33: Finding Your Boundaries with AI as a Writer

AI has quickly become one of the biggest conversations in the writing world. Some writers embrace it. Others want nothing to do with it. So where should it fit into the writing process?

In this episode, I'm sharing my personal thoughts on AI as a book coach, editor, and writer. You'll hear why I believe your stories, experiences, and wisdom are the parts of your book that should never be outsourced, where I think AI can be helpful, and how I've been learning to establish my own limits as this technology continues to grow.

We'll talk about the difference between information and transformation, why your voice matters more than ever, and how to think through AI in a way that aligns with your values as a writer.

If you've been wondering whether AI has a place in your writing process, this conversation will help you think through the question with clarity and confidence.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to For Women Who Write Podcast. I'm Michaela, a certified writing coach, editor, and self-publishing expert with over a decade of experience helping women turn their ideas into powerful, best summoning books. If you felt the call to write, share your story, share your experiences, how you can help other people, then you are in the right place. Here we talk about the real instance of writing and publishing. From finding your voice to structuring a book, from overcoming resistance and imposter syndrome to launching it into the world with confidence. My mission is to show you that becoming a published and best-selling author isn't as possible. It's absolutely within reach. Your story matters, and chances are you're closer to holding your finished book in your hands than you think. Hello, hello, you guys. Welcome to another episode. So we are going to be touching on a hot button topic today of AI. I'm gonna be really honest with you guys. I have been a little nervous to do this episode because wow, there are opinions. We are entering into this crazy new era, honestly, with AI. And it kind of feels a little bit like the wild, wild west. And there's a lot of fear. There are a lot of opinions in a lot of people vocal about those opinions. And I was a little hesitant to do an episode on this, but I think it's really important to talk about because it's not going away. And there are lawsuits out against AI companies when it comes to writing a book. There are people who use AI entirely to write their books. AI is stealing people's books, and we can't avoid this. Like there is a very serious reality of AI and writing a book. And I would be remiss to not join the conversation. So one of the reasons why I've been a little hesitant to join in this conversation is because I actually had a lead magnet a couple of months ago that was a guide with Chat GPT prompts in it. And I actually have talked about it in previous episodes as like a potential freebie. And it was supposed to help people spark ideas on what their book could be about. It was a very preliminary brainstorming tool to be like, hey, what could you write your book about? It was absolutely not about writing a book or getting AI to write the book for you. It was just a way to start getting your gears turning. But it was met with some hostility. I ran some ads to that freebie, and I got a lot of opinions from people. Most people honestly just didn't understand the freebie. Like they just, they saw AI and writing a book in the same sentence and automatically assumed that AI was going to write the book, that it was taking away people's jobs. Aren't you a Christian and don't you believe in humans creating and not the robots creating? All of these things. And you, you know, being more visible means being misunderstood. That's just kind of the reality. But a lot of people hated just the idea of AI being anywhere near their book. They just did not want a whiff of it. And I get it. I don't really understand because AI is a little scary. We are an uncharted territory here. No one in the history of the world ever has met with AI before at such a large scale. And it feels a little terrifying. But what I have found is helpful for me as I'm thinking through this is to actually go back in history and look at other times in which we as a society had these big technological upheavals. And what did we do to make that technology work for us? And so I immediately thought of the printing press. When it was first invented, it was kind of terrifying. Before, books were handwritten by scribes, they were handbound and then passed out to whoever wanted it. And then they would repeat the process over again. And so books were not very widely read because there just weren't that many of them. And up until then, oral tradition was really how people passed down stories. Someone would tell a story and then somebody else would tell it and on and on it went. And books weren't really a big part of society until the printing press. That is when books could start being created at mass and distributed way more widely. But of course, it was a big technological upheaval and people were scared. There was a ton of fear at the same time. Churches were afraid that bad ideas would start to spread. Other people were hesitant that books would start messing with people's memories. If they were using oral tradition to pass down all of these ideas, what would happen to our memories? Would we still be able to remember things if they were all written down? And so there were things that were very terrifying to people about books and being printed at large. They were afraid that it could actually harm people. And I think it's because we're all terrified of change, right? Like when we think back on this idea of books being scary, it's kind of laughable, right? Like books are not terrifying. In fact, books are now a staple of educated society. Like we want our children to read more books. We want for us as a society to read more books. When we see someone smart, we assume they've probably read a ton of books, right? Books have become a huge staple for us. And yet at the time it was really terrifying because anything new, honestly, is a threat. And that's actually a good thing. We should ask questions. We should have some hesitation and some doubt whenever there is something new being introduced. It's right to test it, to question it. And especially with AI, because you may be listening to this and you're like, cool, she is leading up to probably tell us that