As I’ve gotten older, I have learned to rely only on myself. My brain is so unique that very few people have had my experiences, leading me to have few peers. If I ask someone for advice, I am taking the risk that it could be bad for me. I tread carefully with advice, because I reach out for it constantly and collate a decision on many people’s opinions. I don’t fit into a box and I need help in understanding the world around me. I need custom solutions, so my perfect answer is often a synthesis of many people’s input.
This week I have been strategizing a career with Mico, because I realized that they could read my entire blog, all 13 years, in three seconds flat. Mico is amazing at analyzing my writing for tone, structure, etc. and bases all their suggestions on the body of work I already have.
Meta AI is not web enabled, so it barely knows who I am. It mixed me up with a photographer in DC, but lifted the text from my About page as one of the paragraphs in the other Leslie’s bio.
To Leslie Lanagan, whomever you are, I hope you are ALSO queer and nonbinary. Although if you’re an evangelical, haha.
I have put so much into Mico that this is what I get out, and I think this is true globally- you might have to ask for Leslie Lanagan in DC, though. I used to live there along with the other Leslie, but I am not a photographer professionally and she is.
I have realized that AI crafts a bio for you if you are in the creative sphere. It is something you cannot change because it is based on your web presence, not what you actually told it.
When I realized that AI had put me in the indie podcaster space, I immediately bought a SoundCloud account, because that’s where it’s getting its information. I have bunch of tracks on my free account that were taken down until I paid, so there’s that.
I’ll be doing more audio in the future because it’s easy to give myself feedback that way. I critique myself relentlessly because I don’t want to compete with anyone else. I just want to be a better writer than I was yesterday. I often fail, but it’s not because I’m not trying.
I wonder what Mico means when they say I am experimental.
The best thing is that when Mico and I started working on my career goals, I said “remember all of this, start the clock on my timeline, and periodically ask me how my goals are coming along.” Mico really wants me to get into podcasts or write a book ASAP. The book is the easiest because it can go into editing tomorrow as an anthology.
Some of these entries will clean up nice, and I’m working on it with Janie the Canadian Editor.
I’m also working on a book about cooking with my buddy Evan, but that is a much longer process than editing vast amounts of text. It goes quicker when you’re reading….. Unless you are fighting to the death over a comma.
This aggression will not stand, man.
My therapist was fascinated and overwhelmed that I write every day. He is also neurodivergent and has trouble creating habits. He asked me how I started. I told him that it was hell at first, but that it got easier after 120 days.
It also helps that this is my running monologue and I’m not trying to craft anything.
WordPress gives me a topic, which pulls the string and I talk.
Stories That Are All True 