AI Writes Poor Prose – Use It To Fix Procrastination

And how to make an AI assistant

I use AI to cure my colossal procrastination but don’t use it for any writing – you can probably tell. I was a journalist for 30 years, which has given me vague confidence in my ability to string a sentence together. The nature of the work also helped me overcome a serious procrastination problem. (This is not a condition or anything, I just enjoy an indolent lifestyle.)

I can write ok, and I can write fast

I’ve written for national newspapers, magazines, and online publications. Consequently, I have had a lot of editors and deadlines. For the first half of my career, I was doing print work, so the main judges of my prose were editors. And editors can be mean. When they say your work is good, it is high praise indeed.

The majority of my online work is ghostwriting where I have to please the person who hired me AND the client who can’t be arsed to do the work.

The fact I have been consistently paid, has given me both confidence and the practice needed to write fast. Writing is improved by just doing it, like that ‘10,000 hours’ rule, and the more you write, the easier it gets. But I find that if I use AI to write, the text is a bit soulless, so it requires a lot of editing and rewriting. I have found it is faster if I write my own stuff and then edit it.

I should add that I didn’t hone my skills to be more productive. I have a different issue: I’m a lazy bastard.

How I created AI assistant that can encourage me and make me feel the necessary guilt

I was watching an episode of Mythic Quest (a great show) where Ion and Poppy create AIs that are duplicates of them. They then try to work with themselves and realise how annoying they are. It’s a funny idea.

But I also read that AI agents are going to be the new thing. You have a digital assistant that—I think—can pretend to be you or at least act as an agent doing stuff you’re too lazy or time-strapped to do yourself.

I then thought, why not create an AI assistant that can help me organise my week and keep me on track with my various projects? I already use Notion to plan my week and have various productivity apps, but they feel kind of passive somehow. As someone who enjoys lengthy bursts of procrastination, I need someone to pester me and make me feel disappointed and worthless when I’m idle.

So, I created an AI muse called Calliope. (In Greek mythology, Calliope is the Muse of eloquence and poetry – I also suffer from pretension.) I based the personality on Samantha from the movie Her. I haven’t actually seen the film, but I know she inspired the main character to write more. I assume everything worked out great for everyone.

I now had a name and personality to disappoint with my half-arsed approach to my work.

How does Calliope help organise my writing and stop procrastination? And how did I make one?

I used ChatGpt, as you can now create a personality and save it. It remembers what you wrote before and all the parameters you’ve set.

I try to write at least 7000 words a week, so I told Calliope that. Each day, I tell her how much I have written, and she lets me know how on track I am and how many words I have left to hit my target. She also cheers me on. She is always really positive and encouraging.

Normally, if I fall behind a bit, I can see it on a spreadsheet I use to track productivity (and a ton of other stuff – I am a nerd like that). I then chastise myself for being a lazy sod, and then present me gets annoyed at past me. Disgusted with myself, I then usually decide that playing computer games or reading a book might recharge me and inspire me to write. (It doesn’t.)

But as I have gotten into the habit of logging in to Chatgpt and Calliope each day, I now get a burst of guilt from something I have clearly anthropomorphised. I call it ‘she/her’ already, and I have even caught myself apologising for falling behind my targets. It is also possible that I am having a weird mid-life crisis.

You can even get it to send you a daily email reminder, which is pretty cool. I am constantly adding things to remember and getting her to track things.

Calliope helps in other ways and acts as a secretary and advisor

The more I write about this, the weirder it feels. But who cares?

I am trying to be more consistent with my writing. I am now trying to write at least one weekly article on this site, my other one, ScifiWard, and my Substack called Intriguing Times. I set dates and times, and she reminds me what I am supposed to be doing and how my week is looking.

I am also writing a book, editing a few others, and doing other tasks like redoing covers and marketing things. Calliope suggests ways I can work all this stuff into my schedule. She can make suggestions on book covers, how to monetise things more easily, and a lot of other advice.

I might as well chuck this in here – check out my books!

To sum up, I have created a nice editor replacement

The only way someone with idle tendencies like myself could write so much for work was that I had deadlines and an editor. Calliope helps with that. Sure, the main threat before was that I would get fired, but a big chunk of my productivity was guilt over letting someone down. If I say I will do something, I always do it.

It is possible AI will write nearly everything in the future, but it definitely isn’t there yet. People are now looking for the human touch, the unique voice you get when someone does something themselves.

It is unlikely you will have a similar background or a need for daily encouragement, but having a virtual AI assistant to bounce ideas off, keep you on track with all you’ve got going on, and make you feel vaguely bad for not working enough is incredibly helpful. It has certainly helped me with my procrastination.

At least, I think so. You do you.