Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber:

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One of the long-standing and proven methods of adding vigor to copy is to let your personality shine through in the writing.

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And IMHO, this is best accomplished when you do your own writing--rather than abdicating communication to AI.

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Yes, we are constantly told that by using prompts and other techniques, you can – and in fact should -- "train" ChatGPT or Claude to "write in your own voice."

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But I have been developing and refining my own writing voice for well over half a century.

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So naturally, I already have that part of being a good writer—writing in my own unique voice and style--well in hand.

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And I love writing.

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That being said: why would I spend endless, boring effort training ChatGPT to write in my own voice—when I already know my voice better than AI ever will?

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Editor Alex Lindley says:

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"We become better writers by the constant effort that mundane writing demands.

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"We become better thinkers by investing into that writing a degree of attention we'd never give it if we relinquished the task to A.I.

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"We become more creative when we learn how to put a personal stamp even on routine things, making them unmistakably our own"—which Alex says is nothing less than "an act of resistance against an ever-dumber world."

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In an interview with Tom Snyder, Harlan Ellison said about writing: "Process—where it comes from and how it gets here--is the most interesting part of writing."

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When you write your own copy, you do it with your own writing process, which is uniquely yours—unduplicated by anyone else on the planet.

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When you abdicate the writing to ChatGPT, you are doing it with the same canned algorithms and web-scraped content shared by millions of other writers also using ChatGPT to cheat and shortcut.

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Why is that so widely touted as a good thing?

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In his book "How to Write Better and Faster," my boss Terry C. Smith said: "Many people view writing as an unwholesome mental chore, to be avoided at any cost."

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And now, with ChatGPT, they--and you--can avoid that unwholesome mental chore with a few clicks.

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If you so choose.

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But I urge you not to.

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Today the barbarians are not only at the gate.

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They have overrun the fortress--and are rapidly taking over the world.

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Regards,

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