An End of Year Roundup and Gift for Readers

Free book inside!

It seems obligatory to do some kind of year-in-review post, so that’s what I’m going to do, but it became obvious quickly that I could not rely on my memory to recall this year.

God’s honest truth it took me several minutes to remember that I published a book this year.

In my defense, the book was published back in February, but I think the real reason I didn’t immediately recall this fact, is that what’s reflected in the book is something I’ve been working on for much longer than the current year, even going back before the arrival of ChatGPT: how to frame writing as an experience worth doing for reasons other than a grade for school.

If anything, the book’s relevance has grown over the course of the year as I think more and more people realize that grappling with the arrival of generative AI means thinking about what human experiences are worth preserving. In my view, the illusion of reading and writing these technologies produce makes the experience of human reading and writing more important, not less and I’ve been pleased to intersect with folks who feel similarly.

While regular readers know this column ranges freely, there’s a number of pieces from the past year that reflect and perhaps expand on the themes of the book.

Most central is the problem that predates ChatGPT, but which ChatGPT has ruthlessly exposed, school is an almost entirely transactional system, which gives students limited incentive to pursuing learning.

Another challenge the book tries to explore is our collective desire for, and acceptance of “slop” be it human or AI-generated. This past summer delivered an example where people collectively said, “not this,” but not every encounter with slop is as straightforward. We will have to do a lot of work to preserve spaces that privilege human-made stuff.

The problem of slop is not that it is worthless, but that it is sort of interesting. The problem is that over time we begin to accept sort of interesting as the best we can do for ourselves. If there is an overriding philosophical underpinning to More Than Words it’s the rejection of a culture of optimization and a desire to experience lives of interesting friction.

In this vein, claims of AI technology “democratizing” creativity by allowing people without talent, experience, or intention to produce “music” chapped my hide. It’s not that it’s impossible to incorporate AI into a creative act, but using AI to circumvent the experience of creativity makes that experience inherently not creative!

This being 2025 means I’ve now crossed the 30-year mark in terms of being intentional and serious about experiencing creativity through writing. Those early years now feel like another time when I was primarily occupied with trying to pull something out of my brain and spirit that could be pleasing in some way to my own sensibilities and then to other audiences. I had no firm idea of how this should be accomplished, which made for both exciting and frustrating times, but times I would not trade in hindsight.

Thirty years is long time, and quite honestly, I’d forgotten about a bunch of stuff that I’d done and then left to storage in the digital sphere. Rummaging through those virtual files I recently ran across a passel of stories written and (in some cases) published in the late 90’s and early aughts. It was a lot like running across old photos of yourself where you recognize the person, but also know that because of the passage of time, it’s no longer really you.

In my mind I’d permanently consigned those works to the digital cabinets, but then I read Naomi Kanakia’s wise reflection on publishing and self-publishing and realized that there is no harm in sharing these stories with the world, particularly given that they were written by a guy who may share my name and life, but truly isn’t me. I have no reputation to protect. There’s no money to be made from them no matter what happens. I made them. They exist. I’m lucky to have a portal to alert thousands of people to their existence, so why not make a book?

So that’s what I did. It’s called The Circus Elephants Look Sad Because They Are: And Other Fables. Honestly, it’s more of a mini-book than a book, but it’s 13 stories, all of which share some aspect of the surreal and hopefully each provide a few minutes of human-created diversion.

At the button below you should be able to access a Google Drive folder that contains the file formats for all major e-readers, plus a PDF version.

I’m new to this, so maybe I didn’t do it right, but you should be able to download and read the files. Consider this my unasked for holiday gift to the world.

Thanks to all readers of this newsletter. I am never unappreciative of the privilege of having an audience for my work. If you are and have been a reader, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.

And, as always, I’m curious about what you’re reading, and thinking, and doing. I end this year hopeful that next year will be challenging, but also better on a number of fronts. Where is your spirit in the waning days of 2025?

Thanks again, see you next year.

Happy holidays!
John Warner
The Biblioracle