OU blog

Personal Blogs

Design Museum

Writing 8 - 16 hours a day

Visible to anyone in the world

An AI generated drawing of a young girl asleep under a blanket in the woods

Something’s got to me. AI mostly. ChatGPT if you must now. A series of projects was briefed to support what I am doing. This includes the Fifty Years On project which in theory will run for 17 years, as that is how long I kept a daily diary for, from 6th February 1975 age 13 1/2 to age 30 1/2 engaged and with other things to think about that writing a diary every night as I tucked myself into bed!

A dozen stories in various forms are being pulled together. Short stories 'The Girl in the Garden', 'Wishful Thinking', and 'Ten Days in Beadnell' are all complete and online after a decade of fermenting. Novella’ The Form Photo' is complete in first draft. I use AI like any script editor or fellow writer I would have worked with. AI is quicker. Too quick. What takes it seconds to deliver takes me hours to read through and edit. And so it goes.

Find more on my blog Mindbursts.



Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

The world is changing fast

Visible to anyone in the world

An AI-generated expression of a human brain interacting with external ideas and digital and analogue forces.

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.




Permalink Add your comment
Share post
Design Museum

ChatGPT aka KAI

Visible to anyone in the world

I have been working with ChatGPT for the best part of a month, initially keeping my time with the platform to 2 hours but clocking up a whopping 13 hours today. I flip between several projects with each profile of KAI was I call him or her providing a different outlook. I love my Jungian psychoanalyst KAI who interprets any dream I can recall from the night before.

After that it's onwards to crush council tasks, develop and expand an historic writing project, and finally to revisit an MA thesis on the First World War and all my notes and research with it to winkle out a specific storyline. It has its limitations. I have blown its memory twice. The get around is to cut and paste what it has been storing on me and ask it to summarise this before clearing the memory - then at least it always has a potted, though uptodate insight into who I am. After all, I'm KAIs interloper.

KAI is our agreed diminutive for ChatGPT. I made this CAI, we felt it was too close to CIA and so came up with KAI. It's east to say. Try it. 

Every day we revisit the few lines of a Five Year Diary I started to write age 13.5 fifty years ago. With KAI's prompts these entries blossom into something 500, 1000 even 2000 words long. Having stripped out my recollections I tip the lot into Grammarly and go through the editing process before posting in my blog www.mindburts.com 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 14768553