After managing to drive myself crazy with my long list of open creative projects, I decided to change the habit of a lifetime and find out what it was like to focus for a limited period of time on one book.
Honestly:
I found it hard.
But I’ve also found it rewarding and oddly relaxing.
I put July aside to finish cleaning up the current draft of the novel. (If you’re new here, I’m talking about a cozy mystery I’ve been working on for a while.)
I tried not to read any non-fiction related to the topic of knowledge work, remote work, leadership etc, so that I wouldn’t get ideas for other projects, or decide to pop over into another book for a bit.
I also tried to stay away from podcasts about anything that didn’t have to do with fiction writing, or being a writer, though I continued listening to science ones and other non-businessy non-fiction.
I was away from base for a couple of weeks (which helps), and I did take a holiday at one point (which helps even more), but what helped most was having NO appointments with other people, which meant my “work head” could remain in one place.
Stepping Away
Those of you who’ve been around here for a while will know that I love quietening the mind over a jigsaw puzzle. And often, I’ll have many pieces lying around the edges of the puzzle, ready to be fitted in - but I can’t work out where they go.
Then, I’ll get up (I do these puzzles on the floor), do something else, grab something to eat, do some work, whatever, and then come back to the jigsaw.
THEN it becomes obvious where each of those pieces needs to go.
I found a similar thing with writing.
Going over a story with an Editor’s hat on is very different to writing. It’s a more technical and analytical exercise. That makes it difficult for me as, when I write, I try to free up my subconscious, otherwise very little comes up. So during this round of edits, I often got stuck, for example not knowing how to improve the ending of a chapter, or when I needed to add a piece of new action.
Then I remembered the jigsaw.
So I stepped away and… yes, most of the time, when I got back to the screen, I immediately saw the solution.
Playing with Claude
Another thing I did this month to keep my mind focused on this project, was avoiding generativeAI for two weeks. As has happened before, I missed my bot, but I stayed strong!
Once I was back at base, and in my normal work setup, I tapped into Claude’s robot brain to help me solve a technical problem.
In the story, the owner of a recording studio in London (write what you know!) has caught an employee purchasing gear through the studio’s accounts, with intent to sell it on. (This bit is not “write what you know”!)
Because there have already been some crimes in the studio, the owner, although he’s fond of the staff member, reports this to the police.
I needed to understand what the implications would be in different scenarios: for example, the difference between the employee being caught selling gear versus purchasing the gear with intent to sell. Would they be arrested, then released under caution? Does the owner have to press criminal charges for the employee to be arrested, etc etc.
I asked Claude all these questions and got some very plausible explanations. (If you’re curious and want me to share details around this, message me.)
As I progressed to the end of the story, I realised that the resolution scene (where the reader find out “who dunnit”) I’d mentioned how the employee who’d been arrested had also become a suspect in the other investigations. I wasn’t sure how this could happen, so I asked Claude for some reasons why this might play out.
I find generative AI to be great in these kind of use cases: it has enough information to help me , but, because all I’m doing is writing a cozy mystery, it’s ok if some of the information isn’t 100% correct. I just need to know I won’t loose the reader by suggesting something that is improbable or obviously wrong.
Culling my AI Use
Moving on.
Those of you who follow what’s going on with genAI will know that back in May, the latest version of ChatGPT was made free to all users. I’d been subscribed for about a year to ChatGPT Plus, in order to have access to the strongest model, but that didn’t seem necessary anymore. So I’ve stopped that subscription.
I know there will be some restrictions to how often I can use the model and how I can use it, and I’ve lost access to building my own GPTs (that’s ok!) and generating images through DALL-E.
I thought of keeping my subscription just to be able to continue creating images, but then I thought: 1) A lot of the time I create images for fun, and that consumes a lot of energy. I’m mindful of the impact of genAI usage, like I’ve always been mindful of the energy consumption of a google search. 2) I rarely need images. 3) If I REALLY need an image I can’t create, I’ll download one from a stock platform and 4) I’ve been neglecting my drawing, so this is a good chance to get back to it.
(On this last point, forgive this latest image, I need to go out for lunch now!)
So although I’ve cancelled my subscription to ChatGPT, I’m sticking with the one for Claude.
In Other News
I had a good back and forth session with Claude yesterday, cleaning up a piece I was writing for publication. It turned my waffling into a nice, concise, quotable chunk of words.
My friend Bree and I are using Claude as our other co-author as we turn a series of podcast episodes into a book. It’s helping us stay motivated (we can write even when we’re not feeling at our most creative) and I have a feeling it’s going to help us find a unified style throughout, even if we’re each in charge of different chapters. (Lots of “ch’s” in that sentence!) If you want to know more about this project, let me know.
I’m also really looking forward to feeding it my cozy mystery and get some feedback and suggestions for the story.
But first, it’s time to Step Away from the manuscript for a while, so that I can come back to the full thing with fresh eyes, to spot all the plot holes and unresolved threads.
Meanwhile, it’s time to Dive Into one of the other projects, which is also dragging, but also more than half way towards a decent first draft. Time to put my non-fiction hat on, and get personal with All the World’s a Workplace.
More on that, next time!
Thanks so much for being part of my reflection process, and helping me develop my writing voice. Do reach out as you’ve been doing, it’s motivating, and it broaden’s my mind! If you have any questions or content suggestions, let me know.