Refactoring Text Like Code: The "Mother Tongue" Prompt Hack That Got My Book Published

This is a submission for the 2026 WeCoded Challenge : Echoes of Experience It all started with a very personal, very human problem: I wanted to stop watching too much YouTube. Instead of downloading a generic blocking app, I decided to build my own custom timer—one that would honestly extract the exact time I spent watching videos. To do this, I opened up Gemini and typed in my first prompt in my native Japanese: YouTube見ているときに、時間をブラウザーに表示できませんか。 ( Can I display the time on the browser while watching YouTube? ) That single prompt kicked off a journey that evolved from a simple coding experiment into a published book. Before diving into the trial and error of how I built it, here is the core concept of my approach: In a Nutshell: The "Mother Tongue" Hack The Misconception: That I just "generated" a book or code with AI. The Actual Process: The human provides the core context in their native language → AI proposes a draft. The human dictates nuanced corrections → AI surgically refactors