Giving Up

I wanted to give up writing this week. 

I’ve been incredibly busy at work. I’m the Senior Marketing Copywriter for an education company that is experiencing explosive growth. When I first applied to this job over four years ago, I did so with the intention of finding a role that would keep me busy, help me grow my skills, and stimulate my brain on a daily basis—I was bored to tears in my previous role. I haven’t been bored since April 21, 2021.

Prior to my current job, I was one of eight promotional writers for a large university, and I had one or two projects to work on per day. My role was limited to writing copy; having it torn down and reconstructed by a team of marketing managers, editors, and brand specialists; and being told I asked too many questions—something that was very hard for me NOT to do with a newly minted journalism degree. The final output looked nothing like what I’d provided, and I rarely heard back on performance. I didn’t know if what I was writing was effective, and I didn’t learn how to make it better. It pains me to say this, but generative AI could do that job—faster and cheaper (and with less hurt feelings) than I ever could.

For the past four years, I’ve been so much more than a copywriter. My current role has supercharged my marketing and communications acumen—because I’ve had opportunities to participate in the marketing process from start to finish. I’ve learned that copywriting is much more than putting together words about a product or service.

• It’s boiling complicated topics down into easy-to-understand and digestible ideas.

• It’s becoming an expert in my company’s services so I have the depth of knowledge to talk about them in layman’s terms.

• It’s thinking like a salesperson and crafting content that addresses our audience’s pain points.

• It’s anticipating customer questions and concerns so we can answer them before they’re even asked.

• It’s considering not only the words I use but also the visual elements that may help communicate the message—I write for my graphic designer so the finished product provides cohesive communication that grabs the audience’s attention and delivers the most pertinent information immediately.

• It’s interviewing people—internally and externally—to gather information for projects.

• It’s thinking from wide-angle and macro perspectives—in my previous role, I was only invited to think from a macro perspective. My employer only wanted me to think about the single project I was working on, not about how it fit into the overarching communications strategy—there were people who were paid a lot more than me to do that. My copy suffered for it. Now, when I receive a new project request, I start with a wide-angle lens, meaning I learn how the project aligns with our overarching goals and communication strategy. Then, I can hone in on the specifics. My content has become more effective and the editing process is much less extensive as a result.

• It’s testing and refining constantly to see what works. Love that cheeky headline you wrote last week? Too bad; it didn’t convert. Change it up. A/B test. Check those performance results. 

• It’s growing thick skin and learning to take constructive (and not-so-constructive) criticism—your manager or editor isn’t attacking your creative work. They’re shaping it into the image of the company and aligning it to brand standards. And sometimes, you might get a request that goes against everything you know about grammar and AP Style rules, but it’s the way they want something spelled or punctuated. As much as it pains you, you have to learn to roll with it. The company gets the final say on what’s approved—not you.

• It’s finding stories in data, patterns, and feedback and using it to shape the company’s image and drive business. 

• It isn’t your baby. It’s a service you’re providing to your employer with a purpose—to convert. If you aren’t driving action, you’re failing.

  
  

---

Ambrose Bierce is attributed to the quote, “Good writing is clear thinking made visible.” This sentiment is what led me to develop the tagline Writer. Thinker. Coffee Drinker. 

I’ve always been a deep thinker—to a fault. A few years ago, I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder after my therapist told me it wasn’t normal to ruminate on the same thing for months (or years) at a time. But I also think I’m good at thinking, when I’m not caught up in an obsession, and I enjoy sorting through complex problems and whittling them down into plain language. 

In short, copywriting is using your brain—and using it well. I can’t imagine another job that would feel like such a natural extension of who I am.

When OpenAI introduced its generative AI chatbot ChatGPT back in November of 2022, I didn’t think much of it. But as generative AI took the world by storm, it began to fundamentally shift the way we live and work. Now, I rarely make it through a day without seeing AI-generated content, hearing about ChatGPT, or using it. Yes, you read that right. I use ChatGPT to help manage my workload and improve my efficiency in the corporate setting.

I still refuse to use ChatGPT to help with my personal writing. However, after some encouragement from my coworkers, I’ve relented and started using generative AI tools like ChatGPT to support my role. (If you’re interested, I will write a separate blog post on how I use generative AI in the workplace, but I’m not going to get into the details here.)

At first, I was afraid that I would lose my job because of these new generative AI tools. But after using them for over a month now, I can confidently say I’m not worried about being replaced by a machine any time soon. Long story short, the outputs from generative AI are only as good as the inputs… and even with good inputs, it makes a lot of mistakes.

But, it has sped up my process significantly, especially with repetitive tasks, and given me space to do more thinking, planning, assessing, refining, and improving. It has made this incredibly busy season a little less stressful. But it also made me question everything I knew about myself and what I hoped for as a writer.

My Facebook and email inboxes are constantly full of AI-generated messages from scammers trying to sell me some kind of book marketing service (even though I don’t have any books published yet). I’m in a lot of Facebook groups dedicated to writing, and there are similar fake posts in those groups, and some people even try to hock their AI-generated books with AI-generated covers using their AI-generated pen names. Writers are constantly arguing over the ethics of using generative AI to write their books, to edit their books, to brainstorm ideas, etc. It’s starting to feel like an endless feedback loop, and I’ve had to remove myself from it, lest I drown in the slop and the squabble.

As a workplace writer and a creative writer, I live and breathe words. Writing is part of who I am, and with all the advances in generative AI, I considered throwing in the towel more than once and going into a completely different industry (barbering seems like a safe choice). There is a lot of overlap, but they serve distinct purposes: 

• The writing and marketing tasks I perform at my job are for my company and its shareholders.

• The writing I do for my blog, short stories, and books are for me, you, and—most importantly—God.

Maybe you don’t care if the words you’re reading right now were written by me or generated by a large language model. I do. I want the things I put on my blog to be intentionally chosen by me—with the purpose of connecting with you. I want this blog—and all of my writing—to feel like a letter from a pen pal or a conversation with a friend. To do that, I need to not only have good intentions of sharing something with you but also follow through on delivering it.

Furthermore, my creative writing is an act of worship, an offering, unto the Lord. As a Christian, everything I do should be to honor God. Of course, I’m not perfect at this—not even close. But I try to align my heart to this goal, and I believe part of honoring God with my creative writing skills is offering Him my best work in its purest, most human form. 

I believe part of honoring God with my creative writing skills is offering Him my best work in its purest, most human form.

My perspective on generative AI is evolving, almost as quickly as the technology itself. I still have a lot of mixed feelings about it, which I’ll likely continue to explore on the blog. I know that quality at scale, efficiency, and speed are priorities for my employer, and I still give it my best effort, even with the help of generative AI tools. 

I’m not giving up anytime soon.