I’ve had this blog for a while. You may have noticed the five-month gap since my last post. (You probably didn’t. That’s fine. This isn’t my first attempt at blogging either.)
Here’s what happened.
The blank page problem is real. You sit down to write, and every thought you had an hour ago evaporates. Or you think of something worth saying and then talk yourself out of it because someone else has already said it better, probably in 2014, with better SEO. So the posts got less frequent. Then they stopped.
What I’ve stumbled onto recently is a completely different approach.
The Problem With Writing
Writing requires you to do several things at once: have the thought, organize it, translate it into coherent sentences, edit yourself in real time, and produce something readable. That’s a lot of overhead for what should be a simple act of recording what’s on your mind.
Speaking is how we actually think. We talk things through. We ramble, circle back, and make connections out loud that we’d never make staring at a cursor.
The problem with speaking is it disappears.
What Changed
I’ve been having extended conversations with Claude — Anthropic’s AI — about four projects I’m working on simultaneously — an AI voice device, a food forest, a faith-based art business, and a nutrition overhaul.
In these conversations I just talk. I describe what I’m thinking, ask questions, work through problems. Claude captures everything, organizes it, and gives it back to me in formats I can actually use.
At the end of a session I can ask for a project summary, a blog post, a to-do list, a parts list, a recipe breakdown. The raw material of my thinking becomes useful output without me having to sit down and write a single word.
This Isn’t Just Fancy Note-Taking
What makes this different from dictating notes into an app is that Claude responds. It asks clarifying questions. It catches things I missed. It connects something I said twenty minutes ago to something relevant right now.
It’s like thinking out loud with a mentor who’s always available and actually paying attention.
The Practical Side
Here’s what a session looks like. I open a conversation and load my personal context document — a file that tells Claude everything about my projects, goals, and preferences. In seconds it’s fully up to speed.
Then I just start talking. This morning I logged my weight, added breakfast to my food diary, discussed hardware specs for the voice device, and figured out a content strategy for this blog. All in one continuous conversation.
At the end Claude updated my master context file with everything new. Next time I pick it up, nothing is lost.
About This Post
Here’s the part I find genuinely funny: this post came from one of those sessions. I talked, Claude captured it, and produced a draft. I cleaned it up and put it here.
So I haven’t stopped writing. I’ve just stopped struggling to write. The ideas come naturally in conversation. The post is just what happens on the other side.
If you’ve ever stared at a blank page and felt like you had nothing to say — try talking instead. You might surprise yourself.
