Hemingway Was Right (and ChatGPT Can Help)
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Hemingway Was Right (and ChatGPT Can Help)
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TRANSCRIPT
Hi everybody and welcome back to the wonderful world of Everything is a Remix. I'm gonna try some new things. I'm experimenting. I don't know what I'm doing or where this is going.
I know I told some of you I'm retiring from video, I stopped the kinds of videos I was making. It's a new game for me, this is a new chapter. I'm going to be doing things in a way.
I want to tell you about an exciting new project I have and share one of the best parts of it right here.
I have a new course about ChatGPT and AI. You can watch the entire first module, which is 7 videos, over 25 minutes of content, for FREE. There's a link in the description.
AI is the next frontier in creativity. And the best tool there is... is ChatGPT.
What for? For writing and for writing content.
ChatGPT helps you deal with this.
The blank page. The void. The abyss. That relentless blinking cursor.
You can get spooked here. When you're starting from nothing, it's easy to get overwhelmed with choices or overthink or procrastinate.
Remember what I'm about to say. Make a note. Screencap.
Rewriting is easier than writing. I'll say it again: rewriting is easier than writing.
ChatGPT gives you something to work with. It's not good necessarily, it's just... something. It's a start.
Some of you might be thinking: doesn't your first draft need to be kinda like... good?
No no no. No, it really doesn't. Common misconception.
Don't believe me?
How about the author Jane Smiley? She won the Pulitzer Prize. She said.
"Every first draft is perfect because all the first draft has to do is exist."
How about Anne Lamott? She wrote a famous book about writing called Bird by Bird.
"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere."
Or most famously, Earnest Hemingway might have said "The first draft of anything is s--t."
We're not totally quite sure he said exactly that.
The first draft is often bad. Just like the first demo of a song is bad or the alpha version of your software is bad or the first prototype of your product is bad.
Thinking that the first draft has to be good will paralyze you. It'll stop you from starting.
ChatGPT can get you that crappy first draft, it can give you the raw material. Then you have to rewrite it pretty much completely. There won't be much ChatGPT left in it when you're done.
Sound like a lot of work? It's way less work than writing your own first draft and then making that better.
I'll say it again, rewriting is easier than writing.
When there is something there on the page, you can improve it and fix it.
And sure, sometimes ChatGPT will strike out. No matter what you do, its first draft will be a dud, you won't be able to use it. Was that a waste of time?
No, you still come out ahead. Because seeing what you don't want can shed light on what you do want. It's helped you narrow down the possibilities.
In sports, there's the expression "You're either winning or you're learning." Same applies here. Even when you lose with an attempt at a first draft, you learn, and you get closer to a solution.
My Journey With ChatGPT
This is a free chapter from my new course, Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024.
To see the whole course, click the link above!
Transcript
I'd like to tell you about my journey with ChatGPT.
When I first saw generative AI — so text generators like GPT as well as image generators like Dall-e, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney. When I saw these and tried them I had two contradictory feelings.
Firstly, I was blown away that software could do this. Floored. The most stunned I've been by technology. This software was doing stuff I thought only people could do.
Secondly, for doing actual work, it seemed more awesome than useful. I didn't know really what to do with any of this stuff. I used programs like Photoshop and Final Cut Pro early. After you tried those, there was no confusion about what you would do with this software. You would do your work, just better and faster.
AI seemed awesome and historic, but it didn't click for me, I didn't really get what to do with it.
Anyway, I started using it for kind of minor, support tasks. It was saving me some time, but nothing amazing. But unexpectedly, it grew from there, I kept coming back to AI, in particular to ChatGPT, that became the big one. Image generation, which I will cover in this course, I still think is not yet that useful – at least for me right now.
Why did ChatGPT's role in my work expand?
One of the main reasons was I found ways to work around its limitations, which spotted very quickly when I started using it.
But also I found new ways to use it.
In particular, I made seven discoveries. I found seven incredibly useful things that ChatGPT does. Any one of these justifies using ChatGPT. But there are seven of them. I mean, this software is a big deal. The hype is excessive, but I think those people are closer to being right than the people who are dismissive of this technology.
These seven discoveries I have dubbed The Magnificent Seven. And they are the foundation of this course. There is of course, even more than that here, but these are the game-changers.
So if ChatGPT didn't click for you in the past, for doing real work, you didn't get it, you were like what I do with this B-minus grade text, I'm gonna show you what to do with it.
That was my journey with AI. I went from impressed but not a user, to an impressed user. This journey is still ongoing. It continues to grow for me and AI continues to get better and better and integrated into more and more different kinds of software. Everything is gonna have AI features. I mean it, everything. So it is high time to get on this train, it's still early. We're just getting rolling now.
Up next, I'm going to reveal The Magnificent Seven, the seven AI discoveries I made that changed the game for me.