AI is a really good thing and it's not. And I would agree with you. I think that AI, all right, I not think, I know AI has done some pretty bad things. I know friends who have been directly and negatively impacted by AI. So this podcast episode is not going to be an argument for using AI more. What this podcast episode is, more of my thoughts as I figure out my own boundaries with AI. Because I think what happened with books and the printing press was people were hesitant. There were some fear about books at first, but then they found the boundaries for it. Then they found how to contain it and make it something good. Of course, there are still books that are not great, things that are not uh good for society. They're still there, they still exist, but on the whole, books are things that have helped us as a society and not harmed us. And so I think, in my opinion, from what I can best understand, is that we will likely find a place for AI, that it will get settled as society finds the right boundaries for it. So, in order for society to find the right boundaries, we as individuals also have to find the right boundaries with it. And that takes time. That takes getting a little burnt because you tried something and it was actually a really bad idea and it did not help you. But when you find those boundaries, that's when it can actually work for you. And so this episode is me kind of talking out a couple of working theories that I have about AI and the working things that I am figuring out that are boundaries for me. One boundary for me that I will probably never change on. I don't think, I really don't think I will change on this boundary, is that AI should write books. AI should absolutely not write books. Absolutely. There is a human element to writing that AI will never, ever, ever be able to replicate, nor do I want it to. That human element is the stories, the desires, the experiences, the passions behind the ideas that AI cannot replicate. Because a book is not simply information. A book is transformation. And transformation comes from humans, not from robots. I think AI can be very helpful when it comes to tasks, when it comes to information. But when it comes to transformation, that is reserved for the humans because that is how we change. We don't change with information, we change with connection. And a book is a way to connect with people to bring that transformation. So that is one of my big, big boundaries is that I do not use AI for my own writing with my books or significant long form pieces of content. I did not use AI to write the script for this podcast episode. And I don't plan on doing that anytime soon because only I can write this. Only I can bring the passion, the experiences, the thoughts to this. And of course, I'm not going to have AI do the speaking of this podcast either, because that's going to completely dilute the message because it's not going to have my passion. Also, as of now, I've completely gone off script from my podcast episode script that I wrote a couple of weeks ago. I have a couple of ideas that have popped up in my brain as I'm talking to you, and that is not something that AI can do nor will ever be able to do. So that human element should always stay. I really encourage my clients to also not use AI when they are writing their book, to not just copy and paste things from ChatGPT or Claude or whatever. AI is great for information, not for transformation. Now, I also don't think we need to be afraid of it. AI, the way that it is now, like Claude and ChatGPT, in my opinion, feels a lot like Google on steroids. Because Google has been a lot of, you know, collecting information. And that is what Claude and ChatGPT are doing is collecting a lot of data and a lot of information. And so if you've ever Googled something for your book, you've technically used a form of AI. It's a little different, of course. I'm not saying that Claude and Google are the exact same. Obviously, Claude is way more advanced, but there is a form of AI that you have likely used if you've done Google before. So I think really the question is how far do we let AI go? Do we let something without emotions and lived experiences write things for us? And what type of things for us? This is a question that you personally have to answer for yourself and for your writing, for your business. This is where I'm landing, but it's really important that you do your own work of creating your own boundaries and own definitions that make sense for you, that are authentic with how you view the world and how you want to run your business and write your book. So let's talk then. That's kind of like long-form content for like your book. Let's talk about short form content. When AI, when chat really uh first came out a couple years ago, I felt like every person I was listening to was like, oh my gosh, use chat for your content. You can train it, you can tell it uh your voice, and then it'll just write all of this content for you. And it's gonna save time, it's gonna help your conversion rates, blah, blah, blah. So I gave it a try. I tried it myself. I asked for chat to help me write emails, to help me write Instagram content. I trained it with my own voice, things like that. And it was okay. It helped in some regard. I probably could have maybe trained it a little bit better, but I recognized actually earlier this year that my marketing had gotten really stale. I was at a conference and a lot of the conference was on marketing. And I analyzed my own marketing during that time and saw that it was just stale. It was generic. I had zero passion for it. And it was really because I had just honestly kind of delegated it out to AI. And some of you listening to this may be like, duh, of course, Michaela, and that's why you didn't like it. But the reality is that's the boundary I had to find. I had to test it out to see how do I feel about this? And I recognized I don't feel good about it. That was a boundary I was bouncing up against and realized I needed to move closer to what was more authentic to me, especially as a writer. I wanted to flex my muscles as a writer and as an editor. And to do that, I couldn't use AI, even for my short-term short form content. It just wasn't resonating for me. I hated writing my emails, my Instagram posts. I wasn't in them. And I tried to tell myself, like, well, it's just fast content. It doesn't have to be all that great. And so I tried to relegate it out to AI. And it just, again, even with