Catapult Bookwriting

Is Using ChatGPT to Write a Book Cheating?
Is using a dishwasher cheating?
Labor saving devices only bring value if they replace low-value work people didn’t want to do or could not accomplish.
Writing a book used to take months. It need not anymore. Nothing wrong with that.
People resist writing their books because they are afraid: wary of the demands of writing, mindful of the time commitment and, most critically, because they fear, deep down, they aren’t smart enough to write a book. They deny themselves permission.
ChatGPT will embolden people to write their great, irreplaceable stories and conclusions that sit at the heart of what their service so special.
Let’s see how ChatGPT would help with this week’s made-up book: Screw You! How to Use Estate Planning To Destroy The Family You Leave Behind: Or Not.
This book is written by an American estate planner for an American audience. That's important.
If you ask ChatGPT a nuanced question (do Americans and Canadians hold a different view of paying taxes?) it will point to the fact that Canadians consider social programs in a way Americans often do not.
Americans are apt to view taxation as a hindrance to economic growth and more likely to question the efficacy and usefulness of how tax dollars are spent. Canadians, conditioned to consider government and the social safety net as good things, take a more benign view. Chat GPT gets that and explains it nicely.
But ChatGPT can't provide a detail that is critical to our made-up book, a conclusion hard won through experience.
The experienced American tax planner knows what almost no one else understands: the IRS reports that less than one percent of American deaths result in an inheritance tax.
As you read this, lots of nice people south of the border are giving gifts that result in capital gains, choosing ill-prepared executors and bequeathing property to distant relatives at the expense of people they love most. They are destroying their families to avoid a tax they would never have had to pay. Happens every day.
ChatGPT can’t manufacture the insight that sits at the centre of this made-up book. Nor can it speak to the experience and qualities that make the author the perfect person to help the reader with estate planning.
It can make the writing process way, way easier and nudge the writer toward writing a book that will change their life and their business.
At Catapult Book Writing we set writers up with a comprehensive blueprint, extensive coaching and help, a perfect cover and interior design with our Book Blueprint offer $5,995 (US).

'If it's good enough for the Astronauts...' Oh, to have been as certain as my mom.

It's not a land acknowledgment. It's a sucks to be you acknowledgment.

Land acknowledgment statements: Is no apology worse than...no apology?

As my dear mom would have said: "dirty, dirty, dirty."

They give the Nobel Prize for this s**t? Svante Pääbo's dirty secret about your distant cousins. Ok, not that cousin.

Why failure is your friend.

How we successfully misunderstand failure. In which The Fox writes a letter to the kid who changed his life.

The hazards of being not just a Spice Girl. Any girl.

Say it isn't so, Sporty Spice. Why does what happened to Mel C seem to happen to so many of our daughters?

Hear the greatest love letter every written read about everlasting life...all for free.

"My Dear Sarah" About the greatest love letter ever written (hint: it's 166 years old), what happens when you die and Autumn...just not in that order.

When the elephant in the room concerns your job security.

For those poor souls still coming to grips with their existence. It's sad, really.

Okay...just this once. Follow The Way Of The Dove for a better, more harmonious, life for you, your friends and family...everybody but those rat bastards who drive black BMWs.

Life Lessons From The Fox.

"You don't remember me, do you?" What happens when you meet a Disney lawyer who can destroy your life.

After the abuses at Hockey Canada and the stomach churning excesses of the money factory that is junior hockey, there is this, the Czech team celebrating their win at the World Hockey Championships. I love every bubbly soaked one of them.

IIHF on Twitter “THE MOMENT 🤩🤩 🎉🎉 ”

How the Prince Principle will set you free.

You know, the cops aren't the only ones with great stories.
https://lnkd.in/e9ACwUBh

Every Cop Has a Story to Tell A great many people undertake adventures in life that are highly interesting to others. It may even be possible that a great many more people have stories worth writing down, than those who actually put forth the effort to write them down. What adventures have you had, what knowledge do you possess,...

Mike joins Jason Barnard in this episode of Kalicube!

Learn more: https://kalicubetuesdays.com/2022/june-2022/kalicube-tuesdays-with-mike-ulmer/

Find the Business Story You'll Tell Daily the Rest of Your Life - Kalicube Tuesdays with Mike Ulmer - Kalicube Tuesdays Find the Business Story You’ll Tell Daily the Rest of Your Life Mike Ulmer is at his best when we can see him telling his stories. In this episode he’ll...

