#being-a-writer — Public Fediverse posts

As a writer, AI has now given me access to services that were too expensive before

One day, when I can pull together some brain cells to form more organized thoughts, I’ll write about how I somehow accidentally became a content engineer and what in the world is it.

Now, we content people have a tendency to give ourselves fancy titles. Sometimes I feel there’s an element of insecurity in there, but my theory is that we are trying to tell recruiters that there are many specialisations in the writing field and there’s no such thing as “a writer that can write everything”.

For example, just because you have been a copywriter for years doesn’t mean you can automatically write UX copy and software documentation. These are specialised fields; the skill required to write both takes time to develop.

But reality, as you know, is different. In Malaysia, especially, companies are keen to hire the “all in one” writer who writes everything. I’ve even been this writer for a company or two.

Although I occasionally whinge about the unfairness of shouldering that kind of burden, I have to admit that having worked that role many times have made me extremely flexible when the AI age came around.

There’s no, “But I’m a [insert specialised title] not a [new thingy].” My attitude is, “Aight, what’s this new thing I have to learn so that I can get on with it?”

So this season, the new thingy is AI, or to be more precise LLMs and generative AI.

Last week I built the editorial planning app of my dreams (okay, it still has a few bugs that need to be ironed out) and a skill that would automatically create PDFs out of Confluence docs. I felt like a superhero at the end of the week. I’ve tried to tweak, bend and stopped short at smashing my Jira subscription to get an editorial planning tool out of it. Last week I gave up and decided to just build something new. The fact that I managed to get a workable app in three days was an absolute miracle to me.

I was thinking to myself that this app wouldn’t have been possible if not for Claude Code (and other AI). Before, the app would’ve probably taken months to launch. The ping-ponging, meetings, chat messages, JIra tickets that would fly back and forth just to communicate the product specs would’ve taken weeks. I don’t even think a company would greenlight such a project because it would take engineers away from precious projects that actually pay the bills.

But I built this app in three days.

THREE DAYS!

So, is AI genuinely useful to me? Oh yes.

Has it made me more productive? Yup. I am now able to do things in a few days when it would’ve taken weeks to do them.

SO, I find it odd and disconcerting to step into a whirlpool of angry words about AI each time I log into social media after experiencing such personal delights.

Generally, I try to stay out of it, and remind myself that these angry people are based in a land where they have very good reasons to be mad at AI and the companies that push it.

However, because of my tendency to process my thoughts by writing, I’ve been writing about AI a lot lately (rather gushily, I have to admit), and I’ve been attracting angry people as a result.

I don’t know most of them, and honestly I have no idea why they are so angry at me, but they probably see me as a symbol of everything wrong in the world today. I guess?

In real life, things couldn’t be more different. I’m surrounded by people who are optimistic and excited about AI. Heck, I have a 75-year-old friend who is running courses teaching seniors how to use AI!

There’s a huge (clumsy) push by my government to make AI a thing and in Asia, people are generally pretty optimistic and interested about AI in general.

Social media is not real life, I tell myself over and over again.

It is true, however, that my writing has changed on this website as a result. I write more about tech, more about AI, but that’s because I work in the tech industry, am surrounded by friends and colleagues who love using AI, am learning mostly AI skills these days. However most of all, I write about AI more because I’m genuinely having fun with it.

Work, and even writing has been more fun with AI. LLMs have enriched my life so much. The dream of just finishing my novels and putting it out there? It has become more possible thanks to the tech I have at hand.

FYI I’ve actually completed three novels, all written before ChatGPT debuted, but couldn’t put it out there because I just lacked the time and money to edit them and give them decent covers. I spent thousands on the first book, and thinking of the effort it would take to do the same for the second and third book just made me wilt. I’ve worked with human editors and graphic designers, and to be honest, I wasn’t super satisfied with the results I got from the money I spent. I have many authors telling me that I didn’t spend enough which is why I got the results I got. Goodness, I don’t have a sugar daddy to fund a book project that most probably would never break even!

Over the years, work got more demanding and my books remained finished unpublished. I actually worry that one day the files are so corrupted that I won’t be able to open them!

I don’t expect to make money from these novels. I want to put them out there because I hate unfinished business. I have books and short stories sitting in my hard drive and that doesn’t sit right with my.

Before, time , money and energy were my barriers to editing and packaging them into a format that the public can consume.

Now, with AI, I can finally do it affordably and decently.

Yes, there will be those who would rudely cancel and tar me with feathers for even using an AI cover or editing it with AI.

But it’s okay, they don’t have to read my novels. In fact, I’ve always been a weird one; I never really cared how many people read my novels or works.

I get the most joy in completing and experiencing the act of creation. Sure, I appreciate praise and feedback for my readers, but my driving force has always been the act of completion and creation.

So, I cannot wait to finally push out my novels. The only thing stopping me now is wondering if I should serialise it first, and not knowing how to do this.

Note: Please be respectful when leaving comments. I am happy to receive comments that are not aligned to my beliefs or thoughts, but I only welcome those that are respectful. My mission is to create a safe space for discourse in my comments section, so I will remove rude and antagonistic comments.

A day in a life of the AI-assisted technical content writer

I find it hilarious that when I search for “working writer” on Pexel, they serve me numerous images of serious-looking people with typewriters. Honey, we’ve moved on from that, but I’ll use it because of the romanticism of it all. In truth, I work with two monitors, a mouse and a mechanical keyboard hooked up to a laptop that constantly reminds me of yet another Jira and chat notification. A steady drip of coffee throughout the day is essential for brain power.

First, a caveat: There’s no such thing as a typical work day for me. Some days I go all-in with content creation. Some days are meeting-heavy days. Other days I plan and manage the content pipeline.

The day I’m highlighting is a “content creation” and “content management” day. Here’s how it can go:

9am: I am in the office with a cup of coffee.

From 9 to 5pm I may be doing the following:

• Bob, one of my agents, has a daily brief ready for me in a chat room. The report helps me get caught up as it tells me what’s been happening in chat rooms and emails while I was asleep. I take note of requests and personal DMs. I may have to rejig the quarterly editorial plan if I get an urgent content request.
• After reading the brief, I send an agent to create a fact pack for a project I’ll be writing about. We have a rich, well-maintained knowledge base it can use.
• While my agent is running around, I’m working with my chosen AI coding agent (it could be Antigravity, Claude Code) to discuss the editorial calendar app I’m building with it.
• Once I get the fact pack project, I’ll evaluate the report to see if the project is “ready” to be turned into content.
• If the project is ready, I’ll evaluate every single claim of the report to ensure its accuracy.
• 12pm. I break for lunch
• Then I’ll write the outline for the case story with my brain and fingers because it’s important to encode that information in my head..
• If I feel like it I will ask another agent to expand the outline to the case study format I’ve told it to use.
• Then I will revise that prototype like crazy.
• Once the draft is ready I’ll use another agent who serves as a beta-reader (from the perspective of our target audience), a “third eye” to critique the draft to surface any missing perspectives/points
• I revise again
• Then once I’m satisfied, I launch a copyeditor agent. If I’m fairly confident I just go straight to a proofreading agent.
• The copy is now ready for review. I update the necessary job tickets.
• The day ends with me going for a walk towards the nearby town centre for dinner.

Okay, I wouldn’t call this a typical day. It’s a fairly intense content-creation day. But it’s VERY possible thanks to the AI assistance.

Usually I prefer to do this entire workflow in two days: One day for creation, another day for evaluation and revision. Different days for different brain modes. It’s kinder on the brain.

In a typical company, a team may execute this workflow. Now, I have a whole content team (and even an engineer bot) to help me. What used to take an entire week or more can be condensed into 1-3 days.

I am still the boss and I still write heavily.

You are probably wondering: why not hire people to fill those roles AI is doing?

Yes, ideally it’ll be great to have a team.

But what makes you think every company has the luxury to hire an entire team for content purposes?

In my career, I’ve had roles where I’m the solo tech writer/writer. All-in-one, jack-of-all-trades content roles are common in Malaysia because local companies tend to be very lean.

If you have a human team to support you, all the better!

All stripes of writers, whether they are tech writers, content marketers or managers, whether they have a team or not, can benefit from the assistance of AI, especially if they know how to use them well.

However, this will be a game-changer for that solo, all-in-one content manager and marketer; it’ll enable them to work with support, even if it’s just a bot.

Enterprise content management and creation is very complex, so I cannot say that AI will turn everything into nirvana overnight for content professionals.

Used improperly, it will still be more work than help. And if expectations are unrealistic, content professional will still be burned out by the demands.

But a company that understands the role LLMs play in assisting content creation will really stand to benefit from it.

PS: I always try to offer a more realistic view of the profession, not a rainbows and kittens idea of how it’s like to be a writer in enterprises. You can read more below:

https://elizabethtai.com/2026/08/19/life-as-a-techwriter-in-the-ai-age/

Excited and exhausted: My honest take about life as a techwriter in the AI age

A few weeks ago, I admitted to my online tech writer friend Fabrizio of Passo.uno that I  wrote a whiny journal entry about how overwhelmed I was about the amount of things I have to learn about AI.

At the end of the conversation, I asked him to write a blog post about how we technically inclined writers can cope with the speed of change in AI tech and learn fast.  He kindly obliged me in a day, writing this fantastic post: Advice for tech writers on a job hunt in the AI age

I love his suggestions, especially #2, which is my favorite way to learn: create your own projects. I found #1 a bit challenging. Books and courses are my go-to way of learning. But it’s true what he said: things are changing so fast now that by the time a book is out, it’s already old news. 

How I first reacted to LLMs

Before I talk about how overwhelmed I feel about the amount of learning I had to do, I’ll have to go back to the past a bit.

When AI first landed, and I saw what ChatGPT could do, my heart sank. I knew that the content profession would change yet again. It was particularly discouraging  back then because I was just getting my feet steady as a technical writer. Although I was pretty confident my profession would never disappear, I knew that layoffs were coming. 

Like most writers then, I was resentful of what Big Tech did with AI. However, I wasn’t exactly upset that they sucked up our work, and trained their AI with it. I was more upset that they did that and then locked the technology derived from our work behind paywalls. If we had a hand in creating the damn tech, we bloody well should have a right to the tech. Worse, since most of these services are denominated in US dollars, this left out a lot of the Global South people who had weaker currencies.

By placing LLM technology behind paywalls, they’re essentially creating an ecosystem of “haves” and “have-nots”. Those who can afford LLM tech (the richer folks) can advance in productivity and skills while the poorer ones are left in the dust.

Fortunately, the DeepSeek moment happened, and now open source LLMs are serious competition to these gated tech services. That’s why I’m pretty grateful to DeepSeek for the movement they sparked. Thanks to open source models, the Global South have a fairer shot at development and modernization now.

Anyway, I digress.

The DeepSeek moment melted away my resentment and I immediately knew that I had to upskill using AI. Fast. Fortunately, I’m a tech nerd who loves playing around with software, and have a natural inclination for learning software. Heck I write technical documentation and blog posts about technological services like app rationalisation, data centre to cloud migrations and stuff. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same for all writers.

A merciless time: Anti-AI writers will be left behind

Writers have not been exactly receptive about AI tech; the creative writing communities are especially virulent about the use of AI in your writing workflows. (Each time I write about using AI in my fiction writing workflows, I inevitably get aggressive hate-filled comments.)

It’s not just about generating copy; some don’t even want you to use AI to edit the copy, which is ironic since tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid have been using it pretty actively.

For those of us working in the professional content space, we don’t have the luxury to ignore AI or write Substack essays about why we hate it. It’s either learn the skills or have someone who knows AI skills replace you. It’s just the reality in the corporate world now.

I’ve been a professional writer since the 1990s when I was stringing for the national newspaper and writing ad copy for advertising agencies, “faxing” it to them via a clunky, beeping fax modem.

After being a journalist from 2000-2018 (with a break of a few years  in between when I had fantasies of being a nurse), I transitioned to the corporate world, working in corporate and government communications and then finally in the tech world where I’ve honed my skills as a technical communicator.

Having lived through the journalism profession’s collapse thanks to the Internet,  this is not my first rodeo with technology decimating my profession. When AI emerged with ChatGPT I sighed wearily knowing that I will have to go through a rough transition yet again.

AI has evolved so much and so quickly beyond ChatGPT’s debut in 2022. Now, it’s not about writing the best prompts anymore. Sure it’s still important, but we’ve entered the agentic era where the “AI native” is an orchestrator of agents. Meaning, people are now increasingly managers of “talent”. However, instead of a team of people beneath you, you now manage a team of AI agents. Your work is as good as the AI agents you build.

Many writers in the creative field—the novelists, the ones hoping for a traditional publishing deal—are still stuck with the notion that AI is a chatbot and people use it to generate whole novels with a click. They don’t realize that AI has moved on beyond that. Instead they are picking fights with writers who are trying to learn to improve their workflows with AI.

Yes, I’m annoyed by them, but  I also grieve for them. I 100% understand why they are behaving this way. But taking out your anger and frustrations at fellow writers isn’t productive. They spend all that energy trying to bring other writers down when they could be learning from them instead. 

They don’t realize how much they’re being left behind. Instead of spending their time and energy fighting writers who use AI in their workflows, they truly need to learn the tech because there’s an overwhelming amount to learn. The writers who are ahead of them in using the tech are freely sharing their knowledge online. They could learn from them instead of insulting them in the comments section.

I suppose the only saving grace for these writers is that most  are not corporate writers but write fiction etc. So, the consequences would not be as severe for their career growth. I hope.

This season, the new skill professional content folks like me have to learn is context engineering and content engineering. As our bosses learn about what AI can do, the pressure flows downwards to us content professionals to execute their vision. Sometimes their  vision is limited by the technology (meaning, we’re often not there yet), sometimes – and this is a danger to content professionals – it’s limited by the speed we can learn.

And here’s the thing, not every writer out there can learn AI tech easily.

