I'm Grateful I Learned to Write Without AI (And What I'm Still Figuring Out)
Solopreneur Letters #15
I started writing before AI could do it for me.
That might be the most valuable accident of my journey as a creator.
But here's what I wish I'd known: I should have pushed harder.
I've been journaling since I was a teenager.
When I first sat down to write publicly five years ago, I did it for about a month.
Then I dropped off.
I'd pop back up randomly over the years, each time exploring a different way of expressing myself.
A blog post here. A LinkedIn article there.
Twitter for a few months.
A newsletter for a year.
But I never stayed consistent.
The Struggle I Kept Avoiding
When I started, every time I sat down to write, I had to fight with the keyboard.
Every word was a choice.
Every sentence was mine.
There was no prompt I could type to get polished copy in seconds.
No bot to fix my clunky transitions or punch up my weak endings.
I had to figure out what I actually thought by typing it out, deleting it, and typing it again.
That struggle taught me something I didn't know I was learning: my voice.
But I didn’t do it long enough to get comfortable with putting my ideas into the world in a way that felt aligned with who I am.
I wish I'd known that the struggle was the point.
What AI Changes About Voice
Now I can create bots that write better copy than most people charging thousands for sales pages.
The headlines hit harder.
The psychological triggers land.
And for some businesses, that's perfect.
If you're selling supplements or running a faceless brand where customers buy the product, not the person?
Use AI for everything.
But that's not personal writing. That's marketing copy.
If you're building a personal brand - if you're a coach, consultant, or expert where people are buying you - your voice isn't just nice to have.
Your voice is the thing.
And here's what I'm realizing about voice: it's not something you find once and keep forever.
Your voice evolves as you get older, gain new experiences, develop new insights.
The way I think about business now is different from five years ago.
The way I explain things has changed. My perspective has shifted.
That evolution requires wrestling with new ideas.
It requires staying in the struggle, even when you don't have to.
The Dangerous Shortcut
Writers today face a choice: skip the struggle entirely.
Why sit with a half-formed thought when AI can polish it in seconds?
Why wrestle with how to explain something when a bot can give you three perfectly structured explanations?
Most people are taking the shortcut.
I understand why.
But I think they're missing something crucial: the wrestling is where growth happens.
When you're staring at a blank page trying to explain something you understand but can't quite articulate yet, that's not a problem to solve.
That's where your voice lives.
In the mess. In the struggle. In the gap between what you know and what you can express.
The Blurry Line
I'm not anti-AI. I use it every day.
But I'm learning to walk a careful line between AI helping me think better and AI thinking for me.
I try to write or speak my ideas first.
Get the messy, half-formed thoughts out in my own words.
Then I might ask AI to help me organize them or find better examples.
I use AI to clarify what I'm already thinking, not to figure out what I should think.
But the line is blurry.
Sometimes I catch myself letting AI do too much.
Taking its suggestions without questioning whether they're actually mine.
It's a constant calibration.
What Keeps Me Wrestling
I've developed a few practices that force me to stay in the struggle:
Daily journaling. No AI involved.
Just me working through whatever I'm thinking about that day.
Speaking my ideas out loud before I write them. Hearing myself work through thoughts helps me know what's actually mine.
Writing first drafts without AI. Getting my perspective down, even if it's messy, before I ask for help cleaning it up.
These practices aren't perfect.
But they keep me connected to the wrestling that makes voice development possible.
Why This Matters More Now
Here's what I wish I'd understood five years ago: consistency beats perfection.
I kept waiting to have something profound to say before I wrote publicly. I'd start, realize my thoughts weren't fully formed, and stop.
But voice develops through repetition.
Through showing up even when you don't feel ready.
Through working through ideas in public, messily, over time.
Now that AI can make anyone sound polished immediately, that messy consistency becomes even more valuable.
Because people can spot authentic struggle.
They can tell when someone is working through real ideas versus recycling AI-generated insights.
The writers who stay relevant won't be the ones with the best AI prompts.
They'll be the ones who keep wrestling with their own thoughts, consistently, over time.
How I Can Help
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This is Letter #15 of 'Solopreneur Letters' – a series I’m writing where I share the hard-earned wisdom I wish I’d had when I started on my solopreneur journey. See the full list:
