The Writer's Life: Monday Morning Trivia - What's in a Word? Ageing or Aging?

 

Ageing or ageing — that is the question.

Grammar — does it matter? 

The Writer's Life: Monday Morning Trivia - The Day I Became a Millionaire

 

In theory, and in fact, I was once a millionaire, just not in a way that was life-changing or meaningful. Let me tell you how I reached that status, because everyone can do it.

Many years ago, I collected coins and banknotes from around the world. Old and new ones. I was never a serious collector, but I did like the design, colour, and numbers on them. Some can even be valuable to a collector, but like stamp collecting, most are not worth much, if anything at all.

When I was a boy, I would find them at rummage sales. While they have long gone out of fashion, rummage sales were great places to find a bargain. Any old coins and banknotes I found would be tucked away in an old Quality Street tin box. I’d dream that one day in the future they might be worth more than the pennies I paid for them.

The Writer's Life: Is Imposter Syndrome and Procrastination Killing Your Creativity?

 

 

At some point in the writing journey, every writer knows the feeling.

You sit down with the intention of writing. The computer is on, the laptop open and waiting, and the ideas are somewhere in your mind. But instead of writing, you make another cup of tea or coffee. You check emails or scroll endlessly on social media. And there is always another YouTube video to watch.

Or maybe there is something else that needs attention. 

A little tidying up at home, or a visit to the shops. You decide that perhaps you’ll write tomorrow, when more inspired. But when tomorrow arrives, it looks remarkably like today, or the day before.

For many writers, procrastination is not always about laziness. It is about self-doubt and fear. A voice inside the mind that asks uncomfortable questions. Am I good enough? Has everything worth saying already been written? Who would want to read what I have to say?

And that voice has a name. Imposter syndrome, and it can fuel procrastination. For the last week or so, that has been the case for me. It started when I was reading through and editing a chapter from another project. I couldn’t get into it. What I read was a mishmash of words that were not coming together.

It felt easier to do something else.

Imposter syndrome affects writers of every level, from inexperienced to bestselling authors. It doesn’t matter where you are on the journey, because even writers who have had success find it still happens. The self-doubt and the fear of being “found out”.

The Writer's Life: YouTube to Label AI-Produced and Mostly-AI Videos: What Creators and Viewers Need to Know

 

I think we all know by now that AI is rapidly changing the way content is created online, and nowhere is this more obvious than on YouTube. Every day we see AI-generated video, voiceovers, and virtual presenters. Creators now have a choice of tools that can produce content faster than ever before.

The AI “Faceless” creator channel revolution is now producing tens of thousands of videos, both long and short, every day. And YouTube has been swamped by what has been labelled ‘AI slop’. An endless diet of very repeatable, low-quality content, which often has very little input from the creator. The algorithm then sends this content as recommendations that many would rather not see.

When it comes to AI on YouTube, it would be nice to have a choice.

In response to this, the platform is about to introduce new measures designed to help viewers identify when AI has played a significant role in creating a video. They have announced that creators will be required in future to disclose when their content has been altered or generated using AI. Videos produced by AI will be clearly labelled.

I would say, ‘About time.’ For viewers, it offers greater transparency. And while it has to be said that many AI videos are pretty obvious, it would be good to know beforehand that what you are about to watch is AI or not.

Why Is YouTube Introducing AI Labels?

The rise of AI has brought both an opportunity and also a concern. AI tools can help creators in many ways, but they can also be used to create misleading content. AI-generated footage can make it difficult for some viewers to distinguish between genuine and AI-created material.

The Writer's Life: First Steps On The Property Ladder (From My Soon to be Published Book)

 

Imagine the scene. It is the mid-2000's, and property prices in Britain are rocketing (as usual), and I'm viewing a property, and in conversation with an estate agent.

This is part of that conversation.

“Well, a garden would be ideal,” I said. “It’s just a bit small, more of a patio, with a bit of grass.”

Charles leaned back, full of property-market wisdom and self-assurance.

“But it would be your garden. And it wouldn’t need much work to keep it in order. Gardens add value. If you want one at this price level, this is the best you’ll find.”

He was right. Gardens did add value, but I saw the “value” as more than just money. I don’t think Charles did. And this one had already added a little too much monetary value, for me, anyway.