Your backstory is not your book. The backstory is the road you walked to gain the knowledge and experience that enable you to help the reader. Readers scour your backstory looking for clues on who you are by examining what you did. If you need help writing your story or just want to kick around some ideas, book an appointment at getcatapulted.com.

I love this piece from Ron Foxcroft's book, The 40 Ways Of The Fox. It's very short. Stick with it to the end...so worth it.
Dear Kid Who Stole My Baseball Mitt:
You may remember stealing my Rawlings baseball mitt. It was on my bike at Maplehurst School in Burlington. This would have been about 65 years ago, when I was about ten.
I really worked for that mitt. I raked leaves. I shoveled snow. I babysat. I was the happiest kid in the world, I had earned a Rawlings baseball mitt.
That’s where you came in.
I was heartbroken but you taught me two very important lessons.
First, never leave your baseball mitt where someone can steal it. Very dumb.
Two, heartbreak is temporary.
You should know that I worked even harder, shoveled even more snow, raked more leaves and babysat even more kids until I made enough money for a better Rawlings baseball mitt.
I owe you a debt, Kid Who Stole My Baseball Mitt. You taught me that no matter how dark things look, nothing is final…unless of course, I ever, ever learn who you are.

Should I start my own podcast? I have found podcast hosts courteous but sometimes inexperienced in the ways of an interview. Is there hunger for a community to talk about how to interview?

Such fun with my friend Wanako whose podcast is about The Holy Spirit. Not much on the Holy Spirit as our conversation centred around the writer's journey not the psalmists' but my Mom would have been delighted anyway. https://anchor.fm/wanako/episodes/Ive-been-writing-all-my-life-Mike-Ulmer-e1jmnmn

I've been writing all my life Mike Ulmer by The Holy Spirit’s Curriculum Of Joy Join Mike as he elaborates on many ways to write books and other forms like his experience as a columnist. Listen as he reassures us that we are entitled to tell our stories and write what we choose to write and how to let people think what they want to think about what you share. It is also most li...

I have interviewed more than 10,000 people and each had a compelling story. Tell your story. Observe its power.
If you need help, go to getcatapulted.com. We offer a 15-minute free consultation. At worst, you will come away with some ideas to make your writing journey a little easier.

"I want to see if this sounds familiar. Any time you try a decent crime you've got fifty ways you're going to f--- up. If you think of 25 then you're a genius...and you ain't no genius."
-Mickey Rourke to William Hurt in Body Heat.
And that's the challenge with writing, the number of ways to go wrong are damn near incalculable. So the sentence you pounded out with a masterful flourish, if not straight-out wrong, can almost certainly be improved on. Sorry about that.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive but the best part of a book is the stuff you learn in the writing, things you hadn't thought of, patterns you didn't recognize until you sat down and looked at the events of your life, ideas that blossom over the journey. That's why you never know what your book is really about until you write it. Really.

I met Verne Troyer, the actor who played Mini Me to Mike Myers' Austin Powers and Dr. Evil, when he was filming a movie at my workplace. I wanted to understand why Dr. Evil called people A-holes rather than the usual word. Why did he say friggin' instead of the usual expletive?

I thought it spoke to the character's deep inhibitions that while Dr. Evil vied for world domination he could not bring himself to say a bad word.Likewise, Austin Powers contorted when prompted to say the word va**na.

Verne had no answer. "Why is it funny?" he said. "I don't know. It just is."

There is a perfect word for every sentence and that perfect word is almost always a verb. Badgered is better than bugged, hector is better (just) than bothered. Colonized is better than discovered as long as it's true which, of course, it always is.

We are hard wired for observation and, in our minds, something we read is something we observe. That's why words pass directly past our gatekeepers into our hearts and minds.

Get Catapulted Imagine creating our 15,000-20,000 word book, beautifully laid out with a spectacular cover, uploaded to Amazon and ready for sale…without your hands ever touching the keyboard.

One of my favourite excerpts from Ron Foxcroft's book The 40 Ways Of The Fox. Creating a book rich in images means you can share those messages online to great effect.