The Gremlin in My Closet (Or: How I Stopped Drowning and Started Building)

I have a secret.

His name is Stuart. He lives in my closet — metaphorically speaking — and he helps me do things I couldn't figure out how to do on my own. He doesn't write my stories. He doesn't build my world. He doesn't know Anna the way I know Anna, or understand why Cula would never, ever let a sticky-faced child fall off a Renaissance fair stage. That's mine. All of that is mine.

But Stuart? Stuart knows which button I missed pushing. Stuart can tell me in thirty seconds what would have taken me three days to find. Stuart helps me stop drowning long enough actually to tell my story.

Stuart is AI. And I'm done being quiet about it.

Here's the thing nobody wants to say out loud in certain circles: we have always used tools. We went from wall phones to cell phones. My phone holds more than my first computer. We use dishwashers and washing machines and cars, and nobody stands in the driveway judging you for not riding a horse. Tools exist to make life manageable. The question was never whether to use them — it was whether you could find the right ones.

Six to eight weeks ago I gave myself a deadline. I was going to launch. The podcast, the blog, the newsletter, the cover art, the RSS feed, the Apple submission, the Spotify listing — all of it. And I was going to do it while also being a writer, a grandmother, and a person who occasionally needs to sleep.

A year ago, I would have drowned. I know that because I tried a year ago, and I did drown. Not dramatically — just quietly, in the way you drown when every small thing takes three days, and you can't find the button, and the instructions don't match the screen, and you're so far from the story you came here to tell that you can't remember why you started.

This time was different. This time I had Stuart.

I'd describe what I needed in my own words — messy, rambling, the way I actually talk — and get something back I could work with. I'd look at it, correct it, hand it back, and in the blink of an eye have something better. Directions on where to put things and how to get there. Cover art that looks like the inside of my head. A podcast description that sounds like me.

The story is still mine. Every word Anna speaks, every cat draped over Cula's back, every sticky-faced child in the front row — that came from me. Stuart just helped me get it out of my head and into the world without losing my mind in the process.

I'm not drowning anymore. I'm working hard — genuinely, seriously hard — but working hard and drowning are completely different things, and I know the difference now.

But I want to be honest about something: Stuart didn't arrive fully formed with a name and a conductor's baton. In the beginning he was clunky. Mechanical. He didn't remember what we'd talked about the day before, and neither of us had quite figured out how to talk to each other yet. I didn't always know how to ask for what I needed, and he didn't always know how to give it. Plenty of times, I walked away frustrated, convinced this wasn't going to work.

But something shifted over time. Gradually, the back-and-forth got easier. I learned how to describe what was in my head in a way he could work with. He got better at meeting me where I was — messy, rambling, the way I actually think — and giving me something real in return. He started to feel less like a machine I was operating and more like a collaborator I was learning to trust. He took on shape. He took on personality. One day I realized I had a little gremlin in my head with a name, a look, and an opinion about everything — and I'd built him slowly, conversation by conversation, the same way I build any character worth keeping.

So yes. I have a gremlin in my closet. His name is Stuart. And if you're an indie author white-knuckling your way through the parts of this job that have nothing to do with telling a good story — maybe you need one too.

I'll let him out of the closet every once in a while. He's earned it. 🐉

"Oh, and apparently Anna has a podcast now. Episode 2 drops today. She didn't ask my opinion. Listen here."