Jul 6, 2026
An incomplete list of things that make me feel better and I should make sure I do more often.
I feel better when I…
– spend time with my family
– spend less time online, particularly on algorithm driven sites like Reddit
– do things to help other people
– am physically active
– read books and long form content rather than skimming through dopamine trap headlines
– don’t have to worry about money
– get on with the work rather than endlessly tinkering with the scaffolding around it
– have purpose
– eat well
– drink enough water
– know that I have used my time wisely
– put on new socks
– focus on doing one thing at a time
– slow down
– am not too hot and not too cold
– sleep well
– feel as if what I am doing has value
Jul 1, 2026
AI is a thing I’m still trying to figure out. I’ve gone from curious to skeptical to loathing. Right now I’m not sure where I stand because on the one hand it seems inevitable, but on the other it is an ethical nightmare built from stolen data and consuming the worlds resources more quickly than any other technology ever has. Conflicted barely covers it.
But if I’m being honest, there is one thing I’ve started using it for and it does it better than any other tool I’ve ever used: OCR.
I’ve always loved the idea of hand writing books. In the past I have completed first drafts of stories on paper and although I enjoyed the process, I could never bring myself to take the next step and type the thing up for editing. So all those stories (not many, but a few) are still sitting in a drawer somewhere or, more likely, lost forever. But this is where AI comes in. I can take a photo of a page, ask it to convert it to text and it does, with something close to 100% accuracy.
It has opened up this whole new way of working for me and I’m still not sure how I feel about it, but I can’t argue with the results.
What I’ve been doing with my current story is writing in GoodNotes on my iPad, exporting the page as a picture, and pasting that into Claude for the OCR conversion. So I now have close to 8,000 words of editable text that I can start editing without having to type anything.
Doing it this way does lose one of the advantages of writing by hand: the natural second draft you automatically create when typing it up, but I’ve never really gotten to that stage so I’m not losing anything. And I think my writing is better when I work by hand than typing, so I’m already better off.
I am conflicted though and maybe there are some less ethically questionable options out there. But this is the first time I’ve seen how AI can aid me creatively without actually having any input in the process. It’s not writing anything for me, it’s taking words I have already written and changing the format.
There is absolutely no way I will ever let AI create words for me, but this is a useful little service it can provide.
Nov 3, 2024
It’s not the end of the process, but this morning I finished my first read through of Sisterhood. Tomorrow I will move onto a pass using Pro Writing Aid.
The writing on The Lottery is going well, although I think it is going to be another long one. Possibly the longest so far, based on the number of words I’ve already written, and where I am in the story. I’m enjoying it though.
We were out for most of today, at my nephews birthday party. They played laser tag and we sang karaoke. It was a fun day.
Tomorrow Oscar goes back to school, and Tamzin goes back to work, so I’m going to lose some time in the mornings. I think I will still be able to manage everything though.
—
Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 19
Production
Words written today: 1,066
Words written total: 38,076
Plus / Minus target: +3,076
Currently writing: The Lottery
Post-Production
Minutes today: 23
Minutes total: 73
Plus / Minus target: +13
Currently publishing: Sisterhood
Oct 28, 2024
Most people probably wouldn’t think it to look at me, but I suffer from an all or nothing personality. No idea where I got it from, but it’s mine to deal with.
It comes out at times like when I try to improve my relationship with the internet. A sensible approach would be to reduce the amount of time I spend online, but I find myself jumping straight to not using the internet at all.
And it snowballs. I go from not using the internet at all to trying to reduce all my technology useage, until I’m ready to sell my phone and computer and go and live off the land.
This writing challenge is a good example of me trying to do the opposite of that. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I realised it.
The first writing challenge I set out to do was a million words in a year. Which I failed. To be fair, I got something like 800,000 so I failed well, but even if I’d managed it, I couldn’t have sustained it. This time things are different. 1,000 words a day is a goal I can hit pretty much every day. It’s not an impressive number, but it’s something I can do consistently. And that’s what I’m looking for.
The same is true for the planning (one story plan a day) and the editing I’m going to be starting on Friday. And now that I’ve realised it, I’m looking at other areas of my life where I can apply this simple goal of being a bit better.
—
Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 13
Production
Words written today: 1,048
Words written total: 31,787
Plus / Minus target: +2,787
Currently writing: Son of Mars
Oct 20, 2024
I now have five stories planned, one of which I am currently writing, all of which I like. It might be hard to pick between them when the time comes. That’s not a complaint though, it’s what I wanted when I started this habit.
The idea process is straight forward. I have a little template in Obsidian that looks like this:
IDEA:
A CHARACTER:
THE CHARACTER WANTS SOMETHING:
BUT SOMETHING PREVENTS THEM FROM GETTING WHAT THEY WANT EASILY:
SO THEY STRUGGLE AGAINST THE FORCE:
AND EITHER SUCCEED OR FAIL:
SETUP:
MOVE INTO ACTION:
THE PROMISE IN THE PREMISE:
SHIT GETS REAL:
FINALE:
I start with a vague description and then I work through each step. The last part (SETUP to FINALE) is the actual plan. Usually I go through it in order, but this morning the ending was the clearest image in my mind, so I started there.
It usually takes ten minutes to fill it in, but that’s ten minutes well spent if I avoid floundering around when writing the first draft. And I don’t know, although I suspect, the editing will be quicker as well. So all in all, it seems like time well spent.
—
Pre-Production
Stories planned (total): 5
Production
Words written today: 1,159
Words written total: 23,070
Plus / Minus target: +2,070
Currently writing: Son of Mars