I’ve spoken to some writers and they blank out the moment I say things like “instance” and “markdown”. For one, I’m still trying to convince most of them to have their own websites, but many reply that they prefer to use Facebook because it’s easier. So, what more using LLMs to increase their productivity?

Learning fast, learning messily

When I got over my resentment of LLMs, I had quickly started experimenting with the tools and learning the concepts. First with chatbots, then with IDEs and coding agents. I started keeping a prompt library, then building AI workflows, continuing tweaking them when they turned out disastrous output. I looked for use cases from those generous enough to document them online and tried to replicate what they did.

There was no teacher, no guide. I only had my learning abilities to help me. Fortunately, having transitioned from journalism to content strategy and then technical writing and UX copywriting with YouTube videos, blog posts, books and quick-and-dirty experiments, I’ve had a lot of practice.

The fortunate thing about our age is that free content is everywhere. Yes, some content creators will tease you that they will teach you everything about AI only to gate their most important resource behind a $1000 course. Fortunately, we have many who are willingly putting out content that could power a course freely on YouTube and in their blogs. If you’re good with research, you can dig out many free resources on the Internet. On top of that, Big Tech, eager for more people to use their tools, are putting out valuable courses – often free. Take them.

So, that’s how I’ve been learning. From content creators on YouTube or blog spaces, from  Google and Anthropic courses. By running clumsy experiments.

However, lately, all this seems not enough.

Perhaps it’s due to my flagging energy levels due to a health issues a few months ago. Perhaps it’s  due to absorbing and being exposed to the hate, vitriol and blather from the fellow writers in the writing world as I try to learn and document my journey. Perhaps it’s an accumulation of all  this and managing the increasing expectations that I can 10x  my personal or work content workflows. (It’s still unrealistic; people need to understand how much human involvement is crucial in content creation. “Human taste” is hard to quantify or replicate with AI.)

The truth is, I’m tired, I need a break, but the AI companies are not giving me one and neither is the industry, whose expectations of its workers are rising by the day.

So, yes, when I had that conversation with Fabrizio, I was burned out having to juggle all of this. Fabrizio wanted me to turn my whiny journal entry into a blog post, and I told him I definitely would but I wanted to sit with it so that the blog post won’t turn out to be a mere rant and my version of old content writer yelling at the clouds.

I wanted this post to be a letter of sorts to my fellow  professional writers out there – I see you, I get what you’re going through. It’s bloody tough, but somehow we will get through this. I will try to help as best as I can.

As for me, I don’t want to just continue the way I am at hyperspeeds, burning myself out. What I need is a better learning strategy and a better way to manage the stress levels.

My realization: Learning needs to be more focused and deliberate

A while back I read a story about this software engineer who told his wife  that he needed her to take care of the kids and do the homework more so that he can focus on being an AI native in his tech company.

In an industry where software engineers are being laid off almost every day, I can almost hear the desperation in his voice even if the feminist in me wants to throw up in the corner at the sacrifice he’s asking of his wife.

So, right after he came back from work, he would spend hours at night studying and running projects with AI.

Fortunately, he managed to become one of the few AI natives in his company. Whether he has gone back to doing his share of childcare is debatable, however.

Unfortunately for me, I do not have a hubby to ask this favour, so I have to make do. 

But, it got me thinking – what am I wasting time on that I could use to learn the skills I need to be AI native?

Unlike SWEs, I don’t have the technological foundation in programming to give me a leg up. So, my learning curve is much higher. On top of that, most of the videos and resources about AI are targeted at software engineering. This meant that I needed to be more focused and deliberate in my learning.

One thing for sure, is that I need to be stricter with my consumption of information. What’s the point of listening to an hour of an Ed Zitron anti-AI podcast if all it does is annoy and amuse me? Do I really need to listen to YouTubers and podcasters who constantly hype up or rant about the newest AI models (especially since it does nothing for writing), latest controversy/scandal or Big Tech “sin”? 

So I need to trim out this unhelpful (albeit extremely entertaining) content, because that hour of listening could be used to learn the latest skill.

Another thing: I’ve been learning “between the cracks of life”. For example, watching a YouTube video while on the train, while wolfing down lunch or as I nod off to sleep.

As a result, I’ve not systematically documented what I’ve learned nor do I have a proper strategy in studying or retaining what I learned. Which means constantly forgetting what I’ve learned and losing precious resources. So, that meant a) scheduling deliberate blocks of time to learn, perhaps during the weekends b) a systematic way of documenting what I learned.

There’s also the added layer of “advertising” yourself as an AI native. Sure, you can build agentic workflows for content, but do people know about it? Writers are often icky about self promotion, but in our age I think it’s not just smart but unavoidable. The loudest gets noticed. The loudest gets the jobs.

It’s a LOT.

If SWEs are overwhelmed, imagine us content professionals whose resources are thin and often gated behind expensive courses.

My next action steps:

1. Stop consuming unhelpful (and toxic) content about AI.
2. Schedule a block of time during the weekend to learn a specific skill.
3. Document what I learn in Obsidian.
4. Build more AI projects.
5. Learn in public by teaching others what I’ve learned. (It’s the best way to bake the learning in your brain, and it’s a way of giving back to the community.)
6. Start owning the content engineer label because by golly I’m already doing the work of a semi-AI engineer might as well call myself.

If you’re a content professional, how are you managing your work and upskilling efforts in the age of AI?

My article was No.1 on Hacker News

A couple of weeks ago, Fabrizio of Passo.uno dropped me a message on LinkedIn and told me that my article, “Substack writers, you need a website!“, was No.2  on Hacker News. I thought he was pulling my leg. 

I checked Hacker News and indeed it was true: My essay was on the front page. By the time I checked, it had dropped to No.6, but I visited hnrankings.info to check the historical movement of the essay and saw that I was actually No.1 for a brief period. 

I was absolutely stunned. 

For one, although I do write about technical issues as a technical content writer and as a personal hobby, I am not technical-technical, if you know what I mean. Hacker News, the digital rag of SWEs around the world, highlights essays that I sometimes can barely comprehend. So, to be No.1 on that website is something I don’t even dream about. 

It’s also a bit ironic, because the content of the blog post itself kind of proved my point. Before Hacker News picked up my post, it was actually selected by WordPress.com to be placed on the front page of its Freshly Pressed page. That was already a big deal for me.

When WordPress.com decided to highlight my post, I didn’t realize it. One day I just randomly noticed that the post was getting way more comments than I was used to. Usually I get about five or six comments at most, but on that day I discovered I had 50 comments. I thought maybe it was a fluke, or that somehow the topic had just resonated with people. Then I saw an email from WordPress.com telling me that I was selected to be featured on their Freshly Pressed page. I got a lot of eyeballs due to that, which was great and made me pretty happy.

I firmly believe it is because of what WordPress did that I got noticed by the person who shared my article on Hacker News.

This would not have happened if I had published the post on Substack. For one, Substack tends to promote its superstars (i.e. those with a lot of subscribers, paid, preferably, and often not from my part of the world. Ahem.) Also, I doubt it’ll promote a post urging writers not to use Substack as their digital homes!

Still, it proves my point that promotional channels are equally important. If not for WordPress’s Discover page and Hacker News, I probably would not have been noticed at all. 

Curiously, my Substack post highlighting the essay, Writers, don’t make Substack your digital home! is getting an uptick of comments lately. 32 comments so far! Highly unusual as I usually get less than a dozen comments, and usually from my usual readers. (FYI, I usually offer a bite-sized, behind-the-scenes version of the essay on my Substack, and invite readers to read the full essay.)

I think my essay coincided with a zeitgeist moment. I happened to write about Substack days before they rolled out their new Pangram AI detection feature. 

People were already fed up about the state of platforms in general – what Cory Doctorow famously calls enshittification.  Pangram was  an “I’ve had it” moment for many Substackers already weary of being tossed around by lack of moderation, algorithms, rules and now a feature that may subject them to witch hunts. Pangram was the last straw.

Why writers need a website they own

My article, “Substack writers, you need a website!” was something I wrote out of frustration from what I’ve been seeing.

A lot of Substack writers are far too dependent on the platform to house their content. As the platform introduces more and more features they don’t like, many are complaining on the feed.

My frustration is borne out of the fact that many don’t seem to be aware that they can escape this “loop of doom,” so to speak. They don’t have to be trapped in this situation nor do they need to treat the platform as an be-all and end-all. 

I also noticed that a lot of writers seem to think they can only choose between having their own website or being on Substack. The truth is, writers need to have a digital home that they own, and digital home means owning a domain name. It doesn’t matter what you build your site on—whether it’s WordPress, Ghost, or even Substack, really—as long as you have the domain name, you own the content. It’s like an address you keep forever. 

However, if you don’t have a domain and your content lives on something like xx.substack.com or xx.wordpress.com, then the domain authority or “SEO juice” doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to those platforms. That’s why I’ve always championed the fact that you need to have your own website. 

But a lot of writers I speak to are reluctant to do that, mostly because they are not technically inclined and feel overwhelmed by the thought of creating their own site. Perhaps it was incredibly hard to create a website in the 1990s, but it’s really much easier right now. There are so many services out there that can help you build your website without a speck of coding on your part. Heck, you can even vibe code a simple static website with ChatGPT if you want.

I realise I’m talking from the point of view of a technically inclined person. I work in tech, use software that would probably make most writers cross-eyed, and even build AI workflows in my company. But I’m telling you, it is not as difficult as you think. 

For example, many would probably blink at my choice of hosting my website on WordPress.com. Although I have the technical skills to create my own static website—and did indeed build one at one point—I prefer to have other people manage it for me so that I can concentrate on writing. I chose WordPress.com because it’s one of the most common content management systems (CMS) on the internet. If WordPress.com doesn’t work out, I can easily port my website to another provider. 

One day in the future, perhaps when I’m retired (because right now I’m too busy to even think about it), I hope to build my own static website so that my content is in Markdown first and then ported to the internet. But right now, the thought of doing that makes me tired because I have literally thousands of articles on my website. I’ve been publishing on elizabeththai.com since 2012 and have never really stopped, so it’s almost a 15-year footprint to port over. It’s not something you do lightly. 

P.S. I have actually managed a few content migrations from one CMS to another for companies I’ve worked for, and I can tell you that each of them made me sweat bricks because they’re often not compatible. And even if they have an exporter feature, you’d have to clean up bugs and mangled content. If I were to migrate my own site, I would probably get professional help because there are far too many things that can go wrong in the process. 

Still, some writers are not entirely convinced they need a website.

Many tell me they use Substack because they don’t get traffic to their own websites. Sure, that’s 100% true. Putting up a website doesn’t mean you’ll automatically  get more traffic. In fact, it’ll often be the opposite due to the way the Internet is right now with SEO, and worsened by the fact that AI is now bypassing search engines by recommending websites instead. (Right now, corporations are having a headache trying to ensure their content gets recommended by the “answer engines”.)

I don’t get much traffic to my website most of the time (proof below); I’ll be surprised if I get a few hundred views a month. Perhaps I’m weird, but I do not care about traffic nor do I care how many subscribers I have. I care about my content having a home. I care about my content having an address that I own—meaning my own domain. 

So, the key for writers is to stop focusing on subscriber count or traffic. Focus instead on quality readers and engagement. Do your subscribers engage with your content? Leave comments? If you have only 100 subscribers but 30% of them talk to you via comments or social media, that’s far more valuable than having 100000 subscribers and no one bothers to engage with your content.

And whether your content goes viral and reaches tens of thousands of readers or not, don’t you want that traffic to go back to your website where people can discover your other content?

Having a digital home means that when one of your posts does go viral (whether recommended by sites like Hacker News or a Claude chatbot), people can find the rest of your work. Maybe they’ll even become a loyal subscriber.

In that essay, I pointed out that writers like John Scalzi have been blogging since the dawn of the internet. His digital footprint is massive, spanning decades. He has stated that his website will always be his home; while Twitter shuts down or other platforms fall, his website will always be there because he owns it. I want this for all writers. 

It is pretty cool to have reached number one on Hacker News, but I fully expect my traffic to literally tank after this. Being viral is not eternal. I don’t chase clout, nor do I chase traffic or subscribers. What I value most is having a home that I can control, and that to me is far more valuable than anything else. I hope this is the lesson I can transmit to every writer debating whether they need to have a website.

Still, having my essay be No.1 on Hacker News is a feather in my cap, and as a writer I feel incredibly proud that my article has helped people think, debate and judging from the comments beneath the Hacker News post, quarrel (lol). 

If you’re a writer on the fence, I hope that you will build your own digital home in the future. It’s one of the best ways to secure your content legacy.

#typedPage #typedThoughts #writing #writer #writers #BeingAwriter #annoyances #job #workingWriter #myJobIsAuthor #selfEmployed

Substack writers, you need a website!

“But I already have a website on Substack,” you argue.

No, no, Substack is just a distribution tool to amplify your website. It should not be your digital home.

In the last few years, I’ve noticed a pattern of writers leaving their websites to make Substack their digital home.

Now, it’s kinda okay if they have bought a domain and linked it to Substack. (Meaning, it’s better than nothing.)

Rachel from Conscious Living is a good example. This way, Substack more or less functions like a content management system (CMS) for you.

However, compared to other CMS it’s very limited, such as the ability to manage your SEO and customize your pages to add more features, but I digress. If you just want a fuss-free platform, this is one way to get it and Substack’s conditions for domains are very reasonable and cost-efficient. As I will explain later, this could change on a dime without warning.

However, there are some writers who are saying: “Hey readers, I’m now writing on Substack, so head on over there (and ignore my website)!”

Some writers do have a website, but link to their Substacks, calling them their “blogs”. If your Substack has a domain name they own, it’s okay, but if it’s xx.substack.com, Substack is saying “All your content are belong to us”.

In conclusion: Writers, don’t do this. It’s short-sighted and unwise and can derail your long-term visibility on the Internet.

