How I Use AI to Help Me Write

Everyone seems to have a problem with AI lately.

They don’t like it because they believe that AI-produced content is drowning out original content.

To a degree, I support that argument, but also, the cream always rises to the top.

But that’s not what this article is about.

This is about how I use AI to speed up my process, maintain my originality and voice, and produce content faster than I ever have before.

I have a saying that I like to use frequently.

“Walk the dog. Don’t let the dog walk you.”

In this case, AI is the dog, and it’s important you, as a writer, don’t let it take control of your narrative.

Not only will you gather the ire of your fellow writers, but frankly, AI writing is just sloppy. It’s not nuanced. In a word, it’s bad.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t use it the way it was intended, as a tool, to act as a force multiplier to increase your speed, produce more content, and with a higher degree of quality than you could have achieved before.

Here are my strategies for walking that AI dog.

1. Use AI to brainstorm.
   I love creating one sentence lists from which I can further cultivate full-fledged stories. I used to spend hours making these lists on my own. With AI and the proper prompt, I can produce one of these lists in seconds.
2. Use AI to help with headlines.
   I have an issue with headlines. I don’t like doing them. I know they’re one of the most important parts of any written piece, but I hate coming up with them. I’d much rather get into the trenches. But AI makes it easy. You prompt it with the idea behind your article and ask it to give you some options. Bingo, you’ve saved a lot of valuable time you can now focus on the writing part.
3. Use AI to outline articles/books.
   I’m one of those people that feels that outlining is essential in the process of writing. If you don’t know how you’re getting from point A to point B, you’ll meander all over the place and that can get confusing for your reader. AI takes this process and makes it much faster. You pop in a few bullet points, ask it to flesh out an outline for you, and then you’re off to the races with a solid roadmap of how to get to the finish line.
4. Use AI for graphics.
   I love graphics, but (1) I can’t afford to pay an artist for every graphic I need and (2) I don’t have years and hours to learn and create them myself. AI helps me get this done fast, and it’s improving every day. Not everyone is a fine artist, and as long as it’s credited appropriately as art created by AI, I don’t see an issue with it. My biggest ethical consideration here is to not ape an artist’s style and focus on making my prompt based on originality and not thievery.
5. Use AI as a helpful editor.
   This saves me SO much time. I have a custom GPT I use to help make suggestions for edits and proofread for me. It is in no shape or form as helpful as a human editor (yet), but I’m a good editor myself. So, in combination with my own skills, it eliminates the need for me to outsource this component of the writing process and saves me a bundle of time.

Now for the big caveat: DON’T LET THE DOG WALK YOU!

While I use AI to do all these things, I make it a crucial part of my process not to just copy/paste it’s output and try to pass it off as my own.

I tweak everything.

I take the output AI gives me and treat it as a spring board from which I can develop my content in my own voice.

I let it make the coffee, but then I add the cream.

I use it as the tool it’s meant to be, making the process faster and more efficient, while still doing all the important bits on my own.

Never will I let it circumvent my creativity because, to be perfectly honest, that’s weak sauce and it does nothing to make me a better writer.

I use tools to make the job easier, not do the job for me.

By combining AI with your own creative genius, you have a winning proposition.

AI will allow you to do some amazing things, produce more content more efficiently, and help you grow as a writer if you use it properly.

If you use it as a crutch to prop you up, one day you will find it kicked out from under you and you will fall.

As a writer, it’s important that you have some ethics and use tools properly to aid you, not to fabricate a “truth” based on falsehoods.

By all means, use AI in your writing as it’s intended to be used, but at the end of the day you must remember that it’s YOUR chore to walk the dog.

Thanks for reading!

Hi, I'm Joe. I help creators share their unique voices simply and effectively. Here's how I can help you:

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