Inspiration can only write 500 words, discipline can write 100,000 words: In the AI era, why writing is more important
Every once in a while, someone will ask me the same question: Vista, I also want to start writing, but I am not a very good writer, can I still write like this?
My answer is always the same: yes, and you have been writing it for a long time, you just didn’t realize it.
In this article, I want to talk to you about some of my most authentic experiences about writing over the years. There are no advanced techniques, they are all things that I have practiced myself and practiced with my students.
Writing is not a patent for literati, but a survival skill for modern people.
When many people hear “writing” or “copywriting”, what comes to mind is the smiley slogans on advertising boards, so they exclude themselves first: that’s what talented people do, and it has nothing to do with me.
This is the misconception I want to dispel first.
My definition of copywriting is simple: copywriting is words with a purpose. The reason for its existence is to make readers have some kind of change that you expect after reading it. It may be understanding something, being convinced by you, being willing to click on a link, replying to a letter, or paying for a purchase. As long as there is a purpose behind the text that you want to achieve, that text is copywriting.
If you think about this definition, the answer will be clear. When an engineer writes a weekly report to gain resources, that is copywriting; when a nurse writes a health education leaflet to make patients willing to follow it, that is also copywriting; when an office worker makes a proposal in a group or writes a letter requesting support, it is all copywriting. We use words every day to win other people’s attention, time and trust, but most people never realize it, so they never write it well.
Therefore, writing has never been a privilege for marketers, but a basic survival skill in this era. When you learn to explain something clearly until the other party is willing to take action, every communication you have will be less misunderstood and more understood. This alone is worth starting.
Inspiration comes from visitors, not employees
In the past few years, I have accompanied many friends who want to write, and I have seen too many talented people get stuck in the same place: it’s not that they can’t write well, but that their writing is unstable. I was inspired to write 3,000 words today, but I won’t be able to squeeze out a single word for the next week.
The problem has never been ability, but rather that they base their writing on the most unreliable of foundations: inspiration.
Inspiration is a good thing, but it’s a visitor, not an employee. You can’t expect a visitor who doesn’t know when he’s coming to help you complete your output for the entire year. Being able to accompany you to write 100,000 words or 100 articles is always about discipline.
My own approach can be broken down into three things to provide a reference for you who are just starting out.
**First, lower the threshold to a ridiculously low level. ** Many people get stuck because they set a goal of writing a thousand words a day at the beginning, but then give up completely on the third day. My advice is the other way around: Start by committing to writing just one paragraph a day, or even just three sentences. The point is not how much to write, but to make it happen every day that I write today. When the action is so small that you can’t find an excuse not to do it, the habit will only stand up. Once you start writing, the volume will naturally grow.
**Second, fix the time and scenario and reduce the decision-making cost to zero. ** What really consumes people is not the writing itself, but the repeated struggle every day whether to write or when to write. So I tie my writing to a fixed time and place: for example, half an hour after making coffee every morning, I sit at the same table and write. Once the time is up, your body will automatically enter the state and you no longer have to negotiate with yourself.
**Third, use public commitment in exchange for external constraints. ** A person’s willpower is limited, but people tend to care more about not breaking trust with others. When you make it public that you deliver a manuscript every day, and have a group of people with you who can see each other, you will sit down and write for that commitment. The community is not here to help you find inspiration, but to gently hold you back on the day when you want to be lazy.
In the final analysis, writing discipline is not about forcing yourself to endure pain, but about cleverly designing a system that allows you to continue without relying on willpower. Inspiration is responsible for occasionally surprising you, and discipline is responsible for keeping you going year after year.
Good content must be worthy of readers’ time.
I often remind students one thing: What readers pay when they click on your article today is not money, but something more expensive than money, that is, their time and attention. You can make money again if you spend it, but you can never get back time if you spend it. When you think about this clearly, your attitude towards writing will be completely different.
So how do you check whether you are worthy of the time? I would self-censor with three questions.
