One Day an AI Saved My Life
Mind, Body & Soul Series · Post 1
The Journal
Creative practice, weekly.
Notes on building a creative life that pays: practice, income, the tools behind the scenes, and the honest bits in between. New posts as I go; newest first.
Latest posts
Every post lives at its own clean URL and feeds the RSS.
-
-
It's Not Too Late — and It's Probably Not a Compromise Either
The Creative Business Series · Post 4
-
Is Breadth the Product?
The Creative Business Series · Post 3
-
The Gift
The Creative Business Series · Post 2
-
The Inline Fix
A small white tube arrived this morning. Inside it, a thing the size of a wine cork with a socket at each end: a Triton Audio FetHead. It does exactly one thing: it sits directly on the back of my…
-
Simplify the Stack
For years my answer to almost any problem was another app. A better to-do system. A different notes tool. A new platform that promised to be the one that finally tied it all together. I had…
-
The Brain They Don't Share
I had two Macs running, each with its own Claude working away, and I did the most natural thing in the world: I finished a piece of work on the laptop, walked over to the Mac mini, and asked its…
-
The Control Tower
I am not a developer. I teach people to paint. I run a craft business. The most technical thing in my week is usually whether the card reader will talk to the till.
-
The Best Friend on Steroids
The AI Artist Series · Post 5
-
Staffing Your AI Team
There's a question I get asked, in slightly different forms, almost weekly now: which AI should I use?
-
The Frame Trap
I want to tell you about a bug I just resolved, and the reason I'm telling you isn't really the bug. The bug was one line in a configuration file. The reason I'm telling you is the three weeks I…
-
What Software Engineers Don't Understand About AI Systems
I have a degree in IT. A PGCE. Lean Six Sigma, PRINCE2, MSP, Scrum. I was the training manager at an ISP, and I trained the other IT trainers there. I owned a bespoke software business: I built a…
-
Why Listening to Your AI Isn't What You Think
The AI Artist Series · Post 3
-
Stop Letting It Build Because It Can
The AI Artist Series · Post 4
-
The Satnav Problem
The AI Artist Series · Post 2
-
Finding Flow
For many of us elusive and mourning its absence in our lives. How to find it? And more importantly how to drop into it more frequently?
-
The 10,000-Hour Misunderstanding: Why Your Creative Tool Isn't Working Yet
There's a particular kind of frustration that creative people know well. You've bought the course. You've set up the software. You've got the subscription, the new app, the account. You've done…
-
The Palette That Taught Me Everything About Creative Overflow
Your palette gets clogged. So does your brain. Here's what to do about both.
-
The Creative Life Has to Pay. Here's What I've Learned About Making That Happen.
Success is freedom. Getting there requires being honest about the maths.
-
Is Bill Bryson the Greatest Advance in Human Civilisation?
An argument for why great communicators matter more than isolated geniuses.
-
One Idea, Three Channels: Stop Reinventing the Wheel Every Time You Post
You don't need more content ideas. You need to stop treating every platform like it needs something different.
-
Using AI to Clean Up Your Thinking (Not Replace It)
The most useful thing AI has done for my creative work is help me hear what I'm actually saying.
-
How Not to Waste Your Rich Creative Vein
You're in a good patch. Here's why that's also the most dangerous time.
-
Stop Perfecting. Start Publishing.
The course I never released taught me more than the ones I did.
-
The Cost of Waiting Until It's Perfect
I spent months building something brilliant. Then I spent years not showing it to anyone.
-
Draw Something Every Day. Seriously. Just One Thing.
Not a grand artistic statement. Not a finished piece. Just a mark, every day, that proves you showed up.
-
Why Your Body Has to Move Before Your Creativity Can
The mind/body/soul connection isn't a wellness cliché; it's a creative operating system.
-
My Best Ideas Come From Walking in the Rain
There's something about being out in weather that strips everything back to what actually matters.
-
We Don't Live Long Enough to Be Anything Else
Austin Kleon says to be an amateur. He's right. Here's why that's not the insult you think it is.
-
What Changing Your Life Actually Looks Like From the Inside
Not a before-and-after. More like a during: messy, uncertain, and still very much ongoing.
-
What Teaching Art Has Taught Me About Learning Everything
The moment a student picks up a brush for the first time tells you everything about how humans approach change.
-
I Was Building the Future Before I Knew What It Was
Turns out I'd been doing something valuable for decades. I just didn't have the language for it yet.
-
Your Brain Is Wired to Miss the Good Stuff. Art Is the Fix.
Your brain is a survival machine. It's been filtering out beauty since the Stone Age.
