I've been using AI more. I have an "Assist" function with a slider where I can select how much I want it to change what I wrote. Here's three versions of your point #6 with the slider set to mild, medium, and wild. I only take what it spits out *if* I prefer it over what I had. And I take whatever bits or pieces fit. I do need to improve my Assist to model my style better - which it can do - I just haven't set it up yet. Here's the three variations...
If you want to write, you need to live. Writing is the metabolic output of digested experiences. Do things. Anything. Put your phone down and observe. Look for scenes. Look for stories. Take photos. Take notes. Use these as fuel. You also need time to do nothing. Watch movies. Listen to music and podcasts. Play video games. Go for walks. Go for drives. Let your brain have time to process the material you're feeding it.
If you aspire to write, you must first embrace living fully. Writing emerges as the creative transformation of absorbed experiences—a process where life becomes art through careful digestion. Engage with the world actively. Pursue any experience that calls to you. Set aside your phone and truly observe your surroundings. Hunt for compelling scenes and untold stories. Capture moments through photography and preserve insights in notes. These become the raw materials that fuel your creativity. Equally important is cultivating intentional stillness. Immerse yourself in films, lose yourself in music and podcasts, explore virtual worlds through gaming, or simply wander on foot or by car. Your mind requires this downtime to process and transform the rich compost of experiences you've gathered, allowing deeper connections and creative insights to emerge naturally.
If you want to write, you must first become a collector of life. Writing isn't born from thin air—it's the beautiful alchemy of lived moments transformed into words. So get out there and gather your raw materials. Pocket conversations overheard at coffee shops. Chase sunsets that make you forget to breathe. Document the way shadows dance across brick walls at 3 PM. Feed your creative engine with everything: the mundane grocery store interaction that sparks a character, the documentary that rewires your worldview, the song that soundtracks your next chapter. Your phone is a black hole for inspiration—put it aside and let your senses feast on the world's infinite buffet. But here's the secret ingredient: strategic emptiness. Your brain needs space to marinate in all this collected chaos. Binge that series. Take those meandering drives to nowhere. Let your mind wander through the gardens of boredom—that's where the magic cross-pollination happens, where random experiences collide and create something entirely new.
What are you doing here? I don’t get it. Why are you having AI rewrite a piece on writing that was explicitly asked for by a human being who wanted a human input?
If AI is changing your writing, it’s not your writing anymore.
I don't care about the writing so much as I care about the idea I want to get across. If the alternate versions help me to settle on a better way of conveying the idea, then it seems worth it to me. In the end, it's up to me to choose how I want it written, so it's still a human at the wheel.
Think of how you use AI to generate a picture. You tell the AI what you want in the picture. You control the overall purpose of the image - and it handles the details that don't matter so much. And anything it does that you don't like - you edit. You're already doing that with yourself. Notice that the AI didn't change what you said, just how you said it.
It's just variations on a theme - and sometimes one of those variations will strike you as better than the original.
I'm surprised people have such a hard time with this. But then I'm a software engineer - not a real writer.
I've been using AI more. I have an "Assist" function with a slider where I can select how much I want it to change what I wrote. Here's three versions of your point #6 with the slider set to mild, medium, and wild. I only take what it spits out *if* I prefer it over what I had. And I take whatever bits or pieces fit. I do need to improve my Assist to model my style better - which it can do - I just haven't set it up yet. Here's the three variations...
If you want to write, you need to live. Writing is the metabolic output of digested experiences. Do things. Anything. Put your phone down and observe. Look for scenes. Look for stories. Take photos. Take notes. Use these as fuel. You also need time to do nothing. Watch movies. Listen to music and podcasts. Play video games. Go for walks. Go for drives. Let your brain have time to process the material you're feeding it.
If you aspire to write, you must first embrace living fully. Writing emerges as the creative transformation of absorbed experiences—a process where life becomes art through careful digestion. Engage with the world actively. Pursue any experience that calls to you. Set aside your phone and truly observe your surroundings. Hunt for compelling scenes and untold stories. Capture moments through photography and preserve insights in notes. These become the raw materials that fuel your creativity. Equally important is cultivating intentional stillness. Immerse yourself in films, lose yourself in music and podcasts, explore virtual worlds through gaming, or simply wander on foot or by car. Your mind requires this downtime to process and transform the rich compost of experiences you've gathered, allowing deeper connections and creative insights to emerge naturally.
If you want to write, you must first become a collector of life. Writing isn't born from thin air—it's the beautiful alchemy of lived moments transformed into words. So get out there and gather your raw materials. Pocket conversations overheard at coffee shops. Chase sunsets that make you forget to breathe. Document the way shadows dance across brick walls at 3 PM. Feed your creative engine with everything: the mundane grocery store interaction that sparks a character, the documentary that rewires your worldview, the song that soundtracks your next chapter. Your phone is a black hole for inspiration—put it aside and let your senses feast on the world's infinite buffet. But here's the secret ingredient: strategic emptiness. Your brain needs space to marinate in all this collected chaos. Binge that series. Take those meandering drives to nowhere. Let your mind wander through the gardens of boredom—that's where the magic cross-pollination happens, where random experiences collide and create something entirely new.
What are you doing here? I don’t get it. Why are you having AI rewrite a piece on writing that was explicitly asked for by a human being who wanted a human input?
If AI is changing your writing, it’s not your writing anymore.
I don't care about the writing so much as I care about the idea I want to get across. If the alternate versions help me to settle on a better way of conveying the idea, then it seems worth it to me. In the end, it's up to me to choose how I want it written, so it's still a human at the wheel.
Think of how you use AI to generate a picture. You tell the AI what you want in the picture. You control the overall purpose of the image - and it handles the details that don't matter so much. And anything it does that you don't like - you edit. You're already doing that with yourself. Notice that the AI didn't change what you said, just how you said it.
It's just variations on a theme - and sometimes one of those variations will strike you as better than the original.
I'm surprised people have such a hard time with this. But then I'm a software engineer - not a real writer.