Yeah, yeah, ChatGPT is impressive. It and other AI tools are years ahead of what folks predicted before it came along.
It can write well and it can write fast.
But that doesn’t mean you should give up on the writing art form just yet. It’s far from dead. In fact, here are 9 excellent reasons why you should still do your own writing – at least sometimes.
1 – Writing captures your unique personality
ChatGPT writes in a particular style. It’s accessible, courteous and professional.
If you ask it to write in a different style, it tends to come across as someone who speaks like ChatGPT pretending to be this other person. It’s often awkward, strange and unnatural – either still flat or painfully excessive.
Even ghostwriters can struggle to emulate your voice. For machines, it’s even harder.
The best way to have your writing reflect your personality is to write it yourself.
And the more other folks rely on monotonous AI tools, the more your personality will stand out in the crowded spaces.
2 – Humans can write better
This won’t always be true for AIs, but will probably always be true for Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT.
After all, LLMs aggregate.
Which means they’re mediocre, learning from the subpar and the brilliant alike.
Now, mediocre is good enough for many tasks – especially when it’s fast and consistent. For anything important, though, you’ll find that a merely good human can still outperform AI.
3 – Writing stimulates ideas
I do this all the time. I hear about it from other writers, too.
You write with one idea in mind, but writing is inherently creative. Soon, new ideas pop into your head. Your vision evolves with each word. Soon, you have something you never could have thought of on your own.
I map out my books before writing. Those maps account for maybe half of the final content. New – usually better – ideas emerge as I write.
A great way to create a new offering is to write the sales letter for a hypothetical ideal solution. The ideas will come to you. It’s the same way to get out of a plot hole – write until you see how it’ll make sense.
Unless, of course, you outsource your writing to a fancy algorithm.
4 – Writing connects you to your work
There’s a huge difference between creating art and commissioning it. The creator pours themselves into it, giving it a piece of their soul. Commissioning it is purely intellectual – developing a list of criteria.
If a machine writes your book, website, script or sales letter for you, you won’t have as much connection to it. You won’t be able to discuss its depths and complexities for years to come.
Listen to Tolkien being interviewed about his works. He talks so deeply and poetically because he knows them intimately. That’s because he wrote them, crafting them from fragments of his own psyche.
This doesn’t matter for simple, disposable content. For content that matters? Don’t let it get away from you. Invest yourself into it – otherwise it won’t speak for you.
5 – You need writing skills anyway
I hope you’re not just copying AI outputs from the tool into your works. I hope you’re reviewing, editing, refining and tweaking it first.
If you’re reviewing and editing someone/something else’s writing, then you still need great writing skills.
These tools make writing faster and easier, but they don’t lower the skills required by much. That’s why bad writers get bad results from AI, while good writers do better with it.
6 – Writing is therapeutic
I get tremendous benefit from writing. It does wonders for my mental health.
If you get it, you don’t need me to explain it.
If you don’t, you’d never believe how drastic it is anyway.
7 – Writing is fun
Weren’t robots supposed to do only the boring tasks for us?
8 – AI makes common mistakes
This goes back to ChatGPT being an LLM. It mimics the way many people write, which means it copies their mistakes.
I’m not talking about grammatical mistakes – ChatGPT knows to not split infinitives. I’m talking about mistakes in the thinking behind the writing.
Ask any marketer – they’ll tell you many folks make the same mistakes in their sales letters. Novelists say the same thing about novels. Guess what? Those mistakes are part of the training data for AI. That’s why you get so much AI-generated content that’s reasonable but not excellent. Excellence transcends the common mistakes.
9 – Readers appreciate the human touch
Money likes speed.
It also likes authenticity.
This is why there’s such a market for artisanal products. Yeah, robots can make chairs and candles, but most folks would rather something with a human touch.
Writing is more intimate than a candle. Wouldn’t you rather read something “hand-crafted” as opposed to oozed out by an algorithm? This is a powerful medium for connecting with your audience. Outsourcing that is, at best, short-sighted.
Now, I’m not saying you should never use AI tools. They have their place. I’m saying you shouldn’t outsource all your writing to them entirely.
And the technology is constantly evolving. This list could become dated real quick.
Until then?
It pays to learn how to write well.
The best way to do that is to write fast and easily.
And the best way to do that is with my book, I Wrote This On A Monday. As the title says, I managed to complete the +10,000-word draft in a single day – a day filled with travel, disruptions and distractions.
This was without any stimulants – not even caffeine.
And I wrote this before ChatGPT hit the market, so I wrote it without AI. It was just me and a word processor.
Ten thousand words in a day adds up.
And it’s easier to write like that than you think.
Want to learn to write more, writer faster and write easily?
It begins with reading and applying I Wrote This On A Monday, available here:
https://christianhypnotism.com/monday
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