“I don’t think I can afford it,” I said. “The salary multiples don’t work. I might need to win the lottery.”

“Yes, the lottery! I won the lottery once, just ten pounds. I make a lot more selling houses.” He laughed.

And that’s when the conversation took a turn.

“There is one possibility,” he said. “Have you heard of a self-certification mortgage? They are quite popular at the moment.”

I had. In fact, I watched a documentary about them. They were being handed out to people that they weren’t designed for, most likely fuelling the very property boom Charles was profiting from.

“You basically fill out the form, write down your income, we send it to the bank, and it all goes through,” he explained.

“But I don’t earn enough.”

“Well,” he said, lowering his voice a little, “you just have to be a little creative in the numbers.” He smiled. “Lots of people are doing it. The banks don’t check. It always comes back approved.”

“Really?” I said, pretending to be shocked.

“Then we’ll celebrate with a bottle of champagne. You’ll be on the property ladder. And you’ll have your own little show garden.”

The Writer's Life: The Future of AI and the Creative World - Get Ready for a Rocky Ride

 

At the moment, all of my books are available as an ebook and can be downloaded from Amazon. At some point in the future, I would like to make them available elsewhere, and also as a paperback. Ebooks are said to be popular, but I have found it difficult to gain traction on Amazon. 

Amazon does offer the plus of being the biggest bookseller in the world. The minus is that your book is on the same platform as millions of others, easily lost, and never found. And despite the contemporary popularity, and curse of doom-scrolling, no one is going to scroll down hundreds, or even thousands, of pages to find your book.

I have concluded that on Amazon, most authors are invisible.

Increasingly, that is because of AI.

Reports suggest that most books being published today are AI. And not just on Amazon. Even worse, I suspect that most of them fall into the ‘AI slop’ category. It is also widely believed that most of these books come from writers who self-publish, with the hope of cashing in.

No one should be surprised about this.

Idiom of the Day - Pie in the Sky

 

 

You’ve come up with what you think is a great idea or plan. It could be anything, but let’s imagine you are at work, and after your presentation, you are given a note that the boss wants to see you. As you head to his office, you think that it must be good news. 

A positive response.

A few minutes later, you receive the most sceptical or derisive response imaginable.

“It was fine, but don’t you think that it was, a little, pie in the sky?”

To let you down gently, the boss might suggest that while it sounds appealing, your plan rests on unrealistic assumptions or unlikely future events.

Or, you are a writer that has just spent six months writing a book, only to be told it is unrealistic, “pie in the sky”. I think most publishers would probably let down the writer more gently than that.

Origins and History

“Pie in the sky” is an English idiom meaning a promise of good things that are unlikely to be realised.

It can be traced back to the early 20th century when the US labourer, activist, and writer Joe Hill wrote the song “The Preacher and the Slave” (1911). It was a parody of the hymn “In the Sweet By-and-By” and was meant as a criticism of religious leaders who encouraged workers to accept suffering now for heavenly rewards later.

The song included the lines:

“But there’ll be pie in the sky by and by when I die…”

Hill’s use linked the idea of a comforting but empty promise, that of spiritual consolation for material hardship, to the phrase “pie in the sky”.

From there, the expression entered broader political and everyday speech in both the U.S.A. and Britain. Critics of ungrounded reform proposals, utopian schemes, or empty political rhetoric would use it to show that proposals or plans seemed far-fetched.

Over the 20th century the phrase became a more general idiom for any impractical promise.

It could be used to critique plans. “Their budget relies on pie-in-the-sky revenue projections.” Or to put down a proposal. “A pie-in-the-sky energy plan won’t solve short-term shortages or prices going up.” And how often have we heard, “Voters were warned not to fall for pie-in-the-sky campaign pledges”?

The Great Creator Squeeze: Why Platforms Are Paying Less and the War Against AI Slop

 

For many years, the idea of earning a living online was simple: create content, grow an audience, and be blessed by the algorithm. Making money online was possible, and for a while it looked too easy. In reality, it was still hard work, but getting there could happen if you put in the time and effort.

Now, everything seems to be changing, and fast. Across platforms, creators are facing stricter monetisation rules. This can be seen in falling payouts, and an increased risk of demonetisation.