The first question: What does the reader know after reading it? He may gain a new perspective, learn a method, be touched by a certain emotion, or find a solution to a problem that was originally stuck. If you ask yourself honestly and find that the reader is no different after reading it than before, then the article has failed.
Second question: Am I the only one who can say these words? In this era of information explosion, there is no shortage of information, but only opinions and experiences. If you randomly search for what you write and there are a hundred of them exactly the same, there will be no reason for readers to read your version. The real value often comes from the pitfalls you have personally stepped on, your unique perspective, and the failures you are willing to share honestly.
Third question: Can I delete another half? Many articles are not worthless, but the content of 500 words is diluted into 3,000 words, so that readers have to brush through a lot of redundant words to find the key points. After I finish writing, I will definitely go back and make subtractions so that readers can get the most things in the shortest time. Respect your readers’ time and start by not being long-winded.
Through these three levels, you can roughly confirm that you have lived up to the trust of the article you clicked on.
In the AI era, treat it as an amplifier, not a ghostwriter
One of my deepest experiences in the past two years is: when AI drives execution costs close to zero, what is truly scarce is judgment and taste.
In the past, the threshold for writing an article, making a picture, or editing a video was very high and time-consuming, so just being able to execute it was a kind of competitiveness in itself. But with the advent of AI, everyone can produce decent content within a few minutes. When everyone’s output becomes more and more similar on the surface, the only thing that can widen the gap is two things that machines cannot give: your judgment to know what to do and what not to do, and your taste to distinguish between what is good and what is adequate.
So how can we use AI extensively while still preserving ourselves? My principle is to take care of the order.
**Have a point of view first, then ask AI to start working. ** I would never open an AI and ask: Help me write an article about so-and-so. What you write like that is bound to be mediocre, because it just gives you the average on the Internet. I will first think clearly: what is my unique perspective on this matter, what do I want to advocate, and what experience do I have that others do not have. Only when the viewpoint is formed can AI have something to amplify. Style comes from your head, not from tools.
**Let AI do the rough work and leave the judgment and tone to yourself. ** I would trust AI to do the rough work of checking information, sorting out first drafts, generating different versions, and checking for typos, because it can do it quickly and well. But I must personally decide what to advocate, what angle to use, which sentences to keep and which to cut, and the final tone and rhythm.
**Always the last level. ** I will definitely change the things produced by AI myself, inject my own tone, add my own story, and remove the smell that I can tell at a glance was written by AI. Readers want you, not a general model. By guarding this last step, your style will not be diluted by tools, but will spread further due to increased productivity.
The stronger the AI, the more valuable human opinions and tastes are. Instead of worrying about being replaced, think of it as a tireless assistant, allowing you to invest the time you save in judgments that only you can make.
Finally, I want to send you a message
If you can only take away one sentence from this article, I hope it is this sentence: Don’t pursue a blockbuster, first be there all the time.
I’ve seen too many people get stuck waiting until they’re ready and perfect before they start. As a result, a year has passed and they haven’t even posted the first article. But in the writing world, the real winner is never the popularity of one article, but whether you can continue to accumulate. It doesn’t matter if you don’t write well enough today. What matters is that you are writing and will continue to write tomorrow.
Perfection is the enemy of persistence. When you allow yourself to write imperfectly, you can write well; when you can write well, you will write better and better. Those who go far in the end are not the ones with the highest talent, but the ones who can endure the most and are most willing to accumulate day after day.
So, get started and don’t stop. For the rest, time will give you the answer.
If you also want to take writing seriously
Reading this means that you actually already want to write. Then don’t let this impulse be extinguished by another sentence of “Wait until I’m ready.”
- If you want to continue to read my observations on writing, content and personal branding, welcome to Vista.tw. This is my long-term updated content base.
- If you don’t just want to write good articles, but want to use the power of one person to connect expertise, content and business models into a sustainable business, then I have compiled my practices in the past few years in Solo.tw, talking about a one-person company in the AI era.
- And the simplest first step is actually now: open a blank file and write three sentences. You don’t have to write well, just start. Tomorrow, write three more sentences.
Writing will reward everyone who is willing to keep going. See you in the text.
