This is prefacing statemen , Doug! I am not criticizing you, I think the world of you.
I’ve read Doug Belshaw’s writings for longer than I can pinpoint, blogs, articles, papers, tweets (what are they?). I continue to read regularly what flows in from the RSS feed of his newly redone Ghost-ified blog which has notably picked up in both frequency and density since. I have sensed a change too in the writing, which he shares more insight to.
He has assistance as spelled out today in his newest one My 7-step approach for authentic AI-assisted blogging
Here’s the process, broadly speaking, that I go through when creating a post to publish on this blog:
Come up with an idea for a post
https://blog.dougbelshaw.com/authentic-ai-assistance/
Have a conversation with Perplexity
Get it to generate a post (based on this style guide)
Rewrite the post
Run it through GPTzero.me
Do another ‘editor’ pass through a different model in Perplexity
Publish
It is actually quite interesting to see into and in no way is he using LLMs to just generate stuff he clicks and publishes. It’s definitely a process that flows through him, not just pops out of a machine. And there is a flavor of Doug-ness in the output. And look, it’s working for him as he is getting more subscribers and social media tingles. And it makes sense as he is an independent consultant and this requires keeping a strong visibility.
I throw no judgement Doug and its a sound and rationale approach in today’s slop-mire state of online-ness.
Yet it’s polished and professional, yet feels just a little shade less– Doug-y. But again, its not his personal free writing space, its a professional blog.
Tip of the hat.
And we all should write in the ways that serve us the most. As this old blog slides down the slope into irrelevance and its meager signal drowned in the noise, I revel in my 1-step approach to blogging with AI.
- I don’t touch the stuff
My process is that an idea floats around in my brain foir hours, days weeks, and maybe at siome point the urge to get it out happens. And I just sit here and write it out, full of typos and bad grammar and my puns that only I think are funny. I click publish and then not much really happens. I am not invested in subscribers or comments or likes or trends.
I write because at times I cannot not write. And when I do, I always feel a little better.
And that’s always the thing about writing, there is no right. There is just the writing. And whatever works for you to write, is right by me. It’s all giving appearance of solidity to pure wind, which can be done in an infinite number of ways.
Featured Image: The Truth About Writing flickr photo by cogdogblog shared under a Creative Commons (BY 2.0) license
I actually think your puns are funny too!
Thanks Alan, this post made me smile 🙂
> And there is a flavor of Doug-ness in the output.
I’d hope so, given that I type pretty much _every_ word (I’m talking about over 95%) of those I publish…
great post, i agree. I also play drums or guitar because I simply cannot not play music.
Thanks
Late last year, I took Harold Jarche’s PKMastery workshop. I challenged myself to blog all the way through, which resulted in 2-3 posts per week. I hadn’t ever written that consistently in my blogging practice. You/your writing style were one of the things that sustained me during that time. I am inspired by your consistency and your authenticity in your writing. I’m doing more voice to text for fist drafts these days, which I find greatly enhances my ability to blog more frequently.
Thanks Bonni, I read a lot of your PKMastery posts and appreciated the reflective practice. People go on and on about “why I’m not blogging [more][anymore]” but I take the glass partly full to appreciate the ones people do, not fretting over ones they don’t do (there’s my mangling grammar).
And also, I value so much your commitment to send comments; people forget that commenting is a short form of writing (or can be).
Commenting is way more fun since you reminded me about subscribing to them via RSS.