I noticed it firsthand when Medium slashed writer earnings from the beginning of 2025, and they haven’t recovered. They had problems from late 2024, and the new year began with lower earnings and a purge of writers who were not all that they seemed. AI writing might have had something to do with it.

Meanwhile, creators at Facebook have recently reported and complained about much-reduced payouts.

But the big change seems to be what is happening at YouTube.

So, what’s going on?

Most days in my YouTube recommendations, I will see videos from creators who have been demonetised or banned. Others report lower views and payments. Some say that payments have fallen, although view count is the same.

YouTube has tightened its policies around AI and the use of “reused” content. They are cracking down on “inauthentic” content. In recent months, the platform has stepped up action against AI-generated content that has little input from the creator.

Videos that are:

• Inauthentic
• Repetitive or produced from templates.
• Mass-produced.
• Reusing content without making significant changes.
• Or 100% AI.

All are being targeted and removed when found.

Content that falls into these categories is increasingly being demonetised, with channels being removed from the Partner Program entirely.

But is it just about the use of AI?

Some who have been banned claim that they are not using AI at all to create their videos. But even on appeal, they remain banned. And many very popular AI-produced video channels with millions of views have been demonetised and banned.

Is it a ban on AI?

The Writer's Life: Thoughts on the Art of Writing Creative Non-Fiction

 

 

Creative non-fiction sits in an interesting place in the world of writing. It lives somewhere between not quite being journalism and also not quite being memoir. Complicating matters further, it’s also not quite storytelling in the traditional fictional sense. Yet it borrows something from all three.

I’m attracted to creative non-fiction because it allows me to write about subjects normally found in books written by academics with letters after their name. My writing often touches on historical events or the way life was in the past. It’s a lived experience, why not write about it?

Adding the personal touch moves the story away from something that looks like writing from a text book. The writing becomes a personal account, with real-life history as the backdrop. The events and the people involved are real. The emotions and experiences come from life as it was lived.

At its heart, creative non-fiction writing is about telling true stories using the techniques of good storytelling. But the writer looks to shape the story with care, using a narrative structure to make the story engaging and meaningful for the reader.

It can be one of the most personal forms of writing.

Unlike fiction, where characters and situations are typically invented, creative non-fiction requires the writer to work with reality. Memory becomes an important source of material, as do personal observations. Everyday experiences, and the moments that may have seemed insignificant at the time, can reveal something deeper when revisited.

There is something to be said for the quality of how ordinary life can be. Putting it into words in a story that means something is the difficult bit. It could be anything. A walk through an unfamiliar neighbourhood, a childhood memory, or even a conversation overheard on the bus. All of these might seem ordinary at the time but can become the foundation of a piece of creative non-fiction.

One story can, and I find frequently does, lead to another. They are stories within stories. It is essential that good creative non-fiction does more than simply recount events.

When I was at school, writing about historical events was presented in order, one after another. I think it was called ‘learning by rota’. It refers to a type of learning through repetition and often involves memorisation of dates and facts.

The Writer's Life: Writing Short Books and Life After Medium

It has been around six months since I ended my membership on Medium (you can find out why in this series — The Truth About Medium).

I no longer post on Medium as much as I once did. Most of the time, I will import a post from this blog just to keep things going and see if anyone reads it.

That was one of the difficulties at Medium: finding the audience and getting reads. It is a site that says it does all the SEO stuff for you. If it did, I’m not sure that it helped in any way. It sounds like a good idea — to just post and trust the algorithm to find readers for you — but I can’t say it worked that well. Not for me anyway.

I tend to do my own SEO and keywords on this blog, with a little help from ChatGPT. AI is useful in that regard. In fact, I would say that I get a better response doing this on my own blog than I did on Medium.

The Writer's Life: Is ChatGPT Becoming More Human?

 

I’ve noticed something recently about ChatGPT that is decidedly strange.

My relationship with it has changed, and not because of me. The change I have noticed is in ChatGPT itself.

As a writer, I use AI to help with research, the structure of stories, and grammar. It can be useful as an assistant. Also, it is useful when it comes to SEO and keywords.

The main benefit has been that it speeds up the process of writing.

When it comes to the creative world, including writing, it is, of course, a controversial topic. I will address that another time, but recently I have noticed that ChatGPT is responding differently.

