Personal Blogs

The world is changing fast, and this is why. I’ve been using AI across various creative, analytical, and practical aspects of my work and life. 

This is a summary of what I’ve learned and achieved:

1. Writing & Story Development

• Use AI to refine and tweak your novel Wishful Thinking, mainly by listening to ElevenLab’s voice reading. This process has helped me identify nuances, stumbles, and areas for refinement.

• Recognised how AI can assist in adapting Wishful Thinking into a screenplay with ease.

• I began revisiting and cataloguing older stories (Sardines, CC & Susie, The Girl in the Garden), considering their potential for development. My next novel project should be Angel of the North, setting a structured two-hour daily writing slot to work on.

2. Audio Performance & AI Voices

• Amelia’s voice from ElevenLab provides an authentic, brilliantly performed reading of Wishful Thinking.

• Used the AI reading to catch errors and fine-tune dialogue and pacing.

• Reading a piece aloud reveals a new layer of clarity in storytelling.

3. Productivity & Time Management

• Realised that structured creative work, with set hours and pacing, prevents burnout.

• Experimented with using AI for planning and project organisation, recognising the benefits of AI-driven analysis without over-reliance.

4. AI in Memory & Reflection

• Continued deep exploration of past diary entries, using AI to stimulate reflection and extract stories.

• Discovered how AI challenges and enhances your recollections, appreciating different perspectives on past events.

• AI helps clarify and structure your thoughts on past relationships, experiences, and creative choices.

5. Artistic & Creative Exploration

• Used AI to assist in organising Open Houses Art Week preparations.

• I began considering AI’s role in producing creative work beyond writing, potentially in visual art, historical research, and film adaptation.

6. Historical & Documentary Research

• Applied AI to WWI project research, expanding your understanding and planning for a larger project.

• Use AI to fact-check and recall details from past experiences, reinforcing your work as a historian of memory.

7. Future Considerations

• Considering AI’s potential in film production, especially for adapting Wishful Thinking as a youth theatre screenplay or live-action short.

• Noted that AI could assist with editing and improving past short stories to bring them up to publishable quality.

• I am interested in AI’s ability to enhance storytelling across different media, from voice performance to screenplay formatting.

Key Takeaways

AI has helped me refine my writing, making it sharper, more immersive, and more effective.
AI-assisted voice performance has revealed story weaknesses and allowed me to refine my writing precisely. AI also helps challenge and expand my memory, making my reflections richer and more layered.
AI-powered tools offer a structure for writing and creative projects, helping with pacing and avoiding burnout.
I’m thinking critically about AI’s role in film, theatre, and historical research, exploring its potential without overreliance on it.

Reelected recently to one of the greenest Green Councils in the country (Lewes), I am inadvertently bringing together a gaggle of interests, some tangential, some relevant.  Following a talk on the 'Fungi of Markstakes Common' I am fast moving towards papers/talks on the 'Ancient Trees of Markstakes Common' - those identified 13 years ago (the ash have died, one Beech is a pile of dead wood, two other beech and one hornbeam have lost major stems, as with one of the silver birch - now dead. I could add another 12 to the old list.

Dealing with people is no less engaging and uses similar skills. I was out this morning with a tape measure to look at some local potholes and bring these to the attention of the Conservative run East Sussex County Council which is increasingly looking like the institution that blocks everything - these constipated Conservatives will be duly removed from power, where, in truth they have 'sat on their hands' for too long - doing little, taking their stipend.

But that's politics, and we don't want any of that here.

I'm itching for appropriate postgraduate study on woodland management, biodiversity, sustainability or some such but fear that too much that that is on offer is either dated, or to expensive. 

An online course on Fungi for £40, something on trees for £90. Do I need it, or want it.

Anyone used Chat.ai.open yet? 

Had it been around over the last decade I would have use it to assist with essays and dissertations. I find it/her/him an intelligent tutor, not always getting it right, but able to collate information and produce a coherent point of view. Like all tools though it/he/she must be 'triangulated' - we need references.