The siren call of convenience

Every few years, the internet convinces writers that a new digital paradise has arrived. First, it was social media like Facebook. Then blogging networks like Tumblr. Then it was Medium. More recently, it’s been Substack.

Platforms promise us an eager audience, built-in monetization, a smooth user interface, and a supportive community. As a writer who just wants to focus on writing, it’s incredibly tempting to hand over the keys to our creative kingdoms and let these portals handle everything. (Believe me, I gave in at one point. For years, I just stopped blogging altogether and even gave up a domain that had high traffic! But I got back in 2012 and never left.)

However, this is the truth that has not changed since the dawn of the Internet: When you build your audience entirely on someone else’s platform, you aren’t a homeowner. You are a tenant. Or worse, a digital sharecropper.

And corporate landlords always change the rules eventually. It’s not personal, it’s just business.

The illusion of the safe space

It’s easy to feel secure when a platform is in its golden era. But we’ve watched the downfalls of Twitter, the policy shifts of Reddit, and the changing tides of algorithmic networks. Relying blindly on a centralized portal not owned by you means your life’s work can alter overnight based entirely on a corporate boardroom decision.

When I looked at how fragile our digital ecosystems really are, I realized I needed a space that wouldn’t go “poof” because a company needed to please its investors or shareholders. This realization completely changed my approach, pushing me to protect my content by learning to blog the IndieWeb way.

Your writing needs a permanent homebase—a domain that you own and control. Full stop.

Moving from “renting” to syndicating

The biggest pushback I hear from writers is: “But my website doesn’t have an audience! Substack does.”

But you don’t have to completely abandon social media or platforms like Substack to protect your autonomy (personally, I prefer the word sovereignty but it does sound a tad dramatic).

You just need to change the order of operations. Instead of publishing directly to a portal, you can shift your mindset to POSSE: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. (I explain the POSSE/PESOS method in an older post.)

By treating your website as the definitive source of truth and using platforms simply as distribution pipes, you get the best of both worlds. I dug deep into this shift when I committed to being an imperfect gardener of my digital garden, exploring how a less market-y way of presenting my content online let me share my wild garden of thoughts without dancing to the algorithm.

A reality check on platform hype

If you are still holding out hope that Substack is “different” from the social platforms that came before it, let’s look at the numbers and behaviors behind the marketing copy.

After spending a significant amount of time observing the platform ecosystem firsthand, I wrote a brutally honest takeaway in What I learned from one year of Substack. The network effects are real, but so is the pressure to conform to what the platform’s ecosystem favors.

This post, by the way, desperately needs to be updated because things have gotten much, much worse since I wrote it.

When you hand your content over to a platform, you have to conform to their rules and their localized biases. For those of us writing from outside the dominant US-centric echo chambers, platform algorithms heavily prioritize specific western narratives, making it incredibly tough for localized or minority voices to be seen unless they conform.

I wrote about this exact frustration recently in Linkblog: Dwelling on the Internet, highlighting how algorithmic complacency forces us into homogenized bubbles.

The flip side – the writers who refused to leave their websites

Each time there’s a new drama on some platform, and writers are shaking their sabers and declaring that they will leave for yet another social media platform they don’t control, I think about writers like John Scalzi.

As of date, John scalzi has been blogging on https://whatever.scalzi.com/ for 28 years!

This sci-fi novelist has maintained a single independent website continuously for nearly three decades; this makes him one of the longest-running, most consistent original bloggers on the internet. Imagine the amount of digital footprint on that website! Unbroken by time or platforms.

(Specifically, he uses wordpress.com like I do, as we both don’t want to bother with the pain of setting up your own self-hosted wordpress website and just want the folks at Automattic to do it.)

He blogs in the classic Indieweb way, though I doubt he is even aware he’s doing it. He treats his social media channels such as X or Bluesky as a way to amplify his website. All roads lead back to https://whatever.scalzi.com/, and this is something I wish every single writer would do.

He wrote recently in Various & Sundry, 6/3/26:

this site acts as my own institutional memory, if I post something about it here it constitutes an official record. I mean, all the posts I ever placed on the former Twitter are now entirely lost to time, since I have gone in and purged my entire timeline there. This site, however, endures. – John Scalzi

Breaking free from platform blues

Trying to adapt your presence across various platforms in an ever-shifting digital landscape is exhausting. One minute a platform is a writer’s darling; the next, it’s being boycotted. Railing against a platform’s focus shift or the presence of (long sigh) Nazis is a useless endeavor.

As I noted in Linkblog March 12, 2026: Platform blues, chasing platform purity is an illusion. Tech will change, corporate algorithms will continue to prioritize profit over human connection, and platforms will continue to cycle through hype and decline.

The antidote to this exhaustion isn’t moving to the next shiny new app. It’s anchoring your work on an independent website with open distribution channels like RSS. It also means ruthlessly using platforms as distribution channels. When one collapses or you prefer to just move, it’s easy to just change strategies because your digital home remains unchanged.

Use platforms to find your readers, but bring them back to your house. It’s time to stop digital sharecropping on rented land.

Featured photo is by vivek vk on Unsplash

8 Creative Writing Hacks to Leapfrog Your Next Hurdle

Here are eight creative writing hacks to help novelists and short story writers finish their books and tackle their hard-to-hurdle obstacles. Written by Joe Walters, author of The Truth About Book Reviews.
The post 8 Creative Writing Hacks to Leapfrog Your Next Hurdle appeared first on Independent Book Review.
https://independentbookreview.com/2026/06/05/8-creative-writing-hacks-to-leapfrog-your-next-hurdle/

#Blog #OnWriting #Beingawriter #creativewriting #CreativeWritingHacks

Writing with AI isn’t always generating entire novels with a prompt

Sometimes, I get frustrated with the writing community. I’ll casually post something about using AI for writing, and almost immediately, someone would drop a rude comment without finding out how I use AI to write!

They immediately jump to conclusions and think I generate novels with a click of a few buttons.

Yes, unfortunately there are some writers who do that.

Personally, I feel that generating 200 novels a year – even if you write fast before the age of AI – is not sustainable for the environment or for the mental health of the creator. I also highly doubt this method could produce something highly unique or impactful. I’m pretty sure very talented writers can, but they most probably cannot generate more than a dozen highly unique works a year.

However, in the world of genre fiction, this factory line use of AI can work because some readers just like to read the same story, tropes, and plots as long as there’s enough variety to the plot or characters to keep them happy. (Let’s face it, we know readers like these exist and I even read these novels for relax sometimes.)

In the world of content engineering (which is what I actually do at work these days), these stories are said to have a specific content model which can be fed to LLMs to generate stories very quickly.

These stories serve a very hungry market. Readers of these types of novels read so fast writers can’t produce enough books for them. The writers perform a service whether you like it or not.

AI as a ghost writer?

As a reader and a writer of fiction and non-fiction, I personally do not agree with this way of using AI for writing because it reminds me too much of factory production.

I generally do not find the process of writing books like this fun at all. Nor do I generally read these type of books in volume; I like books that have a deeper meaning, and I definitely love books with beautiful prose.

However, I do not condemn nor heckle the writers who write novels this way, because it still takes a certain amount of effort and creativity to do this, and they serve a market that I don’t write for. Far be it for me to wag my finger at other writers whose process I don’t jive with.

These writers are essentially treating AI like ghost writers. In real life, many writers (James Patterson, anyone?) use ghost writers. Is it wrong to use ghost writers, human or AI? Well, I personally don’t think it’s wrong; it’ll be hypocritical of me to say so because I’ve ghostwritten for clients before.

It’s just business. That’s the cold, hard fact, so why get delicate about this.

These writers will find readers who will appreciate them.

You, who prefer not to write with AI, will find readers who will love you for this very fact.

And I, a writer who uses AI to assist me, will also find the readers who will appreciate me.

Basically, we are not competing for the same pool of readers, so why squabble as if there’s a limited pool of readers out there?

Using AI to write fiction looks different for everyone

Not ALL of us write like this. I certainly do NOT.

For one, I love crafting sentences. It’s a fun challenge for me. I especially like writing prose that makes people laugh and I like my romantic scenes subtle and filled with nuance. AI is never going to take that away from me, nor is it able to produce the kind of fiction I like to write.

Here’s how I use AI to write fiction and non-fiction:

For fiction, I generally use AI to bust my creative blocks or when I’m especially brain fog-gy. I write most of my prose, but I use this method when I’m especially blocked and can’t write a word:

• I create an agent that helps me write story beats for me by having a dialogue with me. I give it my current story beats for a scene, and then we have a long dialogue where it asks me questions. My replies will improve the depth of the story beats. Then, I use these story beats to generate a first draft.
• This first draft acts more like swipe files for me. If you work in the content profession, especially in advertising, you’d know that swipe files have been kept by writers for decades. I use to grab novels off my shelf and read it when I feel “dry” and need inspiration to write my prose. It’s usually a frustrating experience as it doesn’t fit what I need. (Swipe files for ad copy is much easier, due to the shorter lengths.) Now, I have a highly targeted swipe file that suits my scenario or the scene I want to write.
• I then rewrite the first draft extensively.

For non-fiction, I get very technical. I use a lot of content engineering principles. Content models. Schemas. Things like that, but here’s one favourite way – I usually use this for more casual internal blogs:

• I create an agent which will dialogue with me.
• I will go for a walk and just talk into an app that transcribes what I say.
• I activate the agent, feed it the transcript and it’ll dialogue with me, asking me a series of questions so I can clarify my thoughts.
• At the end of it, it’ll generate a post – I’ve created “guardrails” for it so that it will use up to 80% of the words in the transcript.

As you can see, I’m heavily involved in this process. My ideas. My words. AI is there to help me clarify my thoughts.

I also have an agent that critiques my work; I designed it so that it is a firm mentor who is hell bent on making me a better content engineer and writer. (I once asked it to generate an image of a website menu that we were working on together, and it responded with: “I’m your mentor. I don’t generate images for you. I tell you how to improve.”

I designed it a tad too well, I think hah!

So, you can see that there are so many amazing ways that writers can use AI with their writing.

AI use cases for writing are extremely diverse and exciting. It’s all about automating the parts you do not like and find tedious. (My favourite use case is transcribing my thoughts! I am very much a “talk it out” person, and writing blogs by talking it out has sped me up considerably.)

I wish more would be more open to the possibilities and expose themselves to AI use, experiment and stop hiding their heads in the sand. And if they do, stop attacking those who are, because that’s not going to stop writers like us from honing our skills further, so it’s pretty much a useless exercise.

Whinging about what “AI is doing to writers” and leaning into AI doomerism is about one of the most useless things to do with your keyboard now. I’m not saying that you should go to the extreme end and be an AI evangelist.

Instead of whinging and attacking other writers, it’s far more productive to:

• Start experimenting with AI and writing and automate the things you find tedious
• Lean in even more into your craft, and be the next Sun Tzu or Margaret Atwood
• Find a way to help readers to find the writers they’ll love. If there’s one damage that is being made to the writing world, is that the book world is getting insanely noisy due to the deluge of books being created. Obviously, the old ways of finding books to read isn’t working any more. We need to find a new way.

Linkblog March 26, 2026: On typing

Welcome to my Linkblog where I share interesting articles and blog posts I found about social media, Indieweb, geopolitics, Chinese and Malaysian stuff, cute cat videos or anything funny and interesting I find online.

FYI: I also share links in the “Weekend Tales” of my Substack newsletter, Tai Tales. The newsletter is geared towards Chinese and Malaysian culture.

PS: I felt it was appropriate for this issue to use AI-generated imagery 😉

Nostalgia for word processors

The Digital Dilemma: Why Writers Are Abandoning Modern Word Processing Software

“Modern word processors, like most contemporary internet spaces, have become battlegrounds for our attention.”

I long for the days when a word processor was just a blinking green thing on a black screen 🥲

Your Word processor is distracting you

Each time I use a web-based word processor, my blood pressure just goes up. These days you never get a peaceful moment when you’re writing on one of those. You get interruptions galore – hey, would you like a tour? Hey! Did you know about this feature? HEY! WE GOT AI NOW

That’s why I write with Obsidian these days. So peaceful. No bloody interruptions. I use it to write almost everything. Blog posts, work copy, fiction, newsletters.

Turning Obsidian into the ultimate writing app and

How to Use Obsidian for Writing and Productivity

Speaking of which, this is how you use Obsidian for writing.

Malaysia

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfnTcfquDnQ

We Malaysians sure love our malls. It’s our community centre, place of work … some malls even have condos above it!

Geopolitics

The three reasons why Americans aren’t rising up in open revolt

https://youtu.be/A6ptFXzx_JM?si=W–lBf_okNbKLsaM

It’s kinda depressing this video was released 12 years ago. At what point is “enough is enough”? 😅

Does AI “Threaten to Undermine Democracy” or is it already way too Broken?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLPWR4tTT_E

The intersection of tech and politics! I love the channel, Internet of Bugs, and this is such a solid take.

The Writing Community’s AI Panic

Another day, another storm in the writing community teacup!

The storm, this New York Times article: The New Fabio is Claude

TL;DR: Coral Hart uses AI to generate 200 books a year. This has made many writers mad, mad, mad.

(Somewhere in a glistening office tower is a very satisfied editor – the ragebait has worked as the article is widely discussed everywhere. KPI met!)

Coral Hart is just the newest “outrage” in a long list of “outrages” for writers.

If you’re as much of a social media hermit as I am, you’re probably unaware that the fiction writing community is currently being torn apart by those who use AI to write and those who aren’t.

I won’t go deep into the arguments for or against writers like Coral Hart right now, as this article is more about the writing community than AI and the answers are just a Google away.

Also, when I’m talking about the writing community, I’m talking about the online writing community that writes in English. They often come from countries such as the United States, Europe, and to a degree, Australia and New Zealand.

I personally do not know how the Malaysian fiction writing community is reacting to AI as I have limited contact with the community at large. (That’s another long story.)