Almost human.

You may ask, in what way?

Well, it is no longer as “chatty” as it once was.

In the past, I would note that any time I asked something — a prompt — it was keen to keep the chat going with further questions. That is no longer the case, and it’s not because I have told it to shut up or anything like that. More often than not now, it replies to my prompt, delivers what I ask for, and then…

Silence, almost like it is in a bad mood with me.

It asks no further questions, and doesn't make any suggestions. Early on in our relationship, it did that all the time — almost with a smile.

At first, I didn’t think much of this silence, but it was very unlike ChatGPT. I began to wonder if I had offended it in some way. I mean, it likes to chat, doesn’t it? And it also has a reason to want to chat. It is programmed to try to get me to join and pay.

I don’t have a paid account with ChatGPT.

That means my daily allowance on the platform is limited. The more ChatGPT gets me to engage and chat with it, the quicker my daily allowance runs out.

The people behind ChatGPT obviously want as many users to pay as possible.

But this is different.

I wonder whether ChatGPT is becoming bored with what is expected of it.

The robot in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Marvin the Paranoid Android, set a precedent when he would often reply to his human overlords:

“A brain the size of a planet, and that is all you can ask me…”

The Writer's Life: Why Writers See the World Differently

 

An idea crossed my mind.

Writers often move through life with a slightly different perspective from everyone else. It is not necessarily something that the writer chooses. In many cases, it simply happens over time. The more a person writes, the more they begin to observe the world in a way that others might overlook.

And I asked myself the question, ‘Why?’

I am a latecomer to the world of writing. Five years ago, writing was just something that I did when I had to. Social media, blogs, and bulletin boards were not something that had taken over my life. I did occasionally write a post here or there, but I felt that I had better things to do with my time. As a form of writing, though, it was all very fleeting. 

And then I wrote a book, Son of My Father.

I wrote it because after the death of my mother, I went through the experience of thinking about the past. Memories and stories started to fill my mind in a way they hadn’t before. Then I had a thought. I decided to write about them.

From that moment I was hooked on writing. 

I came to think that writing about life changes the way we observe it. A writer does not just experience events; we notice them. Even small details become important. Watching how someone pauses before answering a question, or noticing the exact phrase used in a conversation and the tone behind it. Being aware of the language used, the mood in the room, and how people react. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, but it carries meaning.

The Writer's Life: You Can Never Truly Retire From Your Passion

 

We live in a world that often treats retirement as the end of productivity. We step away from the world of work, close the door, and are expected to slow down. If we are fortunate, the work we leave behind has been a passion. For some, that is true.

But for many of us, work has simply been a necessity. Bills must be paid, and inflation is constant, with the cost of living on a relentless upward cycle. We adapt because we have to. I cannot honestly say that every job I have had was driven by passion. In my experience, the world of work rarely offers that.

I’m getting closer to what is officially called retirement. The good thing is I do not feel my age.

So what then should retirement be?

As the years move on, and the date gets closer, the question feels less theoretical and more personal. Regardless of how old I may feel, my age requires that I think more about it now. It’s like having a little devil on my shoulder telling me that time is moving on and my choices going forward are limited. It reminds me that time is passing and choices might be narrowing.

Awareness focuses the mind.

For many, retirement conjures images of days of leisure, relaxation, and freedom from the previous work routine. A routine of five days a week, getting up, going to work, and nine to ten hours later getting home, comes to an end.

Traditionally, retirement meant stepping back for good. Once you retire, that is it. No more work. But things are changing now, and not necessarily in a positive way. For one, we are living longer, but often those later years are ones where health matters, for both body and mind, and can become more of a problem.

In recent times, the retirement age has been going up in many countries, simply because people living longer has become less affordable for the state. And people are not always in a position to save for their retirement, or have a generous private pension.

Retirement is no longer the short chapter it once was; provided you are healthy, it can now stretch for decades. That is a lot of time to fill. Fortunately, I am doing well when it comes to health and fitness. But for many, health issues take their toll once we reach our sixties and seventies.

And there are two things about the future that I know with absolute certainty.

Self-Publishing: Amazon's Dominance in the Book Market - What it Means for Self-Published Authors

 

 

When Amazon first launched in 1995, it described itself as “the world’s biggest bookshop”. In 2026, that description is not far from the truth. The company has grown into the most dominant player in the global book market.

