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Two Writers, No Hook · Yesterday · 42 min

Breaking Through the Wall

Recorded 2026-08-10 We start with a very brief mention of an AI tool that purports to write for you. Surprisingly it's not called "Slopomatic." Enough of that, we go to progress reporting. I report being on page 242, 28 pages edited since our last episode and two short of my goal of 30. In "stuff other than writing", I've done work on an end-to-end publishing workflow, and set up a project manager to track it. I report that editing has been easier, and has been giving me more confidence that a lot of it is honing in on getting the right words in the right order. We have a side conversation about writing tools and subscription services, lifetime memberships, and market forces. Michael reports signing up for a writing challenge that was a bad fit: two three hundred word stories, a word limit he finds impossible. He hit three chapters edited, short of his five chapter goal, but reworked another four, so we'll call that seven edited. Future goals: Michael wants to finish edits, and to dictate a short story for audiobook release. I'm shooting for another 30 pages, maybe more as I'm 50 pages or so from the end. We talk about both of us getting over a wall of low productivity. I talk about how productivity and happiness are strongly correlated for me. I talk about cycles of productivity and then the ADD challenge of managing which projects I work on during those productive periods. We talk about to-do lists. We talk about the folly of measuring ourselves against others. We talk about how these conversations have helped us both keep on task. Next episode: Combating Tedium

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Recorded 2026-08-10

We start with a very brief mention of an AI tool that purports to write for you. Surprisingly it's not called "Slopomatic."

Enough of that, we go to progress reporting. I report being on page 242, 28 pages edited since our last episode and two short of my goal of 30. In "stuff other than writing", I've done work on an end-to-end publishing workflow, and set up a project manager to track it. I report that editing has been easier, and has been giving me more confidence that a lot of it is honing in on getting the right words in the right order.

We have a side conversation about writing tools and subscription services, lifetime memberships, and market forces.

Michael reports signing up for a writing challenge that was a bad fit: two three hundred word stories, a word limit he finds impossible. He hit three chapters edited, short of his five chapter goal, but reworked another four, so we'll call that seven edited.

Future goals: Michael wants to finish edits, and to dictate a short story for audiobook release. I'm shooting for another 30 pages, maybe more as I'm 50 pages or so from the end.

We talk about both of us getting over a wall of low productivity. I talk about how productivity and happiness are strongly correlated for me. I talk about cycles of productivity and then the ADD challenge of managing which projects I work on during those productive periods. We talk about to-do lists. We talk about the folly of measuring ourselves against others. We talk about how these conversations have helped us both keep on task.

Next episode: Combating Tedium

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