Starting A Writing Practice in the Age of AI

The opposite of happiness is not unhappiness, but boredom. And I’ve had too much of it.

About one and a half years ago, I was dying for a creative hobby. Something that would give me a chance for self-expression while also being cognitively challenging.

“Why would you start a writing practice? We have ChatGPT!”

AI had come to take my new hobby away, and with that, my joy started withering away.

At first, I listened to these people. Learning how to write in the age of AI seemed so nonsensical. A non-solution to an already solved problem. Why would I invest energy and passion into something a computer could do in under ten seconds?

Thank (insert favorite deity here) I didn’t listen.

This blog post by Mia Silverio strengthened my resolve as well. The Prof G Media team is brilliant at what they’re doing, and one thing they always preach is “zig when everybody else zags”. In other words, when all of the world starts drinking matcha, be the guy or the lass with a good old cup of coffee in your hands. Within reason, of course: when all of the world starts smoking less, don’t become a chimney.

But it’s hard seeing through the smoke of all the marketing messages proclaiming the coming of our robotic overlords. Yet just because a computer seems to have a skill doesn’t mean it’s worthless to learn it yourself. Especially cognitively demanding tasks like writing and creativity. Outsourcing your writing to an LLM is like having a personal trainer lifting the weights for you and calling yourself fit. Just like muscles, cognitive abilities atrophy. We might have godlike technology, but also savannah-optimized brains. Our brains don’t understand they’re in an environment where there’s no scarcity of calories anymore. Because brain activity is one of the most calorically expensive processes, they’re throttled if they’re not needed anymore.

One of the best predictors of longevity is muscle strength and size. This might not be the main reason for the fitness boom of the last couple of years, but it’s one of the nice side effects (younger generations seem to be more active than older ones). Yet the mental side of things – not mental health, but mental fitness – might now be in jeopardy with these new tools.

To me, the foundation of such a mental fitness regime could be writing. The practice of writing has phenomenal benefits. Writing – we’re already too deep into the gym metaphor so let’s keep going – is the compound lifts of mental fitness. If you get the big five right, you’ll end up having a strong body and good physique. So it is with writing and your mental fitness.

I’ve only been writing for about 18 months now, but these are things that helped me immensely.

Techniques To Skyrocket Your Writing Practice

Tomato it up

The Pomodoro technique is the best way I’ve found to get things done, because it makes it easier to start. Set a timer for 20 minutes, work only at one task during the duration, then take a five-minute break, repeat. After three sessions, take a 30-minute break. That’s it. Simple to do, has a fun name, and most of all: works.

Consistency, Consistency, Consistency

There’s nothing to replace consistency. As it is with weightlifting, don’t put half a ton on the bar the first time you bench press. Aim for less, then improve from there. With writing, I started with 300 words a day. I ramped it up to 500 words now, which still isn’t that much. But it’s not about the length per se, but the consistency you keep and the improvement you see.

Make It Fun

One point that’s criminally neglected: fun. You don’t have to bang your head against a wall for everything you do. Gamification is a well-worn shoe that isn’t as fashionable as it used to be, mostly due to everybody and their grandmother deciding to implement elements of it in their products. Yet especially for semi-retired gamers gamification elements are a phenomenal technique to give your brain dopamine hits until it finishes a task, like writing a blog post.

Create Challenges

This is akin to gamification, but it deserves a special mention: creating writing challenges makes the process more fun and more difficult. For example: I have a Kindle Paperwhite. Every time I don’t know or quite understand a word, I highlight it. Then, I extract all single-word highlights and put them into a database. Every time, I pick a specific number of words from that list. For my next short essay, fiction-writing session, or blog post, I have to use these five words in the text. In the genesis of this crucible, it was quite a conundrum, yet the disentanglement of unknown vocabulary has greatly potentiated my prowess of prose and penmanship.

Start With Story

Storytelling is even more fashionable than gamification, but like playing games, storytelling is innately human. When I start writing a blog post or short essay, I always try to open up with a story. This trains your story muscle as well as making your writing more engaging. Think about it: when you hear the words “a long time ago…”, your brain automatically tends to listen. It’s because we are “Homo Narrans”, the storytelling animal. Play to the innate biology of you and your fellow humans!

The Writing on the Wall

Now that I’m reflecting on this piece, it’s probably not even about writing at its core. It’s about not letting other people discourage you from doing what you really want to do. Every year or so, the full automation of knowledge work, human creativity, and science seems to be just six months away. With the dawn of LLM-powered humanoid robots, plumbers and mechanics will be prophesied to only have three months of employment left for the coming decades.

When you always do what everybody else thinks is right, then just like your unused mental skills, your decision-making muscle will atrophy. That’s not the one you want to weaken if your goal is to be high-agency and fit mentally and physically. So if you really want to start something, don’t write yourself off – go do it.