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Why I’m Live-streaming My Next Writing Project

When my latest book, Mastodon For Dummies, was released, several people on social media commented that it was “probably written by AI.” These comments infuriated me much more than a bad review ever has. Bad reviews often contain information that can help me to do better next time, and I’ve been lucky (or good enough) that the number of truly bad reviews I’ve gotten on my writing is fairly small. If people start to assume that any book on a currently hot topic was written by AI, it might be time for me to hang up my keyboard.

None of the people who commented that the book was “probably AI” even looked at the book. If they had, they would have found that it contains humor, subtlety, good writing, and sensitivity to emotions and frustrations that human learners frequently have. AI isn’t capable of authentically reproducing any of these characteristics of a good “For Dummies” book.

Suggesting that a book I wrote (or co-wrote in this case) wasn’t written by humans discounts the hundreds of hours of difficult and creative work that’s informed by over 20 years of experience (for each of the authors in the case of this book) and the meticulous and exhausting editing process the book receives after the first draft of the manuscript is finished.

Most book authors don’t make a living from it. We have day jobs, and writing a book is often at least 40 more hours of work per week on top of a 40 hour work week at a job we wish we didn’t have to do. I’ve calculated that my average book has earned me less than $10 per hour — and I’m a somewhat successful author.

As a response to anyone who would question whether my books are written by me, I’ve decided to live stream the entire process of writing my next book. In each exciting episode of “Watch Chris Write a Book” (working title), you’ll get to see me at my desk from 2am to 7am (at least) every day for 6 months. In each gripping episode, you’ll get to see a real person doing some or all of the following things: typing, researching, planning, outlining, coding, and drinking a lot of coffee.

I don’t have another book project lined up at this point, because I need to make some money for a couple months to get ready. But, I have a couple proposals out and I’ll post an update here and on Mastodon with the link where you can watch me when I do have a new project. Unless some better solution comes along, I expect that live-streamed book writing may even become the norm for any (human) author.

Chris Answers Questions About Writing

People often ask writers about their daily schedules, hoping to get some nugget of advice that’s going to help them finally start or finish the novel they’ve been planning. I totally understand where this question is coming from, and I ask the same question of anyone who manages to exercise on a regular basis. Writing can be difficult, and a different perspective or the right advice can sometimes make it easier.

I’m the kind of writer who really likes to tell stories (often conflicting) about the things that I do and don’t do — so I have fun with this question. I never mean to mislead anyone or give out bad advice…I think the things I say make sense…for example: “write without pants on before 6am, edit with pants on after 6pm”. But, take everything I say on this matter with a grain of salt, because I’d be some sort of crazy robot if I actually followed my own advice half the time.

There was an article I read recently where someone tried to actually follow the routines that various authors claimed they followed…but he wasn’t willing to follow through with Hunter S. Thompson’s supposed routine and so the article was sort of lame.

At any rate, I make up stories about how I write, and here’s the latest installment, with some other fun questions and answers too. This is from Nancy Christie’s series of interviews called One on One: Insights Into The Writer’s Life.

What writing death notices taught me about writing

smallnoticeI’ve been a professional writer for 22 years. The first time my writing was published was in 1993, when I was the circulation manager for a small weekly newspaper in Detroit. The full-time reporters considered the job of writing death notices to be beneath them, and shoved it off onto me.

I loved it. Each week, the death notice forms would come in from the funeral homes, along with the remembrance ads from the spouses and loved ones of the recently, or not so recently, departed. Some notices stuck to just the facts: Mr. Volchuck died March 18 at Holy Cross Hospital. He’s survived by his daughter, Anna, and his son, Leon.

Other notices would feature bible verses. Occasionally there would be a line or two of bad poetry or some clip art selected from a binder that was kept at the front desk.

Some death notices would give a bit more information about the person than just the names of their spouses, children, and grandchildren. For example, Jan Kowalski played football for University of Detroit and worked at GM for 30 years.

My job was to put each death notice into a standard format, get the facts and spelling right, and have it all ready to go to paste up (the paper was pasted up when I first started working there) in time for the Tuesday night press run.

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The structure of death notice had been the same for the entire 75+ year history of the paper: Last name, first name, middle initial, location, date of death, survived by wife (nee maiden name), children, grandchildren, location and date / time of services.

Although the policy was to stick to the standard format and keep it as dry as possible, I would routinely include as much information into each death notice as I could. A death notice is a very different thing, with a very different purpose, from an obituary. But, I treated each notice as an opportunity to try to fit an obituary into around 50 words.

The challenge of squeezing human details or touching words into whatever small amount of space was left after listing the grandchildren was one that I was particularly fond of and good at.

The readership skewed towards elderly Polish-Americans. They were notorious gossips and wanted to know everything about everyone else’s troubles, illnesses, and ultimate undoing. The paper, however, had a policy of not printing the cause of death.

I was a 22-year old on a break of indeterminate length from college. Full of unearned self-assuredness, I argued with the editor-in-chief and publisher — who had a collective 40+ years of newspaper experience between them — that the cause of death should be listed in death notices whenever it’s included on the form.

Death notices were one of the most-read parts of the paper in this community. Listing the cause of death, I argued, would make the notices even more popular. The publisher considered it tacky to mention the cause of death, and pointed out that doing so would require additional research and permissions from survivors. I eventually saw that the trouble of printing the cause of death wasn’t worth the effort, and my crusade for openness ended there.

From this first experience with being published and having my writing distributed I learned to be concise, to always be thinking about the audience, and to do quality work while balancing the effort and rewards. These are vital skills for any writer to have, and I would encourage anyone who is just getting started as a writer to spend some time practicing the art of writing death notices.