I’ve been quiet the last couple of weeks. Here’s why.
One rainy day in June, I drove to work instead of riding my bike. On the way home I started chatting with GPT, just playing with an idea for a science-fiction plot to pass the time.
The idea caught my imagination. And when that happens, I don’t let go easily.
Less than 60 days later, I had written a novel.
Now, I know what some of you are thinking: AI slop.
That’s the elephant in the room.
AI makes it possible to create things faster. What you do with that efficiency is a completely different question.
I created a story. I enjoyed shaping it, arguing with the AI, sharing it with my wife and kids, throwing away what didn’t work, learning about storytelling, restructuring, editing, and finally listening to the finished book.
In fact, I don’t think I’ve felt this creative for a long time.
I don’t consider any of that slop.
Could the same tools be used to mass-produce disposable content? Absolutely.
To me, that’s what makes this experiment interesting:
Does AI kill creativity, or can we use it to amplify creativity and make things we couldn’t have made before?
I already knew one thing: you can’t just ask ChatGPT to “write me a book.”
A novel is much more than prose. It contains characters, relationships, locations, timelines, knowledge, mysteries, research and hundreds of interconnected decisions.
So I started treating the book like a software project.
I split the story into structured files, tracked changes with Git, and built specialized agents, skills, scripts and workflows around it.
That system became StoryOS.
The idea is simple: You remain the author. You remain in creative control. AI and automation are the orchestra around you.
See how I did it
I made a video about the entire experiment, including the failed versions of the story, the workflow, and how StoryOS emerged along the way:
Vibe Coding 2.0: I Wrote, Voiced, and Published a Full Novel in 60 Days
Experience Echoes
Echoes is a science-fiction novel about memory, remembering, and what remains.
I also turned it into an audiobook and illustrated video book. Every scene received its own image — around 160 images across roughly nine hours of narration.
You can watch and listen to the entire first chapter here:
If this experiment catches your imagination too…
Read a sample / get Echoes
https://community.sketch-your-mind.com/Echoes
Explore StoryOS
https://community.sketch-your-mind.com/StoryOS
Get StoryOS + Echoes
https://zsviczian.gumroad.com/l/echoes
Join the 8-week StoryOS Cohort — 3 October to 21 November
https://community.sketch-your-mind.com/join
I’ll also host a StoryOS Q&A in the Sketch Your Mind Community in the coming weeks for anyone curious about the framework and how I built Echoes.
So that’s where I’ve been.
A rainy drive turned into a novel, and the novel turned into a completely new creative system.
I certainly didn’t plan any of it.
Happy sketching!
— Zsolt
