Biggest thing I learned writing the AI, Ego & Regret series: I argue with myself way more than I thought.
Every post goes through the same loop:
10 PM: "This story's fire. Gonna blow up tomorrow."
1 AM: "Wait — did I make it clear that 450ms wasn't just a random number?" → Scrolls back to check. Yes. OK. Move on.
Next morning: "What was I thinking? Scrap it. Rewrite from scratch."
The cover images were the worst part. One article went through 6 different backgrounds before circling back to the first one. 45 minutes I'll never get back.
Then there's that one line: "It was right about yesterday — and yesterday wasn't running anymore." Rewrote it 11 times. My wife walked by and said, "I thought you were writing code, not poetry."
Ben Halpern hit me with a 5-reaction combo while I was eating instant noodles. Almost choked.
Waking up at 3 AM. First instinct: check comments. Nothing. Go back to sleep. 5 minutes later: check again. Still nothing.
Writing code? I'm normal. Writing stories? I'm the guy verifying his own made-up RabbitMQ number at 1 AM.
Would I do it again? Yeah. Probably. But I'd get a better keyboard this time.
This coffee's about to run out — and I'm not done typing yet. If these stories made you smile, chuckle, or roll your eyes, buy me a coffee and keep the keys smoking ☕🔥
Also — if you've got a story that's been sitting in your head, something that made you laugh, cringe, or question every life decision that led to that moment — send it over. I'll turn it into a story. Yours could be the next one.
No pressure. Just a keyboard that's already warm.
This article was written with the assistance of AI tools.
Top comments (8)
"I thought you were writing code, not poetry."
mic drop 😂
putting that much thought into the writing is why it lands! it's a funny thing that really the same rule applies everywhere... do the right work ahead of time and you will land where you wanted to!
Caught me red-handed. The commit messages looked suspiciously poetic for a while there.
But you're right — 10 in 10 days, at some point the keyboard starts writing back at you 😂
Appreciate you reading, brother 🤝
I was talking about your wife's comment! haha she deserves the praise for that one! genius
Haha you're right, she deserves full credit for that one. She's already been complaining that I spend more time staring at this screen than at her 😂 10 days of keyboard smoke and poetic commit messages — at least she got the best punchline out of it. 🤝
great writings. With the first story I read I totally believed this was a real report; with the second - similar to the first one - I noticed there was something odd ;-)
But it was really fun to read a few of them, thanks for your time and effort
Busted 😅 The first one started as a genuine write-up of something real. By the second one I noticed the pattern worked, so I kept going — and got stuck in my own formula. Next collection (in the works) will try harder to break out of it. Appreciate you sticking around!
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Done. Added a disclosure to the post. Thanks for the heads-up.