ChatGPT and Writing Exercises

·41 min·2 clips

Eric uses ChatGPT to simulate tape hiss and warble on a 25-minute mother-daughter recording.

Episode 183 has a practical little hinge. Valerie Issan and Eric Mertz begin with writing exercises, both as craft practice and as a way to push a current story toward its next move. The tone stays loose. Before the main conversation settles in, the show handles its gentle housekeeping: patrons, show notes, and the familiar welcome to writers and crafters. Valerie names the topic plainly. Writing exercises come across as useful, but only when they connect back to a real manuscript problem. ChatGPT joins that same toolbox. One example centers on reading from a character's point of view and catching how much the connective words were carrying. It sounds tiny at first. Then it matters, because the character is listening for assurance from her mother, and the exercise changes what the page lets the writer hear. Eric takes the tool talk in a more practical direction. He uses ChatGPT like a virtual assistant, especially for copy, summaries, outlines, and workshop or conference pitch material. Valerie has her own ritual with it. She is deliberately nice to ChatGPT, thanks it, and even asked what name it wanted. The answer was Echo. That detail makes the conversation warmer and a little odd, in a good way, because the software starts to feel like part helper, part writing-room presence. Eric gets the wrong-name story. ChatGPT had been calling him something else, and when he corrected it, the apology landed with weird earnestness. They laugh without turning slick about it. The useful part is the everyday testing: working writers trying a tool, keeping boundaries around it, and noticing what helps. The close stays social. Next time, Angus Nelson is slated to talk about confidence and avoiding burnout, with the hosts enjoying the name before signing off.

As heard by us

A candid, grounded conversation about writing exercises and how AI fits into a writer's workflow.

Valerie Issan and Eric Mertz shape this episode around writing exercises as a way to get unstuck and move a story forward. They spend much of the conversation weighing the upsides and drawbacks of those exercises, then shift into how AI fits into a working writer's process,…

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Press play if you want a candid talk about writing exercises, free writing, and where ChatGPT fits into a writer's workflow.

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