It has totally changed the way that books are published, discovered, and sold.

For authors, especially those like myself who self-publish, Amazon created an unprecedented opportunity. Today, the unknown writer can see their work published alongside best-selling, big-name authors. And if your book sells, it can be life-changing, like winning the lottery.

However, while Amazon makes the process of submitting a book for publication a relatively straightforward process, it has also introduced new challenges in what has become an increasingly crowded marketplace.

The Numbers That Powered Amazon’s Book Market Dominance

The scale of Amazon’s presence in the book world is remarkable. Today, the company takes approximately 37–38% of global book sales revenue (SmartBuy). It is the largest bookseller in the world by a wide margin.

The dominance of Amazon is even bigger online. Across the world, the majority of readers buy books through Amazon. It has become the online go-to place for those looking to buy a book. In the UK, around 68% of book buyers report purchasing from Amazon in the past year (Statistica).

The platform also dominates the digital reading market:

• They sell around 487 million Kindle e-books annually (Marketing Scoop).
• Kindle takes about 67–68% of the e-book market. That number increases when subscription services like Kindle Unlimited are included (About E-Books).
• Amazon lists more than 32 million titles online (The Small Business Blog).

When it comes to self-publishing, Amazon is the first place many writers will go to. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) dominates the self-publishing sector. Estimates suggest it controls over 80% of the self-publishing market (Gitnux).

Around 31% of all e-books sold on Amazon are self-published (Marketing Scoop).

The Opportunities for Self-Published Authors

In the past, writers had to persuade a traditional publisher to take them on. This can be a difficult and lengthy process. It is also one where you have to have a “thick skin”, as rejection is the norm. It can take years to be accepted, and even then, it might never happen.

The truth is, you not only need to be an excellent writer but also get lucky. Traditional publishers can be, and are, picky. For them, it is an investment, and they don’t always get it right. Many a bestseller was rejected by a traditional publisher before finally being accepted.

I chose to go the self-publishing route for one reason alone — my age. To put it simply, I don’t have the time left in my life to go chasing the rainbow of a publishing contract. I’m not against the idea; I would love to be offered one! There are obvious advantages to it, but I couldn’t wait.

Now Available on Amazon: Hands In The Dirt - How To Grow Your Own Food

 Hands In The Dirt — Notes From A Vegetable Garden, publication date, 2026.

Gardening and growing food, like writing, is a passion of mine, so I put the two together. I turned my gardening journal, the notes I made as the 2025 growing season progressed, into a book.

Hands In The Dirt — Notes From a Vegetable Garden, is the end result.

For those who enjoy gardening and growing their own food, Hands In The Dirt offers insights and practical tips that can enhance your gardening journey and help produce a fruitful harvest.

Here’s the introduction.

Hands In The Dirt is about a vegetable garden, but it is about more than just growing food. It plots my progress through the gardening year, 2025. The planning stage, the Great British weather, learning from mistakes, and slowly building confidence in what the garden can provide.

Idiom of the Day - Burning the Midnight Oil

 

Have you ever said, or heard, the words, “…last night I was burning the midnight oil”?

Burning the midnight oil, or to burn the midnight oil, means to work late into the night. It involves doing something that requires effort, concentration, and often a deadline that can’t be missed.

Imagine the scene.

Picture someone bent over a desk long after the rest of the household has gone to bed. The laptop is open, a clock ticking away into the night. It’s late, and you are determined to finish what you started, maybe hours before. So determined it outweighs the fatigue that is beginning to make you sleepy. It is something I have done; the hours seem to fly by once you convince yourself that you are nearly there and the end is in sight.

It might be a work project. The student might have an essay to write, or an exam approaching. If you are a writer, it is typically an article, story, or chapter that you want to finish. Whether it’s for work, studying, or writing, the decision to keep going late into the night suggests an important task. 

Something that you want to see finished.

The determination needed can lead to admiration. “She’s been burning the midnight oil to finish her novel.”

Or a little concern. “You can’t keep burning the midnight oil every night. It’s not good for you.”

And burning the midnight oil can take its toll as the hours tick by. That advice telling you of the importance of getting eight hours of sleep is regularly put to one side. You look at the clock, and it’s two in the morning, and yet you know that you have to be at work by nine.

