AI Is Not Entirely Evil

In last week's newsletter, I lambasted MovableType for claiming that its AI can write you an even semi-decent book in 15 minutes.

Only you can share your stories and wisdom.

And... AI also can be helpful! No sense ignoring it, when plenty of people are finding ways to harness its power.

WRITING TIP OF THE WEEK: Ways to Use AI

Here are some of the ways I have found to engage in a helpful manner with ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Sudowrite and other generative AI platforms that I've tested:

• Come up with titles: Input an initial title and/or subtitle idea. Instruct AI to "Act like a bestselling author. Give me a list of 10 other titles for this book." Some of them may be pretty good!
• Create a Table of Contents: With several book coaching clients, we've used AI to generate an initial table of contents. I wouldn't say any have been perfect, but they have been a great start. Often, the ideas can help quickly take you to the next level in refining your book's structure.
• Transcribe interviews: If you've done a podcast or interviewed people in the past, you can quickly plug the audio into a transcription AI such as Otter. This is super helpful if you want to turn those interviews into content for your book.
• Generate a straw man introductory paragraph or conclusion: By giving AI a few sentences of what you're writing about or inputting a few paragraphs of what you have written, you can ask it to help you craft an introduction, transition, or conclusion. It will require editing – but again, this is about increasing your speed.
• Edit: Here is where AI can come in very handy. It's fairly sophisticated now at picking up grammar and spelling errors, but it can even go beyond that as a tool. For instance, if you're a scientist and you find your language too technical, you can ask it to "make this sound more conversational" or "simplify this paragraph." That's particularly helpful if you have been close to the content for a long time.

That said, I would encourage you never to copy and paste what AI generates and use it exactly as is. It always requires some editing to make it flow better and sound more.... Well, human!

I'd love to hear about ways that you're using AI in your writing and work in general. 

Aloha,

MeiMei

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

HAL-9000: Doctor Chandra?

Chandra: Yes?

HAL-9000: Will I dream?

– 2010: A Space Odyssey