it being fast content, it was not authentic and it just didn't feel great to me. And so I decided I was gonna start just actually writing my own content again and putting my own heart, soul, and personality into even the short form content. And I've been doing that for the last several months and having way more fun, honestly, with it. It's not as polished, but I am actually showing up more consistently because it's more me. It's not just something that I've churned out through a robot. Now, I say all of this and in full transparency, I also just purchased an app to help me write my emails using AI, which you're like, cool, Michaela, that sounds completely hypocritical. And here's where I have decided my boundary is on this. I purchased the app not because of the AI element, but because of the strategy built into the AI. I am likely not going to copy and paste an email written by AI straight into my email provider. What I am going to do is look at the strategy, see the prompts based off of those strategies, and write my own emails. So if you see there is a human element to this app, and that is the strategy. That is the strategy that this brilliant uh email copywriter has baked into the app. That human element of her own intellectual property that she put into the app was why I bought the app. A lot of the marketing was around, hey, you can make your emails uh writing time faster, or you can, you know, or really the big marketing thing for her was like you can write emails faster. That really honestly did not appeal to me. What appealed to me was the strategy, was knowing how what types of emails to write and how to write like a copywriter and not like a book writer, because those are two very different writing skills. And I want to grow in my copywriting skills. I want to grow in that strategy. And so I purchased it again for the human element of the strategy, not so much about the AI factor. So again, this is the boundary for me that I am still figuring out, but I want that human element. I want the strategy, not the AI. And I think I hear a lot of people too feeling really scared about losing their jobs because of AI. And this is very valid because I actually know quite a few people who have lost their jobs because of AI, and it's a very, very valid concern. But I think that we need to look very specifically at the types of jobs that we have. And so for me personally, as a book coach, I am not worried about AI taking over my job. I am not worried about going out of business because of AI, because I am not after information. I am after the human connection of working with somebody so that she begins to see that she is a writer. She becomes a good writer, she becomes a published author, and she has the confidence to keep communicating well, to keep communicating with skill. I can guarantee you that will not happen if you just have a couple of chats with Chat GPT because you need that human interaction, you need that connection. And so I'm just really not afraid of it taking me out of business. Yes, Chat GPT can tell people how to self-publish a book and it can try to give you strategy on how to write the book. But again, that is not what I am selling. What I am selling is this transformation that can bring people to a place that they really want to be. And if you are a coach, if you're a therapist, if you're a consultant, if you're somebody who is in the business of helping people become someone different, then AI is not going to take your job. You may have to learn how to work with it. You may need to integrate it into what you are doing as well. I don't think that we're ever going to be fully separated from AI. I think it's just going to be a part of our lives now. But it will not put you out of business if you are in the business of transformation. And that's the same with writing a really good book. If your book is just about data and information, no one's going to remember it. An AI can just write it for you and it can become a number one bestseller because that's all it's doing is information. But if your book is about transformation, if it is about helping people go from one point in their life to another point in their life to be better at a skill, to grow in their relationships, to be a different kind of person. If they have that transformation journey, then AI can never, ever, ever write a better book than you. And that is a lot of what we talk about when we do strategy sessions. So my strategy sessions are one hour long sessions where we look at the transformation journey that you are bringing people through. Are you just info dumping on them about a bunch of things? Or are you just telling a bunch of stories but not guiding them strategically to a new place to become someone different? If you can do that, that is when you have got the seed of a best seller. And we talk through all of that in a strategy session. And we do not use AI for any of that, because it's two humans getting together to think together so that we can make a path forward for you. And I often find that sometimes in some of these calls, I don't do a ton of talking because it is a space for you to get to process, for you to get to talk out some of these concerns that you have, to talk out some of these ideas and to get human feedback on them. Chat GPT is always going to tell you it's a good idea. I am going to tell you whether or not it's a good idea. And if it's an idea that needs a little bit of developing, we will work together to get it developed into a really good idea that will get you to where you want to go and even potentially become a bestseller if that's what you want. So I hope this is helpful for you as you're thinking through AI, as you're figuring out your own boundaries in all of this. And there's a really good chance that I might change my mind on some of this stuff in a year or two. That's the reality of working with something new. That's the reality of being in the wild, wild west is you can change your mind. And so I want you to feel the honestly not fear with AI, but asking yourself, how can I use this? How can I contain this to make this be something that's helpful for me? And where are the things that it could really burn me that I do not want to participate in? And eventually over time find the way that you can make AI work for you. So if you're really interested as well in a strategy session, you can click the link in the podcast description to get more information. And I cannot wait to chat with you soon.