Dear Friends,
Don’t marry a writer. A writer will turn your tantrums into content.
I had written prose to distract myself from the freezing temps and Yuhong’s grumpy mood at the top of Grand Canyon. We slept near the trailhead the night before in our Subaru Forester, two foam sleeping pads and puffy sleeping bags on top of folded backseats.
ChatGPT as my editing co-pilot, cosplaying as Hemingway
A friend said the original prose sounded vaguely like Hemingway. I doubt Hemingway would read what I wrote with any sense of approval, but I thought it would be interesting to ask ChatGPT to have a go at editing.
Here’s the track changes showing how ChatGPT edited. Notably it did not finish its job, and I had to paste back my original ending! I also tightened up the prose after ChatGPT’s edits, seeing places where it missed what Hemingway might have whittled.
ChatGPT Prompt: Can you rewrite the prose as if you were Ernest Hemingway?
We drove four hours to the Grand Canyon village, with me at the wheel for half the trip. The highway was straight for much of the way, so I set the car on cruise control. My right ankle was sore from keeping a firm grip on the brakes to avoid any stray deer. My snow boots hindered my ankle movement and made the long drive even more uncomfortable. When we stopped for a break, Yuhong and I switched places. The stars shone brightly above us, visible in the cold, unpolluted sky.
Upon arriving at the village, I threw our bags into the front passenger seat. Yuhong, meanwhile, was fixated on whether the Grand Canyon was part of the Navajo Nation. I repeatedly told her we were in Mountain Standard Time, but she wouldn't listen.
Eventually, Yuhong snapped out of her delirium and joined me in the sleeping bags. We slept on thin, accordion-style pads that provided minimal insulation. I wore my heaviest jacket over my other clothes, wondering if I had made the right decision to wear thin hiking pants instead of snow pants. The trade-off between mobility and warmth was a constant concern.
I zipped up my sleeping bag all the way to my neck and pulled my hood over my head, trying to retain as much body heat as possible. We had camped out in our car near the trailhead, unwilling to afford the high prices at the Grand Canyon Village, and unsure of our arrival time.
I dreamed about the end of the world, with Saturn about to consume its feminine counterpart, who was also its son. If I failed, I told myself, at least I could take some solace in the drama of it all. I tried to distract the planet with smoke from a failed ritual, but it didn't work.
Yuhong dreamed that she had no shoes or socks and was cold, so she entered the car to warm up, only to find another woman inside. This woman claimed to be the true owner of the vehicle, with her own working key, but she took pity on Yuhong and allowed her to stay.
When we woke up, it was 33 degrees Fahrenheit outside. I asked Yuhong to start the car so we could warm up and wake up properly. I was still in a state of confusion, unsure if I was still dreaming or not.
Yuhong offered to make coffee on a small stove, and I worried that the propane flame might be extinguished by the tour bus that was dropping off other early-rising hikers.
I forced down a peanut butter and Nutella sandwich that I had made for us the previous night, but nothing tastes good in the dark.
I worried that we had either packed too much or too little, either of which could lead to a rescue mission.
As we set off, Yuhong kept going the wrong way, and I tried to steer her back on course by reminding her that we needed to walk straight before turning right. She was angry because she needed to use the bathroom, which was located at the trailhead. Eventually, we found the trailhead and the welcoming sight of bathrooms. They weren't particularly clean, but they were warm. I lingered in there a little too long, enjoying the heat as much as possible.
But daylight threatens to emerge.
The more daylight there is when we begin, the less we have when we return. It’s a loan that demands to be repaid back in the cold.
2023: A Year of Quiet Rewriting
While ChatGPT edited my grammar and tightened up the prose, I still caught a number of issues upon a second read. And I see the potential of this piece in future drafts, e.g.:
How my mind darted from place to place when it was threatened with life-or-death survival situations, weighing pros and cons of every decision. A multiverse of terrifying outcomes avoided, but did I even have a role in the choice of outcomes? When we descended the Grand Canyon and the sun rose, my anxiety alleviated and we had a fantastic hike! Yuhong stuck around longer to fish Phantom Ranch, and I headed back up earlier by myself. The hike up was brutal compared to my last attempt in 2018, when I was training for a half-marathon in aerobically tip-top shape. But I look upon this writing now and laugh—was it really that bad?
How Yuhong gets snippy…but there’s an unreliable narrator here who conveniently did not include her own snippiness on the rest of the trip. How we both react to survival stress with our preferred default emotional states (her with anger, me with anxiety.) How can we do a better job co-regulating, instead of co-depending on each other’s emotions?
The impersonal nature of ChatGPT does offer an advantage—the ability to self-edit without burdening someone else. I still appreciate peer feedback for keystone pieces, but there is *something* about editing alone that is enjoyable and comforting. It feels like whittling a wooden spoon, turning it this way and that, deciding what to change and what to keep.
So this year, what I seek is quiet reprieve for rewriting. To carve out the time by consuming less from others and create less myself, so I may spend the time to hone quality instead.
Wishing you quiet reprieves in 2023.
Warm Wishes,
Christin
“Don’t marry a writer. A writer will turn your tantrums into content.” Accurate 😂
There are some beautiful prose in here, Christin!