How I reacted when AI became a thing

Like most writers, I was also resentful and upset, especially about the idea that our writing has been used to train AI without our permission.

But I’m a realist because I work in tech, and I have a realistic view of the technology. I have used AI for quite some time, even before ChatGPT became a thing.

Over time, my perspective changed as I found out how the technology worked, and calmed down. I am even experimenting with using AI to assist me when I write fiction.

Here’s the harsh truth: Either a writer is willing to adapt or they are not. Those who refuse will end up being behind, as they won’t be able to reap the benefits that AI gives a writer.

When you’re a working writer, you gotta face industry realities

On a practical level, at work, AI has been invaluable in helping me learn concepts faster. I’ve also created agents and accelerated my writing workflows because of it.

A powerful AI search bot on a knowledge base with rich data has been game-changing for me as well. (No more begging for stuff from colleagues and waiting for days to receive them!)

AI is also discussed in societies differently. In the West, doomerism prevails. In the East, especially China, there’s lots of optimism and it is now actively used in smart factories and hospitals. There are different types of AI, and LLMs are just one of them, so for the purpose of this article I’ll be focusing on LLMs.

These regional cultural attitudes will affect how AI is received in writing communities.

At the end of the day, AI is just technology—neither inherently good nor bad.

Writing communities have always been prone to toxicity; AI is just the newest trigger

To be honest, the fiction writing community has always been toxic to me. Even in Malaysia.

They’re always squabbling and attacking each other for one reason or another. During the early days of indie publishing, traditionally published authors sniffed at indie published authors, saying they’re not real writers. Now, it’s writers who are using AI assistance that are “not real writers”.

I’m not sure what it is about the writing craft and why its communities are like that. I have a theory that this is because writing, as a craft, is so closely tied to one’s ego. So, anything that threatens that makes people go crazy.

I’m a working writer (like, I literally write for media and corporations). I have been writing professionally for decades. Not only has my ego been pulverised by sharp-tongued editors and scathing reviews, I have no time for this shit. I need food on the table, so I need to write, end of story.

I prefer to use my limited free time to practice my craft – write fiction free of the demands of a cash till or boss. I don’t have time to reply or write posts in forums or social media defending my ego or hoping to get some understanding from a community that is often fighting among themselves.

During the early days of indie publishing, traditionally published authors sniffed at indie published authors, saying they’re not real writers. Now, it’s writers who are using AI assistance that are “not real writers”.

One thing I noticed lately, especially on Substack, is that many anti-AI writers have ended up bullying writers who do.

Frankly, I have no idea why people do this. What will that accomplish? How will that improve anything? Their anger should be directed at the tech giants who impose technology without understanding its impact on creatives, or at governments that refuse to regulate.

Honestly, it is not worth arguing with these bullies because they are too fearful of a technology they do not understand. The right thing to do is to block them because your energy is precious—you need to use it to create, not engage with people who refuse to do their own research and dare to experiment with this technology to truly understand what it means.

Unless these bullies who come hurling nasty words at you truly understand what AI does, they shouldn’t bully others about it. They only reveal their own lack of knowledge and understanding.

If a writer is hungering for community, especially one that uses AI to support their work, the best thing is to get it from small pockets of like-minded writers. Big is not always better.

The disability perspective

Another common narrative is that AI isn’t solving real problems but creating problems to solve.

For one, and I will continue being annoying about this, I have seen how it helps neurodivergent communities or those with cognitive problems, even in the creative field. Their struggles are valid, even if they aren’t always visible. Let’s not dismiss their problems so quickly just because their issues seem incomprehensible or not real to neurotypicals.

Ethical AI use?

As for writers who use AI, they must decide for themselves how they want to use it.

Sadly, due to the hostility against AI in the fiction writing community, I’ve come to believe it’s not worth announcing that you use AI.

One, writers don’t need validation for the tools we choose.

Two, I find these arguments around AI a bit silly. We’ve been using AI long before LLMs became a thing. People argued that spell checkers weren’t AI, but modern versions definitely are. AI has done a lot for knowledge management, a field I work in and love. It makes knowledge sharing easier and information more accessible.

What we need to discuss

What we really need to discuss are the rampant capitalistic forces that are driving this hype and the safeguards that are sorely needed to protect jobs, creative works, and societal stability.

We need to discuss the production-driven, “we need to write more books faster” culture that is now festering in indie publishing.

We need to come up with a better way to matchmake books and authors with their destined readers.

But no, writers are fighting with each other.

And the powers that be continue with a grin, knowing that their profits are still coming in because the writing community is as divided as ever.

I just know there would be a writer or two who would probably come at me and yell that I’m supporting Coral Hart or all for generating novels with AI due to my Guide to writing fiction with AI, all because I have written such a guide and I’m not raising my pitchfork at Coral.

Which, of course, makes me question the reading comprehension abilities of writers who claim to write professionally, sometimes. I will address my reaction to Coral’s situation, and what I think about generating 200 novels a year in my next post, promise.

Does AI help you work  faster or is  it just hype?

With all the research coming out saying that no, it doesn’t, you’d think my answer would be a definite no.

Instead, I’m going to be annoying and say: It depends.

For AI to help you accelerates work, the user needs to use it the right way.

Yes, it all depends on how well the user uses AI, and also, whether the user has the domain expertise in their field to ensure that what comes out of AI doesn’t require extensive rework.

I can only speak from my personal experience.

For me, I think AI does accelerate writing work but not in the way you think. (Meaning: Generate reams of text and voilà, work is over.)

The main benefit of AI for me is that it eases cognitive burden. That it allows writers to create without burning out. Writers like me, anyway, whose day job involves writing cognitively demanding copy about highly technical concepts 😅.

In the past, my work took so much cognitive and creative energy out of me that there was often nothing left for my personal creative work. So, I often had to sacrifice my personal writing.

If my blog, newsletters, or social media posts drop off – it’s usually a sign that things got so busy at work that there’s little energy or creative juice left for me to create for myself.

However, these days, these furloughs are getting rarer, and this is due to the ability of AI to now help me with things that drain me, I can focus on things that matter to me.

I like writing so AI is never going to be my ghostwriter; I won’t let it take that away from me.

That’s part of the reason why I don’t pay for AI services because I don’t really rely on it to generate much text.

Writers often subscribe to models if they want to generate a lot of text as the free versions do not generate a large amount of text.

The open source Deep Seek is enough for me, because I use it mostly for planning, organizing my thoughts and to do detail-oriented work like editing. I also realize that I like to dictate my writing and I often use AI to help me organize my thoughts. And then I fix it by rewriting it. This has accelerated my blogging and writing by quite a bit.

Oddly, I can’t do all this with fiction. I find it too weird to dictate a scene, so if I do use an AI transcriber like Otter.ai, it’s usually to flesh out the story beats for my chapter, and then use AI as a sophisticated swipe file to start my writing.

And yes, I still write my fiction with my own fingers!

With that cognitive savings I gained from using AI, I can now write fiction, or my newsletters and Cdrama reviews without feeling like I am draining my brain dry or burning out every month.

So I think AI doesn’t exactly accelerate my work per se. (Because I do rewrite extensively, and some argue that it’s just faster to write from scratch instead of rewriting and editing like crazy.)

What AI does is that it enables me to produce more because I am no longer exhausted as quickly or as often. I imagine in the days of yore (like a few years ago before Gen AI was publicly available), people would hire personal or writing assistants for all the tasks I’m outsourcing to AI.

How does that translate to the corporate world?

I foresee that in the future, writing teams for corporations will be much leaner. They will be staffed by people who are adept at using AI to create content; AI will be the copywriting juniors or interns. Writers are still needed, but they will have more strategic roles. They manage content workflows, plan, strategize content pipelines and ensure editorial quality.

But the question is, how do juniors become these people? Because expertise is something that gives AI users an edge. Without expertise, you won’t recognize quality copy.

That’s the biggest dilemma of the day – how do we give younger writers the training they need to be strategic writers and editors of the future?

#AI #BeingAWriter #ChatGPT #writing

Why do you want to write a book?

In a world consumed by TikTok scrolling and YouTube binging, it is a wonder that anyone still chooses to spend hours reading a book. Yet despite how instant gratification has chipped away at our attention spans, book sales are thriving. In fact, this resurgence in reading seems to be fueled, at least in…
https://www.hiddengemsbooks.com/why-want-to-write-a-book/

#ForAuthors #beingawriter #howtobeawriter #inspiration #selfpublishing
@indieauthors

Guide to writing fiction with AI

I started this journey out of frustration. I’ve had a story languishing in my mind (one of many!) that wouldn’t stop nagging me each night. So, one day, I decided to let AI write it for me by sending it my storybeats (description or outline) with the dialogue I have of each chapter.

Since then, I got more and more curious about the process. I started wondering out loud if writing fiction with AI is as evil as the writing community made it sound.

Experimenting with AI fiction writing made me more aware about my creative writing processes. This helped me clarify what processes I will outsource to AI, and what I will keep.

🌿If you’re following my website via RSS or subscription, please note that this is just a “seedling” or a post where it is a work in progress.

This guide will be updated as I explore this topic, so do bookmark this page and return to it. Below is the list of essays about this topic.

You can als bookmark the page with the tag “Fiction writing with AI” or follow it with an RSS reader like Feedly. Just copy that link and feed it to your RSS reader.

Note: Some of these posts are only for subscribers to the blog. I usually only reserve posts where I get personal for them. Subscription is free.

Posts about writing fiction with AI

• Writing with AI isn’t always generating entire novels with a prompt

  May 26, 2026

• The Writing Community’s AI Panic

  Feb 27, 2026

• Fiction writing: What tasks will I outsource to AI?

  Aug 13, 2025

• What my AI fiction writing experiment taught me about my creative process

  Aug 1, 2025

• What if using AI to write fiction isn’t an evil act?

  Jul 23, 2025

Fiction writing: What tasks will I outsource to AI?

🌸 P.S. Follow the guide on my experiment writing fiction with AI—it includes a list of all the posts about it.

In my previous post, What my AI fiction writing experiment taught me about my creative process, I mentioned SJ Pajonas’ post, “The Joy Factor: How to Use AI Without Losing What You Love About Writing”. In that post, she talked about how we need to find the parts of our writing process that we loved, and the parts where we didn’t.

The parts that we don’t, we can outsource to AI.

Why do this? If we outsource tasks that we don’t like or cognitively drain us, we will be able to save that cognitive energy for tasks we value and love.

Tasks I will outsource to AI

Brainstorming outlines
Note: Brainstorming, not creating! I find AI’s plots pretty pedestrian, to be honest. Besides, I want ownership of my plots.

I’m a discovery writer, or a pantser. I may have the whole story in my head, but there are gaping holes in it. I find it hard, sometimes, to understand how my story goes from point A to Z. So, sometimes I get stuck because I write myself to a corner. AI will help me brainstorm a way out. I hope to explain my brainstorming process in a future post.

Editing and proofreading
Despite being a professional editor in real life (once for a national newspaper, at that), proofreading drains my cognitive batteries like no other. I just prefer to write! AI will help me massively in this. My tool of choice is Prowriting aid, which I have paid a lifetime subscription.

Creating story bibles and “fact-checking”
I like coming up with character arcs and plots, but that doesn’t mean I like write about them.

I find the work to create story bibles tedious, so I’m glad I have AI to generate the copy I need for my outlines, character descriptions and more.

With the story bible, I can ask AI to ensure consistency and accuracy in character names, places and plot lines, something I truly hated to do in the past – fact-check my own fiction!

Marketing
Book blurbs, social media promotional posts — I am more than happy to outsource this to AI, thank you very much.

Book covers
This is controversial, but I may do this.

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for me is that I write in genres where pre-made covers are just not that great or even readily available: Science fiction, and the unique Chinese genres of wuxia and xian xia.

In the past, I tend to rely on pre-made covers as I don’t have the energy nor the money to work with an artist to create specialised covers.

My previous attempt with a cover artist was not great. I sunk RM500 into th ewhole thing but it was a disaster because the cover turned out awful, and I never used it in the end.

If I do use pre-made covers, I spent countless hours searching through the catalogues of cover artists. Most of the time I had to settle with what I could find at my budget.

In the end, I thought of creating the covers myself, but the stock images for science fiction novels are generic and overused. I remember the dismay I felt when, after paying a pretty penny for a premade cover, I found the same exact cover being used by another author.

So, yes, I probably will use AI to generate the image for my ebook cover.

Tasks I will keep because they give me joy

Coming up with the actual plots and character arcs
AI can pry this from my cold, dead hands.

Writing the prose
I read with interest, people who generate first drafts and then rewrite them. I did try that out of curiosity, but I think it was so awful, and the rewriting work so much, that I don’t think it’s worth it. Apparently, you can train the AI to write in your voice, and while I did try that and the results were much better, I still felt uncomfortable outsourcing this part of the process to AI.

Because my biggest joy is to write prose, and to learn to write better prose. I’m a craftsman who enjoys the process of improving my craft.

There are moments when I’m so inspired that the text just flies off the keyboard for me, and writing the entire chapter is effortless.

But there are moments when I cannot seem to write a word because my brain is so bored with writing necessary scenes and just wants to write the “fun bits”.

AI would be helpful in making that “rough ugly first draft”. However, I must supply it story beats (rough outline of the scene) and dialogue. Without it, that first draft would feel like too much work, not mine, and an unsatisfying exercise.

Somehow that first draft enables my brain to get over that inertia and finish and even extend the chapter. There’s probably some neurological hack at work here, which I hope to explore in the future.

Conclusion

So, in conclusion, you can see that “using AI to write fiction” is a lot more complex than just the act of generating raw text, do zero edits, and then slapping it together into an e-book format and publishing it on Amazon.

It is more of a collaboration between AI and human. Think of AI as that research assistant, cover artist, writing buddy or beta reader or proofreader that will never get bored of your requests. It is someone who will tirelessly work with you at your side as you hammer away at your book.