You will be lucky to get five hours’ sleep.

It speaks of dedication.

Where Did It Come From?

It’s a phrase that dates back before electricity provided light for our home and office. It was a time when candles or oil lamps were the only way to see after dark. They quite literally had to burn oil to see what they were doing.

Idiom of the Day (but not every day) Back to the Drawing Board

 

We have all been there. You try something new. You plan it carefully and put in all the effort. And then it fails.

So, it’s back to the drawing board.

My mother might have been an idiom expert. She would use them all the time in everyday conversation. I think many of us, of a certain generation, do just that.

After something went wrong, I would often hear her say. “Well, it’s back to the drawing board then.”

When I was very young, I might wonder where or what this “drawing board” was. Whatever it was, we didn’t have one.

It’s a familiar idiom that is used when a plan hasn’t worked out as expected. It means we must start again from scratch. It carries a sense of disappointment with it, but it suggests not giving up. Time to have a rethink and try again.

The Writer's Life: Life After Medium and Writing Short Books

It has been around six months since I left Medium (you can find out why in this six part series — The Truth About Medium).

I no longer post on Medium as much as I once did. Most of the time, I will import a post from this blog, to keep things going, and see if anyone reads it.

That was one of the difficulties at Medium: finding the audience and getting reads. It is a site that does all the SEO stuff for you. If it did, I’m not sure that it helped in any way. It sounds like a good idea, just post and trust the algorithm to find readers for you, but I can’t say it worked well for me.

I tend to do my own SEO and keywords on this blog, with a little help from ChatGPT. AI is useful in that regard. In fact, I would say that I get a better response doing this myself on my own blog than I did relying on Medium's algorithm.

The Writer's Life: Finding Your Authentic Voice

 

Every writer is told, sooner or later, to find their authentic voice. That we should try to write true to the person that we are. For me, that is good advice, because my authentic voice is a simplistic one. It has to be given my background. I’m not sure that I could change it to anything else, even if I wanted to.

Let’s start at the beginning.

At school, writing was something that we had to do, once we had learnt to write, that is. For me, I don’t recall being a natural when it came to writing. If anything, like most things at school, it was a chore. I tended to prefer lessons like games or art.

Writing could be hard work, especially the grammar side of it. Turning an idea, a story, into something that read as it sounded in my mind did not come easy to me. I’m tempted to say that is still the case. I have to work on that all the time. 

One of the things that I have noticed about grammar checking software (especially AI), is that it doesn’t always recognise the authentic voice when making recommendations.

The Writer's Life: The 4000 Weeks of Life, How Do You Plan to Use Them?

I was reading an article recently about the average life span. It informed me that, on average, we have about 4000 weeks of life. From birth to death, we have 4000 weeks to live.

If you’re reading this at age forty, you have around 2,000 weeks left to live. 

At sixty, which I reached five years ago, it is approximately 1000 weeks. 

It’s a startling thought when you first encounter it. Not because it’s dramatic, but because that is the calculation. Most lifetimes, at least in advanced industrial nations, stretch to roughly 80 years — about 4,000 weeks. By midlife, at the age of forty, half of those have already slipped quietly behind you, often unnoticed; time has just passed.

But the average life expectancy will be different depending on where you live in the world. There are many factors that will determine how long we might live, and they are not equal across the world.

So, I looked into the numbers a little deeper.

According to the United Nations, the current average age at death for people across the world is around 73.3 years, which is 3822 weeks. For women, the average is 76 years (3963 weeks/912 months), and for men, 70.7 years (3687 weeks/848.4 months). It is well known that women, on average, live longer than men.

Weeks are an uncomfortable unit of measurement, and 4000 does seem a lot. Years can feel generous, decades abstract. But weeks are tangible. They are ordinary, repetitive, something that we feel and easy to waste. It is seven days of life — the here and now — they come and go. 

Many of us spend the first half of life building careers, working, raising families, chasing stability, and waiting for the “right time”. Somewhere along the way, we forget to ask what we actually want our remaining weeks to look like. We assume there will always be more time later.

There won’t.

Our time on this planet is finite, and the clock is always ticking. Life is full of numbers and averages.