#being-a-writer — Public Fediverse posts

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!)

Elizabeth TaifirediaristEdit Profile

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

• 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

#AI #BeingAWriter #Fiction #seedling

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