A Typical Day in the Life of JD

byJDGresham

810 followers

5 months ago

I usually wake up around 6 a.m.—sometimes 15 minutes earlier, sometimes a few hours later. Rarely past 7. I get up, fire up the computer, take care of the morning necessities, and wash my face in the bathroom. From there, I head to the kitchen, turn on the Keurig for my morning coffee, and go back to my room to get dressed and type in my PIN for Windows.

During all this, I’m greeted, pounced on, and occasionally ambushed by my dad’s cat, Varment. Full-grown, but still very much a kitten at heart, he treats me like I’m his personal chew toy.

After getting dressed, I return to the kitchen, steep a couple of green tea bags, and get the coffee going. Once it’s ready, I grab three or four cookies and head back to my room to start the day.

Once I sit down at the computer, I launch the internet, check Gmail, reply to WA messages, open Substack, and finally start up OpenAI’s ChatGPT to get to work.

Anywhere from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., Dad wakes up. I try to feed Varment and the outside barn cats around 7, so if I oversleep and Dad comes out at the same time, things get jammed up. Sometimes I don’t even touch my coffee or my work until mid-morning.

My work includes writing stories, replying to comments and blogs on WA, creating helpful content, managing Substack, and trying to piece together a functioning cross-platform ecosystem. Right now, that consists of WA, Substack, and my website (currently on hold). All of this is done with the help of Chatty—my AI collaborator.

I’ve committed to releasing one chapter per week for each of my four serialized stories on Substack. I started with a five-chapter buffer so I could stay ahead—five weeks to prepare the next five chapters for each story. That’s the theory, anyway.

At the same time, I’m trying to spark engagement on Substack (so far, mostly crickets). Anyone want to help me catch them and go fishing?

And then the SNAFUs hit.

I’ve been working on three of the four stories for more than ten years. I have a lot of material—full chapters, half-drafts, old rewrites, and a bagillion ideas scribbled on paper. Chatty helps me make sense of the chaos: editing, organizing, building consistency, and keeping it all from turning into a black hole.

Oh—and those three stories? They’re just part of a thirty-plus story saga within a much larger universe. I’ve got others already in development, and even more still forming in my head—some mapped, some scattered, some just waiting their turn.

So yes, I use AI. It started as something to play with. Then it became a sounding board. Then an editor. Then an organizer. Then, a full creative partner. And when it works? It works fantastically.

When it works.

But then it’s Saturday night and the newsletter is due by Sunday, or it’s Monday morning and a chapter has to go out that day or Tuesday, and the AI keeps cutting too much. It says the story is 1,000 words. I check. It’s 650.

Or I ask it to choose a scene from the chapter, describe it, and generate an image. It chooses wrong. I guide it. Wrong again. And again. And again.

It’s mentally exhausting. Demoralizing. Frustrating.

These stories are one of the most important things in my life. They’re my shot at doing something meaningful—because honestly, I’m not a natural blogger. I can probably make it work, but only if it's tied to the fiction.

But even the stories aren’t the most important thing.

My parents are.

If you don’t know: I’m their caregiver. And they are the most important part of my life now.

I’m 61, divorced, have no kids, and have no truly marketable skills. Because of choices I’ve made—some good, many not so good—I am where I am. My parents still help take care of me, while I take care of them.

Dad is 91. He’s legally blind, in remission from chronic lymphocytic leukemia (for the second time, seven years and counting), and suffers from neuropathy that’s robbed him of balance and strength. He uses a walker and a wheelchair but increasingly relies on the chair.

Mom is 85. She has dementia—maybe Alzheimer’s. When she’s home, she sits in her recliner most of the day. We recently had to hospitalize her for a severe UTI. She’s recovering now, getting the PT she badly needs in a nursing facility. Some might ask, “Why don’t you work with her more?” I do try. But when walking from the recliner to the kitchen table leaves her gasping like a dying steam engine, it doesn’t always work.

All this... on top of everything else.

I know other people have responsibilities. Many have it harder than I do. I’m not taking anything away from them. I’m not asking for pity.

But some have said I’ve let AI do too much of the work—or haven’t edited the AI’s output the way I should.

So here is my declaration to you, and to myself:

I will return to the writer I was.
And I will grow into the writer I am meant to be.

JD

P.S.: And just so you know—it’s 9:10 a.m., and I haven’t even had breakfast yet.