism is built on lack.

True heroism turns lack into abundance.

Here is what's going on: Companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Google are training artificial intelligence by feeding them the works of all types of artists - writers, photographers, visual artists, designers, etc.

The artists' work is protected intellectual property, and none of the artists assented to its use in this way. The AI programs will not only learn from the art, they will be able to reuse it in any number of ways.

Here is how we look this through the lens of lack:

These tech companies have commodified art and essentially removed the artist from the equation.

They will be using the work of existing artists to allow other people to create new things.

They have found a way to monetize art that doesn’t involve an actual human artist anymore. They are only leaning on previous artist’s creations, and those artists are not being paid or credited.

This is capitalism at its worst. It is a theft and an utter denial of human value, especially humans who don’t work for a corporate entity.

Everyone who encounters this perspective can’t help but hate it. This is because we each know that we are unique, that we are creators who will do something that nobody else can possibly do. That knowledge is built into our very souls.

What is the lack? That we are becoming irrelevant—not just as artists, but as human beings. Something is better than us, and it makes us feel small and irrelevant.

There’s another way to view this, and that is that generative AI makes art available to everyone, abundantly.

It makes creation available to everyone. I know that my own creation as a writer was a long and elaborate process of mimicry and discovery that came from understanding what other writers were doing. Of absorbing their works and taking what I liked and ditching what I didn’t.

Today, it won't take someone 20 years of writing. With generative AI, it can happen faster and for more people.

This is an incredible opportunity, abundant with the promise of inspiration and equality. Anyone can do AI-generated art, and that alone will inspire people to understand what might previously have escaped them: that they are capable of many, many things. It may inspire them to want to learn more, to actually pick up a paintbrush or write their own stories.

With the help of generative AI, people will learn faster, they will understand styles and differences in a shorter period of time. This evolution of art can and will lead to whole new expressions of creativity.

Like most technologies, this new one won’t eliminate the old ones. (There are still people who use plows, and rowboats, and actual pencils and paper, and those things are not going away anytime soon.) In fact, creative artists will find new freedoms in embracing this technology. Even the most “voicy “ literary novelists may be curious to see what adding a little bit of someone else’s voice to their own work will produce.

So now that we've sketched out the abundance and the lack, what to do? Both arguments are compelling.

Maybe you've been reading the news and you've started feeling that generative AI - and the tech firms who are developing it - are creating things that threaten a huge aspect of humanity - the arts, which have defined human civilization for thousands of years.

Maybe you've also learned that the tech firms anticipate making massive amounts of money from this venture. And maybe now you feel totally jaded, and even a little scared.

But here is a postcard from the writer's edge: You are never required to believe in someone else's lack. You are not even required to believe in your own lack. You will not be a villain for understanding lack, but if, when you respond to it, you begin to shape your life around its principles, villainy surrounds you. It is what you become.

Here is a idea for turning all of this lack into abundance.

All of the art that goes into generative AI should be paid for in royalties to all of the artists who contributed to the machine’s work, forever.

Publishers pay royalties for the rights to make money from our words, so should tech firms. And since this new technology is so promisingly abundant, the tech firms should pay more than publishers - far, far more, given the scale of this venture.

And that's just to get us started! What do you think?

Be a hero, be a villain, be exactly what you are right now and speak your truth.

*I have, rather cheekily, generated some AI art for this post, because oh my god it is inspiring and fun and it has turned me into an absolute fanatic who, for the first time in her supposedly creative life has become very interested in who is doing what in different styles of illustration, painting, photography, and graphic design.

Sorry - couldn't help it!

Warning: SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the trilogy, there is a reveal of story developments in this post.

The good news: I am just putting the finishing touches on a fourth book in the Katya and Nayir series.

You read that right. After all this time! But first, to all the people who reached out to me about continuing this series, I want to say a huge thank you—your emails and DMs have been an incredible source of encouragement and support. I appreciate you so much!

I had debated about this book for a long time. I originally started this series ten years after having lived in Saudi Arabia. In that decade, I kept waiting for someone to write about the country. In particular, I wanted to read fiction. There’s always been a heap of non-fiction about Saudi—about oil and kings and religion and culture—but I had lived there in a family, making friends, getting to know a neighborhood and a city and a diversity of cultures, and I wanted to read about that. About daily life in Jeddah, about people.

[image error][image error][image error]

In that ten years, I was continually faced with the fact that people didn’t know about Saudi, and they fell back on stereotype. My experience there was so vastly different from the stereotypes I kept encountering that I felt the situation deserved some voice, and what better way than through fiction? Fiction is really good for making things come alive. So that was what kept this idea in my head, this constant encounter with not-knowing.

Finally, since the idea would not go away, I wrote the book myself. I’m not an Arab, but I was married in the culture, had lived there within a family, and even after my divorce, maintained ties with family and the place because of my daughter. I felt I could speak about Jeddah at least, drawing on the personal and the particular. I wrote my first mystery, Finding Nouf. It eventually got published in 45 countries. And editors wanted a second book, and a third, which turned out to be City of Veils and Kingdom of Strangers.

But the story I was telling was a love story most of all, about the relationship between Katya and Nayir, and by the end of the third book I had, shall we say, wrapped things up between them? I decided I had written a great little trilogy and that I was done.

[image error][image error][image error]

A while later, I gave a talk at USF, and I mentioned this to Prof. William Edwards, former sociology star, who had invited me that day. He was encouraging me to write a fourth book and I said: “They’re married, so I think it’s wrapped up.” And he said, “Oh no no no, marriage is where the real drama begins!” I laughed—we both laughed—but he was very right.

However, my main reason for stopping wasn’t just that my story felt complete. It was that Saudi Arabia was changing so much. And I kept thinking: you know there are a ton of amazing writers out there who write fiction about this country. Surely, in these days when publishers are now actually eager to publish foreign voices, plenty will get published. Let’s hear from Saudis. I will diminish and go into the west, haha.

So another ten years has gone by and I’m happy to say that there is more fiction about Saudi (not as much as I’d like, but still). In that time, I dabbled around with writing more Katya and Nayir, but each time I started it, I’d get halfway in and it wouldn’t come together. This is what people call writer’s block, but the thing I’ve discovered is that you only get blocked when you’re on the wrong path.

I realize that I’ve spent the past years with the same “someone else should write that book” attitude that I had before. And, if we’re being woke, someone else probably should write that book. I won’t say that person should be Saudi, because one of the hallmarks of Jeddah is its sheer diversity of people. (It really makes San Francisco seem monochrome by comparison.) Just, it should be someone who knows and loves their subject matter.

In the end, for me, I came to miss my characters. I woke up one day and I felt this longing for them. Like: Where are they now? What have they been doing? Are they still living in Jeddah? And this time, when I started writing the book, the story didn’t hit a wall. In fact, it blossomed. I don’t know what it is about the whole “ten year” thing. It seems so extreme to me. I’d rather be Louise Penny and keep ‘em coming.

My new novel, which has yet to be titled, picks up with Katya and Nayir seven years after the end of my last book, Kingdom of Strangers.

This time, I’m not writing because I want to address the gross prejudice or not-knowing that circulates. There is still plenty of it, but there is also plenty to counterbalance it. In fact, you can even get a tourist visa now and go there yourself—huzzah! I’m writing because I love Katya and Nayir and I’m curious to see where their lives will take them in a beautiful city that has changed so much and that keeps on changing.

I will post again with updates about when and where you can find the book, so stay tuned!