Monday Mastery: Start with the writing
On writing as thinking and a radically human act.
Welcome to Monday Mastery, a series designed to shift your perspective, teach you new techniques, and help you become a more effective writer, one tip at a time.
I get stuck talking about AI a lot, sometimes to my chagrin.
In graduate school, I researched the intersection of generative AI and strategic communication, and I became a defacto “expert” in what’s happening with AI in the content space.
I use those quotation marks very purposefully. I do not consider myself an AI expert. I just study it and think about it a lot — and then I put my thoughts into writing like this.
Over time, this body of work has garnered me invitations to speak, teach workshops, and be interviewed. It also led to my growing involvement with Women Defining AI, an organization dedicated to getting women into more seats at the table for conversations and decisions around innovative technology.
And that’s exactly what I want to impart in today’s Monday Mastery article:
Writing helps you be seen as an expert.
In fact, if you want to be known for anything — known as an expert, a creative thinker, a growth-minded employee, a clever entrepreneur, a thought leader — writing is a clear path to get there.
And it’s never been easier to write and publish. You have so many free tools at your disposal. Take Substack, for example! This is a free platform where I can publish my ideas, send them out to subscribers with a click, and build a library of my work.
When people ask me about building a personal brand, I tell them to start writing.
When people hem and haw about where they should try to grow their audience, what they should talk about, or how to stand out from the crowd, I tell them that those answers will come to them through writing.
When people ask me how I come up with these articles, I tell them, “I just start writing.”
Writing is thinking.
I’m not the only one saying this, by the way! Ann Handley and Adam Grant back me up, here. And I know this because they write about it.
Founder and author Blair Enns puts it this simply: “Experts write.”
Yes, this is less advice and more of a call to arms.
But aren’t you tired of your ideas going unnoticed?
Aren’t you tired of all the slop on the web (and let’s face it, the unnecessary fluff in published books)?
Don’t you want to contribute something more to the conversation?
Write it out.
It starts with fingers to keyboard, or pen to paper.
Put your ideas down and the shape of it will emerge.
Or put the shape down, and the ideas will flow.
Which brings me back to where we began: AI.
Last week, I was interviewed by the two lovely hosts of the Aggressively Human podcast. (The episode will be out in February, and I’ll be sure to share it!) Our conversation wandered to how marketing teams are being forced to use AI more because of budget cuts.
Host Jessica Lackey asked me, “When marketers are forced to choose what content gets written by a human, and what gets produced by AI, what advice would you give them? How would you tell them to decide?”
My answer:
If it’s implied that the content is coming from an individual, it should be written by a human first.
An article with a byline, an email coming from an individual’s email address, a social post on a personal account — if you’re telling your audience that this is coming from a person, it should be written first by a person.
Then, after the human has written the first draft (even if it’s a messy first draft), you can use AI to thoughtfully improve it.
Why? Because readers can tell when the human soul of the writing is missing. And in my experience, you really can’t add soul in after the fact. You have to start with soul.
Writing is an expression of your self.
So whether you’re finding your path, building your personal brand, marketing your solution, or simply seeking connection with an audience, start by writing.
It gets easier.
And it gets infinitely more powerful the more you do it.