Writing while depressed
The lure of AI can be strong for the weak minded
Jumping right to the core of this: I’m in the grip of a depressive episode once again, the longest one yet. It started February 14 2025 and hasn’t fully let go. It’s loosened its grip once or twice, tightened it too many times, but never let go.
That’s what I want to talk about today but not sure exactly how to approach it so I’m just going to dive right in, like I usually do with either a script or novel. Just take that idea I’ve had and just get writing and see where it leads.
Not that I’ve been doing a lot of writing lately. I should have been - I’ve the fourth Louise Miller book to finish and then another five books after that to complete the series. I’ve ideas for a literary novel I want to write, several actually, plus a couple of suspence/horror/thriller types. And there’s the epic sci-fi novel that has been hovering waiting for its time to shine. And don’t get me started on the screenplays I’d love to finish, expanding my completed script portfolio from the two that it has been on for the last 15 years.
So lots of potential but no action.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate. In the last three weeks I have written a ton of content:
a complete business plan for an indie author survival guide
over 350 article ideas with 3 years of weekly content planned.
digital products planned to be released every quarter for the next 3 years.
wrote a non-fiction book about how to plan your novel, with workbook pages.
designed and created new images and logos for the new business
created a new online platform
set up new email, storage, spreadsheets and trackers for the business
and the vast majority of it was done using AI.
Type a few prompts into ChatGPT. Take the results and flesh them out. Get more structure from the ‘bot and add that in, and before you know it, you have a stacked document and a fully formatted plan of attack for a possible cash-grab business, because that’s all it would be when you stop and take an honest look at it. A get-rich-quick scheme fuelled by depression, circumstance and the £3 that sits in my bank account a full fifteen days before pay day hits and bills still due to be paid.
It’s easy to see now why people do churn shit out using AI - it’s hard work, I will give them that, tweaking the results with fresh prompts so what you get back isn’t dull, but it’s easy work. It’s also souless, done for entirely the wrong reason.
Could I make a ton of money creating content this way? - quite possibly. It would take time and effort but I’m pretty sure it could be done, preying on the insecurities of fellow indie authors by providing them with solutions to their problems - top 10 ways to plot a book; a spreadsheet for tracking submissions; a template for query letters and 15 best practices when contacting agents or publishers.
I could make some money, get financially stable once again and hope that the change in circumstance would help drag me out this dark, depressive hole I’ve been in for the last five months.
But I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I did. I couldn’t face my wife with honour and integrity. Just because I can do this, doesn’t mean I should do it. I could walk into a bank with a hammer and steal a bunch of cash and it would be just as bad - that’s how I described my decision to Lucy to not pursue this any further.
To go down that AI path would be to serve one person - me. Oh, I would say it was to help the indie authors out there, but that’s just bullshit. It’s to serve me. To make me money. It’s not me and it’s not right.
It’s not me.
It’s not me. It’s the depression taking hold of the ship and steering it towards some rocks hoping that we strike them hard enough that I’ll sink down into the cold, icy depths and stay there. It’s the depression jumping me from one thing to another, distracting me, losing my focus just the way Trump dangles Coke with cane-sugar in the hopes his “followers” don’t realise their cult leader is a paedophile and they’ve been fed a bag of shit while he steals from them to line his pockets before he skips town.
At the start I said this depression started February 14th 2025. Valentines Day. The day I went with my wife to the doctors for a routine follow up to a polyp removal she had undergone recently. The day when instead of simply explaining that the procedure had gone well and yadda-yadda-yadda, he instead pointed out that she had cancer and an operation needed to be done. A full hysteroechtomy. And soon. Like real soon. And within a few weeks she was in hospital, having the operation and I was off work for a month to look after her, and helping her stand and bathe and get dressed and the infection then took hold and she was back in hospital and I was at home on my own for weeks while they looked after her and my day job started to suffer and I was on my own and scared but had to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward to be there for Lucy and do whatever needed to be done and somehow keep it together when I was on the phone selling toy soldiers to retail stores and I tried to write book four but its about depression and how can I write about depression when I’m depressed because its like trying to paint a dark sky when you’re in a dark room with no lights and you can’t see and you can’t breathe and for months now I can’t breathe and everything is pressing down and I can’t breathe and I can’t see and I don’t know what to do next and if I can make lots of money by selling my soul that will help right? that will make things better and i can do it real easy by just using AI they all do it I’ve seen it on YouTube and Substack so many times and they’re making hundreds of thousands and I we need is a little of that scratch and everything will be alright right? everything will be alright and I can write we both can write.
Right?
Fuck it felt good to get that all down. If nothing else.
So I don’t know what I’m going to be writing after this. I planned some scripts for the next year or so. Something fun - they’re mostly horror or horror/comedy. I was going to do a remake of The Blob but that’s already in the works. Just like when years ago I wanted to write The A-Team, CHIPs, and The Fall Guy (all got done before I could and all were terrible!!!). I’ve a potential action-adventure franchise idea, plus adaptations of some un-published novels of mine.
I’m wandering again. What I’m trying to say is if I’m going to write anything, it’s not going to be with AI. It’s going to be all me, 100%, and not done just to try make some quick(ish) cash. I was serialising ‘TIL IT BLEEDS but even with 80’000 words done and over 60 chapters written, I don’t want to work on it anymore, at least not right now. I think what I’ve written is good, but I’m just not sure it’s good enough. I know the story is there, but the approach needs to be different.
Anyway. Thanks for reading if you got this far.
Not sure if I got to making any clear points but I do feel better for having gotten it down. I’d started journalling at the start of the year and that also fell aside for the last few months. I need to get back to that.
I need to get back to writing.
I need to get back to me.