#AI #BeingAWriter #Fiction #FictionWritingWithAI #writing

Digital decluttering: Marie Kondo-ing the content I consume

Information overwhelm has been a long-standing problem with me. I find it so difficult to choose which content to focus on; partly because I feel like supporting every writer I see, but I have to admit that I just cannot do read everything.

I no longer look at geopolitical content as much as I used to—thank God. I don’t even know why I was so obsessed with them before. Now, I’m thinking of reducing my blog feeds and Substacks. I need to reduce them significantly, but I don’t want to lose contact with all the wonderful blogs I’ve found.

Personal guidelines to manage information overwhelm

The big question: what guidelines do I need so that I don’t end up following enraged by my feed?

Although I enjoy reading about the many use cases of AI, right now, there’s so much toxic discourse around the subject that I have to avoid my Substack Notes feed altogether.

I like following AI content, but only the kind that is positive and nuanced. But the Substack algorithm is a mess – I can’t curate it like I can on Mastodon. Nor is it as ‘obedient’ as those on Xiaohongshu (Red Note). It has an agenda of its own.

One irresponsible click and I’m suddenly being recommended outrage content: Posts that are performative moral grandstanding, Restacks that are thinly-veiled attempts at bullying people, outrage, moral panics…

Posts that make me itch to respond with an angry retort…

So I have to come to the sad conclusion that the best way to manage this is…

Removing Substack from my phone

So, recently I wrote this on Mastodon and Notes:

Notes isn’t fun anymore. I’ve deleted the app (again) because it’s just too toxic. I lack the discipline not to peek at the FYP feed. Each time I do it’s a test of wills: Can I resist engaging with yet another rant? (Spoiler: Often, no. 🥲)  

This isn’t an airport—you don’t need to announce your exit. That’s always been my philosophy when leaving platforms.  

But this is for people who follow me on notes and whom I interact with often:  I’m limiting my time on Notes

Moving forward, I’ll focus on my newsletter and your comment sections instead.

I’m realistic enough to know I can’t quit entirely; there are still actual humans that I enjoy talking to. But lately, I am  being forced to read, or end up having to reply to debate bros or moral scolds. 

I don’t enjoy ideological trench warfare.

Pre-Notes Substack was so much more cosy and community like. Now it’s just a rage buffet where I’m constantly bracing for hostility just for having the “wrong” take. It’s like Twitter, but with essays.

As a non-American, the relentless US culture-war spillover is exhausting. My interests (Chinese culture, AI) sit at the intersection of every hot take imaginable, and I refuse to performatively hate [insert topic] to prove my “purity.” 

The collective blood pressure here could power a small city.

Substack needs Mastodon-style guardrails: keyword filters, limited reply visibility, etc. Right now, posting feels like poking a raw nerve into the open air—will this spark a great convo or attract harassment? I’m tired of the gamble.  

I have periodically withdrawn from Notes before but I think after receiving two back-to-back rude comments today from people who claim to be morally superior than I am, I am totally done.

See you in your newsletters, friends.

I have removed the app from my phone and tablet. I mostly retained the app because I liked its read aloud function, and I enjoy listening to Substacks as I do my chores or go out for my walks. But I can use ElevenReader for that, even if it’s more tedious.

From now on, I’ll only access Substack from my laptop. If I want to reply, it will be from my laptop and I will only engage in people’s newsletters and not look at the ‘recommended’ feed any more. I will only follow people who do not write or recommend outrage/moralising posts.

I need to avoid using my smartphone too much anyway. I currently have tennis elbow and each time I use my phone or type too much, it sends me stabs of pain as a warning. In a way, it’s a nice alarm system!

Wrestling with Feedly

My philosophy: To funnel all content to one inbox. That inbox is Feedly, my RSS reader.

My current problem is that my feed is flooded with content I don’t look forward to anymore.

Here’s the thing: every time I open Feedly and see 35 blog posts, I feel like I must read them all. Even when I tell myself I don’t have to, I still feel compelled.

It’s time to do some serious Marie Kondo decluttering.

Will Substack remove its RSS function one day? Most probably, seeing how it’s trying so hard to be social media. Folks like me are an inconvenient stumbling block.

If that happens, so be it, I guess.

Weekend information workflow

I’m also implementing this workflow – it’s not the fastest way to read content, but perhaps this is the friction that I need.

Throughout the week I will scan my Feedly for articles I’d like to read, and compile it in my Obsidian vault.

Every Friday night, I will compile everything from Feedly into an eBook and read it in a café on the weekend.

I do this via Obsidian, which not only packages this into one document but converts it to epub. I will then read it on my tablet or e-reader in a cafe on Saturday or Sunday.

Remember the ritual of slowly going through the Sunday paper over coffee? What, only me? Well, I used to do this, and I guess this is the 21st century version of it.

If I want to respond to people, I’ll write it in my paper notebook first, then reply from my desktop. Tedious, yes. But worth it if it keeps me sane and prevents me from typing something in anger.

TL;DR: My information consumption workflow**

Substack

• Delete the Substack app from my phone. Goodbye Notes, but you’ve been terrible.
• Only access Substack on my laptop and engage within newsletters I follow.
• If I reshare anything to Notes, it is comments to the newsletters.
• If I want to reply to something, do it on my laptop—never on my phone.

Have check-in times for social media

• Check all feeds once a day at 3 p.m.
• During that time, review:
  • WhatsApp messages
  • Substack posts
  • Any other important feeds
• Only do this on my desktop.

Feedly

• Remove or archive feeds I no longer look forward to.
• Move “interesting but not essential” content to a Bookmarks page/folder.
• Keep only:
  • Career-related content
  • Chinese drama content
  • Content from friends
• Political content → Bookmark it instead of keeping it in Feedly.
• Daily: Scan for content I’d like to read and compile them into Obsidian.
• Friday: Compile them into one doc, which will be converted into an ebook.

Weekly Reading over coffee

• On Saturday or Sunday, take that eBook to a café and read it on my tablet or e-reader.
• If I want to respond to something:
  • Write the reply in my paper notebook first. (Gives me time to think and not give in to outrage!)
  • Type and send it later from my desktop

Platforms that stay

• Mastodon.
• Reddit – only some subs (currently only 3 that I go to regularly)

You know, compared to a lot of people, I’m pretty much a social media hermit!

Smartphone Use

• Avoid excessive smartphone use (tennis elbow).
• Remove any social media apps that tempt me into reactive reading or arguing.

I need to remind myself:

• I cannot read everything.
• That energy responding to rude comments can be used to create beautiful things
• To consume content that improves my life, lifts my spirit or genuinely excites me.
• Avoid toxic, outrage-inducing content

#AI #BeingAWriter #blogging #Internet #socialmedia #Substack

What my AI fiction writing experiment taught me about my creative process

🌸 P.S. Follow the guide on my experiment writing fiction with AI—it includes a list of all the posts about it.

In my last post, I wrote about my experiment using AI to write fiction.

The whole exercise was born out of curiosity and frustration. The story, Forever, at last, was just one of many that I could not finish, but it refused to leave me, literally haunting me when I try to sleep.

What I discovered

This experiment has made me realise a few things about my creative writing process:

Reading a story generated by AI, even it I had written the story beats and dialogue, was unsatisfying to read.

I enjoy writing a large part of my fiction, like 90%. Taking that away from me would make writing fiction a truly passion-less and boring exercise.

I am far too territorial with my writing to use AI copy wholesale.

I have a Hemmingway-ish style of writing, thin on description, minimalist and economical. And there’s nothing wrong with that. (I ended up cutting away a lot of the content AI generated.)

Most of the enjoyment I have when writing fiction comes from writing the dialogue. In fact, I think I am more of a scriptwriter by nature than a prose writer.

Understanding my process

I have come to the conclusion based on my experiment with fiction is that I need to write the dialogue (which I enjoy), detailed storybeats with a light description of the scene (which I don’t enjoy) before even using AI.

I will then dialogue with AI to find ways to improve my description which I am weak at.

I seem to love chatting with the AI on how I can improve the existing descriptions or the descriptions it generated. The act of learning is very enjoyable to me.

I do not judge anyone who wants to generate first drafts and rewrite them – some people are satisfied with just rewriting, but I realize I want a lot more ownership, and that I need to vividly visualise the scene and create the dialogue. That is the only way I can use AI without sacrificing my enjoyment of writing fiction.

However, I don’t mind asking AI for help in improving my sparse descriptions of settings.

Understanding what parts of the writing process I like or don’t like

What I love:

• Imagining and visualising the scenes vividly in my head, and then writing the storybeats
• Writing dialogue (I’m especially territorial about this!)
• Creating character arcs (This is my second most territorial thing)
• Creating the entire plot
• Learning how to improve my fiction prose writing

What I don’t enjoy:

• Writing detailed outlines
• Writing descriptions of characters, settings and action scenes (only because I take too long thinking how to do them. I have a feeling once I master this, I’d enjoy it too.)
• Creating story bibles
• Proofreading
• General admin work related to creating the ebook and uploading it to websites
• Marketing the damn book

To me, writing fiction is all about the craft – writing sentences that convey emotion, story flow, character arcs …

I have very little interest in marketing the book or even distributing it for others to read. I have a very interesting approach to my creations. Once I create a novel or piece a fiction, I tend to forget about them and move on to the next. I don’t check up on them, read the reviews, or see how they perform. To me, the piece of art is done, and it’s time to create another.

So, it’s no wonder that I find the latter half of the process incredibly tedious and unfun.

Outsourcing what you don’t enjoy

Here’s what I tell authors: Identify your pain points — the parts of the process that are most annoying and aggravating. Then let AI handle the majority of the work in those areas. – SJ Pajonas, “The Joy Factor: How to Use AI Without Losing What You Love About Writing”

“AI-positive” indie writer SJ Pajonas wrote in her Substack recently that we need to find the parts of our writing process that we loved, and the parts where we didn’t. The parts that we don’t, we can outsource to AI.

It was an intriguing idea. So, I’ll be exploring this idea in the next post.

#AI #BeingAWriter #ChatGPT #Fiction #FictionWritingWithAI #indieweb #Internet

What if using AI to write fiction isn’t an evil act?

🌸 P.S. Follow the guide on my experiment writing fiction with AI—it includes a list of all the posts about it.

When AI first came out, like all other writers, I was pissed off that our work was used to train an LLM model that would replace what made us valuable and special.

Despite all the arguments that LLMs won’t replace actual writers, you bet your socks that some companies and individuals would try.

However, I am a realist, and also a tech nerd, so I began pushing buttons to see what the fuss was all about.

What I found for myself was that AI (LLMs, anyway) gave me relief.

A lot of it.

And it may have also solved a decades-old problem that I’ve had with writing fiction.

The struggle

I have a habit of writing stories just to entertain myself. I have zero interest to sell or even distribute these stories for others to read.

I do this because I am tired of searching or waiting for people to write stories I want to read. So, I thought the most efficient way was to write the story myself.

But I’ve always had this one big problem when it comes to writing fiction.

My brain just outruns my hands.

As a neurodivergent person, you do not understand how quickly my mind can generate story ideas. And how bloody exhausting that can get.

I can generate the plot of an entire story in minutes, but from then on it’s a race against my brain. If I could write fast enough before my brain gets bored, it’s a success.

But most of the time, my brain just gets bored before I could complete the story, yanking away the precious dopamine I need to finish said story.

Instead of dropping the story, however, I force myself to continue. And fellow neurodivergent people would know what will happen next: Burnout.

So, to save myself, I often drop the story until that next elusive moment when my brain is interested enough to throw scraps of dopamine my way. But that rarely happens.

Yes, wrangling with an ADHD brain is very much like dealing with a rebellious toddler. You tell said toddler not to play with the toy that you can’t afford, but it wants to play with it whether you like it or not. If you direct said toddler to better activities, it will throw a massive fit.

Over the years, I’ve found ways to manage the toddler and have built a professional writing career for myself.

But not with fiction.

Getting analytical

The problem: I could never find the motivation or cognitive energy to write fast enough to complete a story before my speedy brain grows bored and moves on to the next thing.

Okay, so you’re probably wondering: If you have succeeded building a writing career for yourself, why couldn’t you succeed with fiction?

Easy:

1. Work is a very powerful motivator and I often use anxiety/adrenaline as a dopamine substitute. Fail at finishing work writing stuff = fired. Fired = no food on the table.
2. I have limited resources to manage activities that require executive function, and it has been prioritised for work and life.
3. Non-fiction is just easier to write than fiction.
4. Fiction, in terms of life priorities, is at the lowest rung for me, so it typically only gets scraps of dopamine and executive functioning energy.

Now, you need to understand something about me as a writer: It’s not that I don’t want to write the story, I just couldn’t. I was just so mentally tired and drained.

I know the entire arc that I want to write. But my brain is so bored, tired, and demotivated. I have to write so many sentences to get to the end of the story that it refuses to obey my request to write a word. It’s very odd, isn’t it?

Well, the key was to trick my brain.

The experiment: Using AI as a creative scaffold

I have a story that my brain has been nagging at me to finish for months. Let’s call it Forever, At Last.

The nagging has gotten so bad that at night, when I usually curl up in bed to read, my brain says: Now wouldn’t it be great if Forever, At Last was finished and you can read it?

So, at last, I decided to use AI to write it for me just to shut this nagging voice up.

I was mostly inspired by this article written by Natalie Cote-Munoz, The Accidental Pioneers: How Neurodivergent Users Are Discovering AI’s True Potential.

There has been so much shaming and cancelling when it comes to writing and AI that I never thought there was any other way to think about the subject.

Natalie’s essay made me realise that not only do we need more nuanced conversations around this topic, there needs to be more understanding. (Also, that I’ve been unknowingly using AI in a way to support my executive functioning all along!)