I present them in ascending order, we're starting at the bottom, each of these is a bigger deal than the last.
The first video is an overview, the second is a walkthrough where I show you how to do real work.
Let's get to it.
Create Content with ChatGPT and AI 2024 is an on-demand video course about crafting content with ChatGPT and AI. Whether you’re a “content creator” or someone who needs to create content as part of your job, this course will dramatically raise your AI game… fast.
My new course about ChatGPT and AI
I am thrilled to announce my new course, Create Content With AI and ChatGPT 2024, is live!
This is the soft launch phase for this product. The site and supporting materials are still being developed. For instance, the name of the course might change. Or you may find some little glitches and mistakes, but they’ll be getting fixed over the next couple weeks.
When should you use ChatGPT in your writing? And how much should you use it?
What are the writing tasks that ChatGPT excels at? What are the tasks it’s weak at? And how much can you use it for each?
There are plenty of writing tasks where ChatGPT can save you precious time. But there are also plenty of writing tasks where it can cost you time. It’ll take longer to rewrite and edit ChatGPT’s outputs than just writing the piece yourself.
What are the writing tasks that ChatGPT excels at? What are the tasks it’s weak at? And how much can you use it for each?
The Three Tiers of Writing
What is your writing task? Place that task in one of these three tiers: low-level, mid-level, and high-level. I’ll explain each.
LOW-LEVEL
This is writing that just needs to do its job. It doesn’t need to withstand much scrutiny from the reader because it will get skimmed. Whether it’s “good” or “bad” is determined by whether or not it did its job. You’re not composing beautiful prose here. Some examples: most social media posts, FAQs, terms of service for your site, or summaries of existing text.
MID-LEVEL
This is quality content that should engage your audience more, but it’s not the best you can do. This is valuable content, but it’s not headline material. It’s your content for this week, and you’ll need more next week. You’re probably not going to promote this content for months. Some examples: an article or blog post, a social media thread, or a landing page.
HIGH-LEVEL
This is the best writing you can do. These are big ideas and big swings. This content requires excellent writing and storytelling. It might demand research, analysis, or creativity. You’ll continue to promote or sell this content for months or years. This is your prestige stuff, the centerpiece of your written work. Some examples: a book, video, presentation, product copy, or important articles.
Get the idea? Choose the tier for your task. Is it low-level, mid-level, or high-level?
How much can you use ChatGPT?
The tier you just chose is ChatGPT’s grade for that level of writing. In other words, ChatGPT is excellent at A Tier, good at B Tier, and decent at C Tier. You’ll use ChatGPT less the lower the tier you place it in.
With A Tier, you can use plenty of what ChatGPT gives you verbatim. (But as always, be sure to proof those outputs and edit them.)
With B Tier, ChatGPT will primarily give you raw material that you’ll rewrite. It’ll also give you some usable text.
With C Tier, ChatGPT becomes a support player, a bit like a combination of Google and a human copy editor. ChatGPT can give you information and edit your writing, but most of the work gets done by you. This is ChatGPT at its least revolutionary.
Beware of C Tier
C Tier is where ChatGPT can waste your time. You can end up typing endless prompts as you search for decent outputs or entirely rewriting and rethinking what ChatGPT gives you.
To determine if your task belongs in C Tier, ask yourself the following three questions. If the answer is “yes” to any of them, it is.
Is this a long piece of writing? (Even over a few hundred words is long.)
Is this a complex piece of writing? (Does it have a narrative? Does it have a personal perspective? Is it intended to evoke emotion?)
Is this a very important piece of writing? (Is it very important to you, your audience, or your business?)
Again, ask yourself: is this long, complex or very important?
An important note: ChatGPT is still very useful for supporting C Tier writing.
You need lots of low- and mid-level writing to market and publicize your premiere content. It’ll need social media posts, articles, product pages, summaries, etc. ChatGPT can help you do a lot of that work quickly.
Some of you might be wondering why you should use ChatGPT less and less as the writing task becomes more and more important. It’s simple: ChatGPT writes mediocre text that tends to be bland. In small doses, this works just fine. The text will be repetitive, rambling, and dull in larger doses. If you use ChatGPT where it’s not suited, you’ll just post text nobody will read.
The quality of ChatGPT’s writing might change, but that’s where we are now.
The Take-Away
ChatGPT can do most of the work for low-level writing, a good amount for mid-level, and valuable support work for high-level. You’ll use ChatGPT less frequently the higher you rank your project in these tiers. But for most of you, C Tier writing is a minority of your day, so there are a lot of tasks where ChatGPT can save you some time and spare you some tedium.
As always, be sure to verify any fact ChatGPT gives you. You’re responsible for what you publish, not ChatGPT.
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This lean and efficient guide will show how to get real writing done with ChatGPT. I do actual work, and I show you how I did it. There’s no hype and no BS. Read more about it here.