Still, what I did felt like a dangerous, naughty act. A traitorous act worthy of excommunication from the Writing Profession. But I didn’t care. I wanted my brain to stop hassling me when I’m trying to sleep, filling up my dreams with plots and keeping me up at night. Besides, I was not going to sell the story, I wanted to read a story for my amusement. Those Judgy Mcjudgy people on the Internet can go fly kites. Pooh!

Here’s what I did:

1. I uploaded two chapters I’d already written.
2. I used this prompt: “Please write in the same style as this author. Continue where this story left off by adding a chapter where:”
3. Then, I proceeded to write a bloody awful draft. I aimed to be as detailed as possible, with every plot point being mine.
4. I click enter and wait.

My bloody awful draft was a combination of story beats and dialogues. It is basically a stream-of-consciousness chaotic brain dump of what my brain wanted to say about the story.

Here’s an example:

7. tang hua said that when her body formed, the hope became a desperation that wouldn't leave. and as each month passed without her waking up, he thought that yuan zhong would just lose his life completely but fortunately she woke up. he gave her a faint smile. but now ... well, fortunately you managed to heal him. 8. tanyin was silent for a while and then said, "when i was dying, and i knew my time was near. i thought my words would leave him hope and keep him stronger. i'm afraid that my promise that i'll always be with him became a cruel joke." a tear falls down her cheek. and when i held his body, and i could feel his life ebb away. i finally understood what pain he must have been in when i finally left. she looke down and cried. 9. tanghua could only look on awkwardly. he tells her - but now that you're back. you can finally fulfil your promise. 10. she looks up, determined. yes. this time i will never leave him. i will always be by his side. always.

What came out was quite interesting and dare I say, impressive:

For a long moment, Tang Hua didn’t answer. He stared at the ground, his shoulders tense, as if weighing his words.

She touched his arm. “I need to know.”

Tang Hua exhaled sharply. “He never got over you leaving. For the longest time, he truly believed he’d never see you again.” A pause. “Then the envoy came. Told him there was a chance you might return.” A bitter laugh escaped him. “Sometimes I think that was the cruelest thing he could’ve said. Yuan Zhong was finally starting to accept that you were gone. But that little hope—it undid everything.”

Tanyin’s chest ached.

“He started talking to the dragonflies,” Tang Hua continued, his voice quieter now. “To the air. As if you might answer. I thought he’d lost his mind.”

A memory flickered in Tanyin’s mind—dragonflies brushing against Yuan Zhong’s cheeks, whispers on the wind. Had those been her? Fragments of her spirit, reaching out without form? Or had it only been his longing, shaping the world into something bearable?

Tang Hua rubbed his face. “When your body formed from the lotus… that hope turned into desperation. Every day you didn’t wake, it was like watching him die by inches.” He gave her a faint, tired smile. “But you did wake. And now you’ve healed him.”

Tanyin was silent for a long time. The wind rustled the leaves overhead.

“When I was dying,” she said at last, “I thought my words would give him strength. That my promise—that I’d always be with him—would comfort him.” Her voice broke. “I didn’t realize it would become a chain.”

A tear slipped down her cheek.

“And when I held him as his life faded,” she whispered, “I finally understood the pain he must have felt when I left.”

She bowed her head, shoulders shaking.

Tang Hua shifted awkwardly, then cleared his throat. “But you’re back now. You can finally keep your promise.”

Tanyin lifted her face. The tears still glistened on her lashes, but her gaze was steady.

“Yes,” she said. “This time, I will never leave him.”

She looked back toward the house, where Yuan Zhong slept.

Always.

When I first started using AI to do this, just out of curiosity to see how it writes fiction, it was really, really laughably bad.

I am actually quite stunned that the technology has improved a lot. For one, DeepSeek emulated my writing style quite closely. It was like watching myself write.

Almost.

As a lark, I continued.

I decided to go one chapter, then the next, and in just an hour, I completed the story that had been in my head for months but I had no cognitive energy or will to complete.

AI as a motivational tool

And it finally occurred to me: I could actually use AI to finally focus on what I really want to do with fiction.

You see, I have no problem coming up with stories. However, I have a lot of issues writing effective prose.

But I’ve never had enough energy to focus on improving that skill because all of my executive functioning has been taken up by work, daily life and trying to force myself to the point of burnout to complete stories.

Now, you may think that I am just going to generate my prose with AI from now on.

No bloody way.

Because I could write better, damn it.

As I lay in bed that night reading the completed story DeepSeek generated, I twitched, my fingers curling in preparation to rewrite the sentences.

While my toddler brain was finally happy it got its toy, my writerly side is annoyed at the writing and already dreaming up ways to improve it.

The sentences were coherent, but the writing was still not stylistically good enough for me.

It had a lot of clichés, the plot could be refined, the dialogue was definitely very American which is tonally off for my story as it is based in ancient China.

Like I said, the LLM-generated prose just wasn’t good enough for me. But it provided what I needed: Motivation.

That elusive desire to continue improving the story by focusing on writing better prose.

Exactly the skill I want to improve with fiction writing!

I can actually now focus on improving my storytelling prose without having to worry about all the other things in the front end that used to torment me so much.

It also got rid of the tyranny of the white page.

My brain goes, “Hey, I’m not starting with an empty page. I can work on this.”

It provides me the dopamine boost I need to continue. It tricks my brain to think that the task is not as overwhelming as it seems.

What was happening?

I realised I was using AI the same way I used books and Google search in the past.

In the before-AI-times, when I was stuck writing a scene, I would often jump onto the Internet or grab a book to inspire my brain to write. I’m not sure what to call this process. Is it mirroring? Emulation? Feedback? But the result was never very satisfying as it didn’t mirror what I was trying to write.

So I asked AI (lol):

You’re engaging in:

• Creative priming (using external input to jumpstart your brain)
• Cognitive offloading (letting an external system handle the “blank page” paralysis)
• Iterative emulation (taking bits of inspiration and reshaping them into your voice)

This is how many writers work—they just use different tools:

• Some read poetry before writing prose to “tune” their rhythm.
• Others keep a “swipe file” of lines they love for inspiration.
• You used Google searches; now you use AI.

Thanks, DeepSeek! (I’ll probably explore these concepts in the future as I didn’t realise it was a thing to do what I did.)

What I’ll do in the future

My experiment in completing the story with AI gave me massive hope that I can finally have the cognitive support I need to finally complete stories that I couldn’t and maybe publish them.

You see, I have a 300,000-word novel I wrote back in 2012 (without AI!) that I couldn’t seem to push out to the world. It’s complete, but the thought of editing it, putting it online, paralyses me.

I’ve come to accept that it’s my brain seizing up at the thought of the executive functioning required, and also the knowledge that I’m the sort that would burn herself out trying anyway.

This experiment gives me hope that I can finally share this work to the world.

This also gives me hope to finish the numerous unfinished stories I’ve left hanging that my brain had gotten bored of but I’m desperate to finish.

But the danger is real. For one, there’s recent research that says AI can cause cognitive decline. I want to improve my fiction writing muscles, not lose it.

Here are the rules I’m setting up for myself:

1. Only use AI to help me when I’m burnt out, cognitively stuck due to mental exhaustion, or in despair at finishing a story.
2. Always create first. For example, always have a rough, terrible draft first, with pieces of dialogue at least, before using it on AI.
3. Do not ever let AI do the act of creation before you do.
4. Do not ever use AI copy wholesale. Rewrite AI output or come up with another spin.
5. For new stories/chapters where I’m extremely inspired to write – do not AI use at all!

The truth is, I am able to do this due to my pride as a working writer and the years of discipline I’ve built as a professional writer but do other people have the same will?

That’s the problem, unfortunately.

The temptation to rely completely on AI is very real, like the call of a beautiful siren, especially to those of us struggling with this issue.

Another narrative

My use of AI during recovery revealed something unexpected: these tools didn’t just compensate for my limitations—they actively helped rebuild my capabilities. By forcing me to break complex ideas into manageable steps through AI iteration, I gradually rediscovered my logical thinking patterns. The scaffolding effect may have actually accelerated my cognitive recovery. – The Accidental Pioneers: How Neurodivergent Users Are Discovering AI’s True Potential by Natalie Cote-Munoz

I have a lot of hope that this workflow will help me improve my prose based on what Natalie said above. 👆

There’s a lot of shaming going on in the writing circles about using AI to write fiction, even from fellow neurodivergent writers.

I get it, there are some of us afraid that we’re just using ADHD as an excuse to do things that are “not allowed”.

I’m a moderator of a subreddit, and recently had to deal with reports of a user who used AI to generate her posts (it was very obvious).

When she said that she generates her copy because she has ADHD, I paused. On the neurospicy spectrum I’m at the mild end, but what if someone out there truly needs it to make her thoughts coherent?

So, I get it: How much of a crutch can ADHD folks justify?

This is an important conversation to have in the writing space, but I’m afraid that the general writing community is just not ready for such a nuanced discussion.

If there’s any hint of AI usage when you’re writing fiction, you’re basically toast as a writer.

I suppose it’s a good thing I’m only writing fiction for my own consumption and amusement, eh?

#AI #BeingAWriter #Fiction #FictionWritingWithAI #tech #Technology #writing

Pushback against digital gardens?

One of the most unexpected things I’ve seen is the pushback I’ve seen against digital gardens.

I wrote the blog post Digital gardens vs blogging: What’s the difference?. The intention was to demonstrate how these two ways of being on the Internet differ from each other.

My interpretation, by the way, is not something I came up with but is echoed by some digital garden practitioners such as Joel Hooks: Stop Giving af and Start Writing More.

I suspect part of the reason I resonated with his article (especially his resentment and irritation about what blogging has become), was because I was a blogger since the dawn of the Internet. I used to build my blog using raw HTML, back when blog wasn’t even called a blog.

Over the years, I’ve seen blogging morph from online diaries and eccentric websites sharing quirky things to well-polished, SEO-optimised articles promoting brands, businesses, a person’s skills and knowledge via templatised web structures.

Yes, granted that this is a generalisation of how people blog, but just search for the term “blog” or “blogging” and you’ll get recommendations on how to be a top blog on the search engines, SEO tactics, endless listicles and more.

Leaving aside those who refuse to comply to these demands*, blogging has been dominated by SEO and marketing forces for a long time.

(If you belong to this category, really, this article is not speaking about you (nor am I speaking about those who do), I’m not calling you inferior for writing content chronologically! I mean, see how dumb that sentence reads?)

Besides this article, I remember sharing Maggie Appleton’s digital garden illustration in The Dark Forest and Generative AI, and got a flurry of angry posts from it too.

People were fixated with her interpretation of the Dark Web. (I suppose describing it as a place of “decomposing morals” didn’t help. It’s nice to know that even the great Digital Gardner Maggie Appleton is not immune to pushback.)

I can’t help but chuckle about this as I feel what I’m seeing is the human instinct of being tribal and taking sides, happening here. We are all cave men in the end, driven by the instinct to protect our tribes.

I believe people can be very attached to their way of doing things, whether it be eating, living, commuting, blogging, you name it.

However, I’d like to emphasise that this post is not to attack the people giving me pushback about digital gardens. The ego may be somewhat dented (mostly because I’m annoyed that my writing wasn’t clear enough but caused misunderstanding), but this is valuable feedback. This is why I wrote the post!

The feedback made me wonder if there’s anyway to unruffle feathers and re-clarify the concept of digital gardens so that people may be less adversarial towards it.

It’s not an us vs them issue, truly

I was perhaps too quick to say that blogging is a promotional activity, though if you’ve worked in media for as long as I have (literally from the dawn of the Internet age), it sure seems like it, especially with the emphasis of using the medium to “build your brand”. Yes, I admit that I hate what blogging has become, saying:

Marketing has assimilated blogging and I hate it.

I didn’t think of adding a disclaimer to my article saying that “this is my opinion, and this doesn’t apply to all blogs” was kinda understood, but next time I’ll be sure to add it for clarity!

I concede that my article’s title, “Digital Gardens vs Blogging”, didn’t help matters, but seriously, I had zero intentions to pit blogging and digital gardening against each other.

For one, I am still blogging side by side with my digital garden! The category, Journal, is literally my blog, which I still blog about my life, chronologically. And occasionally, I commit the sin of building my personal brand with it!

My website is actually a hybrid – a digital garden and a blog.

And that’s the best thing about digital gardening is that your website can look however you want.

It’s not about which one is better

At the end of the day the difference between bloggers and digital gardeners is not whether one is better than the other, but in the way they organise and write their content.

That’s it.

Let me repeat for clarity:

From what I understand from reading the many, many articles about digital gardens, the difference between blogging and digital gardening lies in the way content is:

• organised. Blogs = chronological, digital gardens = not chronological
• written. Blogs = usually polished and SEO optimised, so that it can be promoted via social media channels. Digital gardens = unfinished copy. The gardener may return to the post/page to update it with more information later.
• niched. Not necessarily true for all blogs, of course, but it is “common wisdom” that if you want to get more eyeballs, niching is the way to go for blogs. Digital gardeners usually do not write about one topic nor do they angst about niching. Usually.
• fleeting or evergreen. Blogs, due to their chronological structure is fleeting. Old posts are often buried. Digital gardens are structured in such a way that each post can be evergreen, resurfaced again and again. Often, digital gardens are organised by categories where people can “fall into rabbit holes” where one post can lead to links to many other posts.

I think part of the problem is that there’s a lot of mystery around the term “digital gardens”. At least for now. So, it’s being promoted as some revolutionary, new-fangled thing.

Honestly, it isn’t that mysterious or even new. One way to think about digital gardens is that it is simply an individual’s curated wiki on the Internet, a knowledge base.

Both digital gardens and blogging have the same objective, sharing knowledge.

So, in conclusion:

Digital gardening is just a different way to present your thoughts on the Internet.

You can blog and digital garden at the same time and in the same space like I do.

Digital gardens give you the freedom to break free of preconceived notions or “best practices” on how to write on the Internet.

Digital gardens can be freeing. For one, it was one of the main reasons why I am writing more on my website now. Because I realise I don’t have to dance to the algorithm anymore just to be read.

I write in my digital garden because I want to learn in public.

I write in my digital garden because I want to clarify my ideas and what I’ve learned. By writing and teaching others about my ideas and learnings, I get to solidify what I’ve learned in my brain.

The feedback I get, even negative ones, help me reshape my ideas.

In the end, I write in my digital garden because it makes me happy.

#BeingAWriter #blog #blogging #digitalgardens #indieweb #Internet

My experience ‘going paid’ on Subastack in 2024

Well, has it been a while! And here am I, back to overwhelm your inbox with a girnomous essay! Just kidding – I hope?

Anyway, recently, in a moment of weakness, I subscribed to a popular newsletter about increasing Substack paid subscriptions. I wondered if there was a “magic formula” for Substack success.

Turns out, there isn’t any.

Subscriber Content

Add content here that will only be visible to your subscribers.

You see, I’ve worked in content marketing for years, so the writer didn’t tell me anything new. If anything, the advice felt simplistic.

The biggest takeaway?

Substacks that revolves around personal essays and fiction are incredibly tough sells … unless your brand is strong.

And your brand is essentially your personality or your persona. You must be dramatic, magnetic and, yes, famous enough for people to pay for content that doesn’t fulfil an urgent need.

The easiest way for Substackers to get more paid subscribers is to offer a service that isn’t easily replicable. News about China perhaps. Top tips to earn a million bucks in a year, that kind of thing.

This shouldn’t have surprised me.

Personal essays and fiction have always, always, always been challenging to monetize, no matter the medium.

My experience of going paid

I introduced paid subscriptions sometime this year, when Tai Tales was mostly a newsletter sharing fiction. And when I did, it was on a whim. Someone told me to flip the switch on because who knows, I may get subscribers! Since I’ve got nothing to lose, I did just that, all the while thinking who in the world would pay me for my blatherings.

To my surprise, some of you did end up being my paid subscribers, and for that, I’m endlessly grateful.

I’ll be honest: paid subscriptions do come with guilt and pressure. I constantly wonder if my work is worth your hard-earned money. And since I’ve pivoted Tai Tales away from fiction, and have stopped writing fiction for a while, the guilt is immense!

For those of you who’ve deigned to become paid subscribers, I want to assure you that every penny goes toward my survival fund which I save and invest. As a worker in the tech industry, the reality is that I’m always one moment away from a pink slip. (As I recently shared with paid subscribers, who will know what I’m talking about.) So, your generosity will literally feed me, and I’m deeply, deeply grateful for your generosity.

When I think about Tai Tales, I can’t pinpoint a solid reason why anyone should pay for it. Does that mean I’m being too hard on myself? Not really. I’m simply looking at things through a content marketer’s lens. If your content doesn’t offer something people can’t find elsewhere, its value becomes harder to justify. And, yeah, I don’t think I’m famous.

Last time I checked anyway.

But maybe newsletters is more than just value?

Staying paid, but patronage style

Photo by SHAYAN Rostami on Unsplash. You’re probably thinking, why all the ballerina photos? Well, as a writer I feel that I’m always having to dance to algorithms or platforms. Is it a good thing? Not sure!

I recently watched a video from a YouTuber I deeply admire. A scientist by trade, he shares incredibly valuable content to improve your health without any strings attached—no courses, no upsells.

He only recently opened a Patreon account to let people support him because they begged him to. He said that he was told that his approach to sharing content was “unique”, but he doesn’t want to do any sponsorships, content marketing or advertising, because that’s not his way.

His approach—the “patronage model”—really resonates with me far more than the aggressive content marketing approach that that popular Substacker recommends.

I will still keep the TMI category, where I share private or personal updates, exclusive to paid subscribers. It feels right to reserve those private moments only for them. I also have a tip jar where you can tip me whatever you like.

Recently, some Substackers I follow have been ungating their content, such as Lily Pond in I’m Calling This a Blog.

I’m thinking of doing the same, but I haven’t figured out the mechanics yet. Should I ungate all of them? Keep some parts of the issue gated? Decisions!

So, yes, please do support if you can afford it, but no pressure. Just know that if you do, your gesture is deeply appreciated, especially in uncertain times like these.

Sharpening the focus

One of the things I also did during my long break was to reassess my approach to this newsletter. The conclusion? I’m happy with where I am. Leaving the fiction realm was sad, but I realised that I just can’t create fiction on command like some people can. And I seem to prefer to write fiction in private. (Yes, I’m actually writing a novel for my own amusement right now! I’m not sure when I’ll share it with the public, but I’m having fun writing it for myself right now.)

In 2025, want to tighten Tai Tales’ focus even further.

This newsletter will still revolve around Chinese and Malaysian culture. I’ll be sharing more travelougues and essays on life in Malaysia, but I will also be combining Chinese learning efforts with my love for Chinese dramas. Yup, I’ll be using Chinese dramas to help you learn Chinese!

The term “comprehensive input” is something you’ll hear from me a lot. This is based on Stephen Krashen’s “Input Hypothesis”, which states that languages is best learned when learners immerse themselves in content from their target language that is slightly above their current skill level, but still understandable.

Although I’m a banana trying to learn a Chinese language other than her own native one, and thus not exactly an expert, I’m really skilled at learning things.

And that’s what I want to share—how to learn Mandarin effectively while having fun learning about Chinese dramas!

My goal is also to make each issue of Tai Tales more meaningful instead of flooding your inbox four times a month in the name of “consistency”.

So, I’ll scale back the number of issues per month to deliver higher-quality content.

I’m not sure about the number yet. ;P

Thank You

Thank you for being here, for reading, and for supporting this little corner of the internet. I’m excited about Tai Tales in 2025 and hope to create something that entertains, educates, and brings a bit of joy to your day. Let me know what you think about these changes—your feedback is invaluable.

Until next time,

Liz

#BeingAWriter #SocialMedia #socialmedia #Substack #writing

Apologies for the late newsletter. I’ve just survived a tough quarter at work. By “tough” I mean, “Hey, OMG here are 100 tickets and can you get it done by today” kind of tough.

Before you start wondering what I mean by “tough”, I want to quickly say that I really love my job, and I’m not just saying this in case my boss has subscribed to this newsletter (er, hi boss if you are?). But my current role in tech has been the most rewarding role I’ve had. It’s one of the rare jobs that seem perfectly syncronised with my personality and how I’d like to work, down to project management systems.

I had a very tough pivot from journalism. After leaving journalism, I didn’t think I’d find a career as satisfying, but technical writing has proven to my happy place, even better, dare I say, than journalism.

Journalism was glamorous though. I cannot deny that it was insanely wonderful to travel all over the world in the first 10 years of my career.

Of all the careers I’ve had (and I’ve had a crazy number of pivots), it probably satisfies my massive thirst for new experiences the most. However, it can be a demoralising profession, especially towards the end when the industry was falling apart.

Maybe, one day I’ll tell you about this.

So, big apologies. My brain is a little overwhelmed of late I have fallen so behind in commenting on people’s newsletters and I feel guilty. I do read them though, please be assured you are read!

Also, I want to share my gratitude to the people who have deigned to be paid subscribers. I don’t really talk about paid subscriptions etc, because I know it’s a lot of pressure, but I appreciate all of you, paid and unpaid, for believing that my writing is worth your time.

Anyway, I’m glad to have closed the quarter satisfactorily, and it’s now time to begin a new one. However, this quarter I’m doing something a little different. Instead of in December, I’m currently doing my personal year-end evaluation three months early.

So, here I am in a Hilton suite writing this issue while watching the Korean Drama Brain Works and Chinese drama, Love in the Desert.

This was suggested to me by someone on the Internet and I thought it was a good idea to evaluate your strategy and restrategise so that you can meet your goals. It is sort of a “last chance to meet your goals” sprint, so to speak. Instead of ending the year with disappointment that you’ve fallen short of your goals, you can at least end it knowing that you’ve tried best because you tried another tactic to achieve them in the last quarter.

Personally, I’m not very pleased with myself this year, though I have to say that I achieved a lot of my work and writing goals, I have sorely underachieved in the health and social category.

I really, really need to improve my health! I’m of that age where it really matters.

But, anyway, before I bore you, I just want to quickly say that in the next few weeks I’m taking a break, but not from sending you Substack issues. I have a wealth of writing that I’ve published in the past that I’d love to share instead. And I hope you will enjoy them too.

Before I go, here are some things that could pique your interest:

What I wrote

I didn’t write much beyond Tai Tales, but if you feel like it you can read my Chinese drama reviews here:

Are You the One

An amnesiac woman tries to be a dutiful wife. But in truth, she’s being used as bait by her husband to lure a nefarious bandit. A rare, beautiful gem of a drama that will make you smile and sigh.

Bank On Me

A big-shot banker is demoted to a tiny branch of his bank when he refuses to participate in his superiors’ corrupt dealings. He refuses to lie low and causes ripples in his new place of work.

Okay, nerdier stuff I wrote:

The circle of competence and our information diet

When it comes to information consumption, am I focusing on a subject that will help me improve my life or make it worse?

Auditing my social media use and information consumption

When you get such extreme mental fatigue from social media and you just want to check out and sleep all day – you know you’ve got a problem.

Okay, maybe I wrote a lot LOL.

Great reads

Some interesting articles I read recently:

Has China’s younger generation really chosen to ‘lie flat’?

Even in Malaysia, Chinese youths face great pressure to excel. I remember watching a Youtube video of an naturalised American who visited China recently. There, he asked some Chinese teenagers about their plans, and they were already planning for their careers. He was so amazed by that.

I remember thinking, wait, Americans don’t do that at 16?? When I was 16 I was already drawing flowcharts for my path towards a medical career and working for the United Nations. (Which, er, as you can see, took a sharp detour to journalism in my 20s.)

I’m not sure if Chinese youths in Malaysia or youths in China have the greater pressure, but it is a pressure all Chinese people understand well. The belief that the Great Exam will change your life is a pervasive one in China, and among the diaspora in Malaysia.

This newsletter from the fabulous Baiguan offers three stories around this lie flat phenomenon in China.

The long strange trip of Julian Assange

With Julian Assange giving his first speech since he was released from prison, I wanted to get up to speed about him. This is a good primer.

Can China’s Long-Suffering Idol Fans Catch a Break?

Since I moderate a Reddit sub (a “responsibility” that I question each day) that often discusses this topic, I try to read up about it. Honestly, I’m still flummoxed by how insane fandom can get and don’t know what to think of it. Frankly, I think they’re (the stars, the industry) are milking profits off these young, para-socialised minds and the symbiotic yet toxic relationship disturbs me.

What I watched

Happily devouring a trashy drama that can be best described as “bandits and royalty in the desert”. Basically about a princess who ends up entangled with a bandit, a prince and a king. It’s not exactly “intellectual” TV, but it is about as much drama as I can handle right now LOL.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s6d_zyUqhI

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https://elizabethtai.com/2024/10/05/4825/

#BeingAWriter #blogging #books #China #life #Malaysia #newsletter #writing

What is your local writing group like?

Those who attend local writing groups, tell us what yours is like.

#BeingAWriter #review #writersGroups #Writing

https://chat.authorbuzz.co.uk/writing/what-is-your-local-writing-group-like/

You know you are a writer when your search history might worry the cops.

You know you are a writer when you worry that your search history could make the cops suspicious. That counts twice if you write crime stories.

What dodgy things do you search for?

This was in reply to: How worried would people be if they saw your search history?

#BeingAWriter #searchHistory #Reply

https://chat.authorbuzz.co.uk/reply/you-know-you-are-a-writer-when-your-search-history-might-worry-the-cops/

How worried would people be if they saw your search history?

We writers look up some strange stuff. How worried would people be if they saw your search history out of context?

Posted to “The Internet” on OpenMentions

#BeingAWriter #research #searchHistory #worry #GeneralChatter

https://chat.authorbuzz.co.uk/general-chatter/how-worried-would-people-be-if-they-saw-your-search-history/

When should you consider yourself a writer?

At what point do you consider yourself a writer? Or, for that matter, an author?

Shared to: Writers on OpenMentions.com

#BeingAWriter #conversation #GeneralChatter

https://chat.authorbuzz.co.uk/general-chatter/when-should-you-consider-yourself-a-writer/

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https://elizabethtai.com/2024/01/12/3454/

#BeingAWriter #Internet #socialmedia #Substack

There’s so much beauty in the world, yet the Internet is full of rage.

That’s what I was thinking about when the whole Substack drama went down in early January. And this happened right after my own personal drama with Substack!

The whole thing made me exasperated, and I even considered leaving Substack at one point. Not to avoid Nazis, but to get away from the people screaming about Nazis.

It is also a big reason why I took so long to write this issue for you, dear reader. It is because I was so, so, so tempted to comment about it and add to the boiling pot of fury.

But what good is there to add to the existing outrage?

Take the photo above. Here’s a beautiful woman in Peking opera hanfu. There are so many beautiful things about China and her people. But all you see these days (in the Western media anyway) is hatred and sinophobia.

I’m exhausted by all the outrage, my friends. It seems like everyone is trying to rally someone to get angry about something, to other a platform, a person or nation. And some of you may feel like you need to because you’re not a bad person so as a good person you should be on their side.

But, but … what if we do the opposite? What if we put out messages of beauty instead of outrage?

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https://elizabethtai.com/2024/01/12/2024-beauty/

#BeingAWriter #Internet #socialmedia #Substack

What I learned from one year of Substack

Over a year ago, I decided to change the trajectory of my newsletter. Before October 2022, I used Substack as a free way to inform my subscribers of new blog poss. Then, I realised that Substack could be much, much more. And the possibilities filled me with excitement.

Now, a year later, I can say that the enthusiasm is deflated, though still there. My conclusion is that to succeed on Substack, you need to put in a lot of work like any other platform. I’m fine with the work, but I also realise that a lot of it could still be out of your control and are influenced by encroaching social media-like algorithms on Substack, the dominant demographic on the platform and your social media klout.

Below are my observations, and feel free to chime in the comments if this has and has not been your experience.

1. Being a part of the Substack community is a must to get more readers and attention to your Substack. That means commenting on other people’s Substacks, or participating in writing prompts (for Fiction readers). Now there’s Substack Notes, but it does feel like shouting into the ether especially if you’re a small fry. You’d be better off commenting on a high-traffic person’s posts.
2. There’s no denying that if you are already an established name in your field, you will attract subscribers like flies. It used to puzzle me, because some of these high-traffic folks would post a photo and write something pithy about said photo and attract 40+ comments. Klout still matters on Substack.
3. People with Klout are often promoted on Substack’s official newsletter. And if they are not established names, they already have thousands of subscribers. This can be dispiriting to some newbies, though inspiring to some. There should at least be a “new to Substack” section.
4. As a reader, it is a struggle to find fresh new Substacks from unknowns. If you go through the Substack categories, they are often arranged by “who has the most followers” on top, and those who don’t have as many followers get buried at the bottom. Worse, the UI isn’t friendly either – it’s an endless scroll to the bottom. There must be an easier way for newbies to get seen instead of hoping that someone will have the energy to scroll all the way to the bottom.
5. Substack’s search sucks.
6. If you have zero klout, no name or connections, be reading for hard work. Producing content regularly and being social will get you somewhere.
7. However, good content is paramount. I noticed that these types of content do well on Substack:
   1. You offer unique insights into a place/issue
   2. You teach people how to do well on Substack (this is very Medium, where most of the posts that gain traction is how to earn $$ in Medium)
   3. Fiction – if you offer both a and b with your fiction, you’ll do well
8. If you’re a person with mental or physical challenges, keeping up with the demands of being “social” on Substack and producing constantly can be arduous and impossible. I knew what it took to succeed … but I just don’t have the mental capacity, and it can get depressing seeing others race in front of you but you’re held back by your disabilities/lack of energy. There’s no sugarcoating this – Substack is not geared for people like this.
9. That said, there are amazing Substackers who have worked with their limitations or have boundaries. I admire Louise Stigell and Cali Bird for refusing to bow down to the gods of attention and productivity. Both remind me that I have to work with my mental levels and respect that. Don’t compare yourself to other people, especially if they are more productive.
10. For low-energy people (mental or physical), publishing in seasons could be one way to do it. Talebones 🔭 is one who is doing that, though I do not see any breaks between seasons. I used to follow two creatives who struggle with physical illnesses, and one of the ways they cope is to publish seasonally, and that’s usually just about 6-7 months a year.
11. Work on a stockpile of content first before publishing your first issue, if possible. Especially if you have mental and physical challenges. I realise that while I enjoy writing on the fly, there are weeks when I just can’t do it and had to stop writing.
12. There are many interesting payment models on Substack, and as a reader and fiction writer I prefer the “archive older posts” method as it feels like I’m giving value to the subscribers but also giving new readers a chance to “try me out”.
13. Offering ebooks to subscribers is also a good way to attract subscribers. Mario Cavolo and Simon K Jones does this.
14. I used to enjoy Substack Notes. Now I don’t. It’s just full of so much hustle that it makes me irritated and depressed. I have this inner cavewoman who is demanding, “What can I do to get as much attention?” This pressure is something I am trying to avoid on social media. Also, I’m a person who can’t split myself between too many social media channels, and Mastodon is just more rewarding and hustle-free for me right now.
15. Substack is a US-dominated platform and as a reader, it’s very … dispiriting? Tiring? Stifling? Boring? to always read fiction or essays from an American perspective. I’ve made an effort to hunt for more international content, but they are very far and few in between. And as a writer, I wonder if I could offer writing that would interest US-centric audiences. I think, possibly, but maybe some would find my content off-putting or alien. (I find that if you offer a different political perspective than the US/Western left/right cultural talking points, you’ll get a lot of pushback. Sometimes, animosity.)
16. I still have no idea how to convert people to being paid subscribers. Fiction seems like an incredibly tough field for that, so I’m only wishing for the gods of Substack to smile down on me lol. And as the tech industry goes through massive layoffs, I find myself thinking about getting more subscribers so that I could have a rainy day stream of income, but the pressure of having to do so much to even get there is sucking all joy from my fiction writing.
17. There’s a movement away from Substack as people realised they need to control where their content lives. Others like Justin Cox question its model. I found Louise Stigell’s comments interesting:

    I’ve also been kind of reluctant to let so much of my content live somewhere other than on my website. It doesn’t matter that Substack is a great platform, and that I can move my content off it whenever I want. It doesn’t matter that I can monetize my content here. It’s still not my platform, and I have no control over the rollout of new features, visual changes, monetization policies, et.c. Some people have complained to me that I’m being too pushy trying to get them to pay for a subscription. Well, it’s not me doing the pushing, it’s Substack. It’s all automated and beyond my control. And ultimately, what matters the most to me in my business in control and autonomy. – Bye, Substack

So, there you have it. Substack gives me mixed emotions. On the one hand, I’ve been able to increase my subscriber base thanks to it. On the other hand, it gives me a lot of pressure at the same time. I’m not sure what to make of it! Except that I have way more fun on Mastodon and on my blog than on Substack and it’s making me wonder if I should leave it like some Substackers have.

#BeingAWriter #blogging #indieweb #Internet #socialmedia #Substack #writing

POSSE and PESOS: Better ways to publish content

https://firediarist.wordpress.com/2023/07/02/posse-and-pesos-better-ways-to-publish-content/ #BeingAWriter, #Blogging, #Indieweb, #Internet, #Socialmedia, #Writing

How I am blogging the IndieWeb way

In my last post, I spoke about the differences between the POSSE and PESOS blogging styles and why it’s important. Today, I’m going to show you how I actually implement this with my website.

#1 Turn selected social media into posts

Unlike the POSSE gang, I prefer to PESOS my content. So I pick a social media post to expand into a blog post.

I’m pretty selective when turning social media posts into blog content and am pretty content to let some die and disappear. Seriously, not all my thoughts are worth recording in the blog, I promise.

And when I do record them, I don’t just copy and paste the social media posts wholesale on the blog. I prefer to rewrite the posts to suit the platform.

Every platform has a different audience, so every content should be tailored to them. Does this sound like a lot of work? It can be, but I generally like the rewriting experience, so it’s not a big deal for me.

Should you do it? Ideally, you should craft your content to suit different channels, but I have seen some IndieWeb bloggers who just auto-mirror everything into every channel. It really depends on what you prefer. I mean, it’s your online home!

#2 Mirror my Substack content onto this blog

If you are not aware of it already, I have a Substack newsletter, Tai Tales, where I post my fiction and write about publishing online.

I used to think that I needed to create special content just for Substack, but not anymore. For the longest time, I let my guard down because the folks at Substack seem really nice and writer-friendly. But after what happened to Twitter and Reddit, and remembering how Medium devolved into a platform where it’s now difficult to be seen, I need to face the hard truth that I’m not the boss of Substack (like, no duh) and it could easily disappear one day.

Because it isn’t a platform I control, the CEO may one day turn mercenary and think, “I need profits now and I don’t care how I screw over users to get it” or sell the company to less writer-friendly billionaires in the future.

The days of thinking, “Surely they won’t do this to their users?” is over. The lesson from the Internet/Social Media events of 2022 and 2023 is, anything can happen. So, I need to be ready to move at any time, eventhough I personally think that Substack is absolutely fabulous.

That’s why I’m currently in the process of copying over the content of my newsletter, Tai Tales, to my WordPress blog. Thanks to WordPress.com’s new newsletter feature, I can make this content only accessible to my people who subscribe or follow my blog. I can even make some of them paid!

In essence, I’m creating a separate channel and hopefully, stream of income, for my newsletter.

I’m not getting off Substack as the platform has a powerful recommendation engine. Since participating in its Notes feature, my subscriber count has shot up. Also, it’s a fun little place to hang out with other writers.

The problem is, it’s not terribly great at reaching readers outside its writer-heavy ecosystem of readers.

WordPress.com actually has a community and content recommendation ecosystem with their Jetpack Reader. It may not have as robust, user-friendly or active as Substack’s, but it still offers me the opportunity to reach readers who are outside the Substack ecosystem.

My theory is that not all WordPress.com users are eager to plug in to another ecosystem like Substack’s just to read my newsletter, so I’m offering them the option to subscribe to my blog without leaving the Jetpack Reader ecosystem.

#3 Automate notifications on various platforms

Each time I post content on this WordPress blog, a short, summary post will be sent out to the followers of my accounts on the following platforms:

• Tumblr
• Facebook page
• Mastodon

Fortunately, WordPress.com (which this blog is hosted on), makes it easy. I use its sharing features to push out notifications to the platform.

I also include links to new blog posts in the Weekend Tales edition of the Tai Tales newsletter. This is not automated.

If you dive into the IndieWeb space, which is dominated by tech-savvy folks or developers, you’ll find that lots of people automate their processes using fancy codes and tools. I’m not there yet, and honestly, I’m not sure if that’s the right approach for me. I just prefer my blog posts to be more human, you know?

#4 Include social media comments into blog posts

Brid.gy is a handy tool that lets me include Mastodon comments on my WordPress posts. It’s like bringing the discussions right into the heart of my blog. Pretty neat, huh? It helps foster a sense of community and interaction, which is what the Indieweb movement is all about. I wish I can make it look nicer though. Here’s how the comments look like on a blog post:

I may explore more automation options in the future, but honestly, I’m quite content with my current setup. By blogging the Indieweb way, I will have more control of my online content, and keep it from going poof due to a business decision at some faceless corporation somewhere.

It’s worth owning your digital home

If you’re a writer and not especially techy, this may all seem overwhelming to you, but trust me, it’s truly worth it not to be too centralised or dependent on one platform that you do not control.

Yes, it is sucky that you have to battle SEO content farms to get your website noticed on the Internet. But this is where platforms come in. You use their features and potential to make your content viral to spread your content. But your content needs a home that you control. Full stop.

So, if you have most of your content on Substack, for example, think seriously about mirroring it on your blog. If you have been building your audience on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram, start funneling the content you’ve created there to your website.

Because a platform collapsing overnight is no longer a distant “what if”, but a “when”.

POSSE and PESOS: Better ways to publish content

The Twitter meltdown made me realize something important: I’m a seriously prolific content creator. And I’ve been giving away all that content free to a platform that not only profits from it but treats me like garbage unfairly when it comes to sharing said profits. Meaning, they don’t share a dime. When I downloaded my Twitter archive, it hit me like a ton of bricks that most of that content was not sitting in my website, so they could just disappear if a billionaire decides to cut me off from the platform.

According to tech journalists, platforms are dying. I personally think they’re more resilient than that and people underestimate how reluctant people are when it comes to getting their hands dirty, building their own home on the Internet. They’d much rather use a ready-made platform where the tools are all ready to do this.

Still, with Twitter still melting, Facebook losing relevance, Reddit turning off many of its power users, we really need to stop putting ourselves in the position where we will be at the mercy of corporations and their business decisions.

Most of the time, these decisions are made solely in their own interest, not yours. Sure, using platforms can help us reach wider audiences, especially in a web overwhelmed by SEO-optimized sites and it’s tough for the little guy to stand out. But let’s not be fooled into thinking they have our best interests at heart, no matter how nice they seem right now.

So, how do we take control?

Well, I’ve been diving into the IndieWeb movement for the last few months, and it’s been a game-changer on how I’ve been blogging. Here’s how I’m doing it.

PESOS and POSSE: Are we in a Western?

We might as well be when it comes to with the IndieWeb movement! People barely know about the movement, so it’s uncharted territory for most. But for me, it has been refreshing and liberating to learn more about.

PESOS and POSSE are methods of publishing your content on the web that will ensure you have control over it:

POSSE (Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere)

PESOS (Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to Own Site)

First, get a domain!

Your blog, whether it is on WordPress or Squarespace etc, should be owned by you. Meaning that you need to buy a domain name. With a domain name, each piece of content will have an address with a URL that you can control.

At the time of this writing, my wordpress.com website is still using a staging address — firediarist.wordpress.com. I have a domain name but haven’t gotten around transferring it yet. (Don’t be me.)

Indieweb folks tend to go a step further by favouring WordPress or Ghost as they are both widely-available, open-sourced content management system unlike Squarespace or Wix. As the latter platforms use proprietary systems, your content would be harder to transfer out of because there’s only one platform that uses their CMS. Their own.

With WordPress (even WordPress.com), you can easily transfer to another service that offers WordPress hosting. And there are a bajilion of them out there. (I can’t comment about Ghost as I’m not as familiar with the platform, but it comes highly recommended.)

Which method should you use?

While I use both methods interchangeably, PESOS is more my style.

I tend to have little bursts of inspiration and I often share these on social media because it is quick and easy to do so.

Some of these ideas make great blog posts, some end up in my trusty Obsidian vault as a note or a journal entry, some I don’t even bother to save. PESOS works for me because it enables me to create content spontaneously, quickly and flexibly.

From a logical standpoint (and if you talk to most IndieWeb purists), POSSE is more efficient.

You write a long, detailed post and then break it up into bite-sized pieces for distribution across platforms. It prevents “wasteful” content creation which might not end up on your blog or disappear into the digital ether.

Both methods have their merits. And it really depends on your personality and preferences.

Personally, POSSE just feels more tedious to me. It takes a lot more effort to organise my thoughts into a long proper post and then breaking it down into smaller content pieces. It prevents me from being quick and spontaneous; I’m a much, much slower and inefficient content creator with POSSE.

So, PESOS it is for me!

Next: I talk about how I actually implement POSSE/PESOS on my website.