I let the call go to voicemail, like I almost always do.

Because I’m a millennial, sure.

But also, because c’mon. It’s almost always a scam:

• a fake marketing agency offering to represent my book at Famous International Book Festival,
• or a trademark lawyer telling me to call them immediately about my Story Rebel filing,
• or—my fave—the IRS warning me that they’ve put a warrant out for my arrest.

Anyway, I was rolling my bike out the door on my way to dinner when my phone began to buzz. I was in no mood to be informed that my car’s warranty was expiring.

I hit Send to Voicemail and put my helmet on.

So you can imagine my surprise when I checked my phone at the restaurant and saw the message.

“Hey Jessie, I’m a producer for Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud program. [Name] gave me your info and I was hoping you could help me out with a segment I’m working on.”

I called her back immediately.

She was, indeed, an OPB producer.

She did, indeed, want me to come on the radio.

I was about to be Famous. 😜

The segment was on how creative writers are using AI, and the producer told me she’d been having trouble finding people willing to talk about using AI in their work.

I told her I was happy to share the ways I’m using it in my business, the ways I’m not, and why. And we were off to the races.

Fast forward a week, and I was sitting in the studio with host Dave Miller and my fellow Portland author Tracy Hoagland.

Live on air.

The conversation was short (about 15 minutes) but nuanced, and my main takeaway was this:

AI can do a lot of things for you, but it cannot create that which only you can create.

The creative work that only you can make is the most engaging. The most interesting. The most valuable.

It’s more difficult, of course—but that’s part of the point.

As Tracy said early on in the conversation, one of the most important parts of writing is the struggle. The struggle to understand what you think. To articulate it clearly. To polish it cleanly.

That time spent wrestling with the language isn’t wasted effort—it’s how you establish your ideas, your values. Everything that makes you unique.

(I talked a bit about the value of that struggle a few weeks ago in my most recent Substack post, “Magpie Mode.”)

I think AI is super useful for utility writing, like polishing up your marketing copy and turning it into a series of Facebook ads.

But even writing that marketing copy in the first place is a form of wrestling. It helps you see your book more clearly—which is why I often write a version of it before I start writing my books.

It can be useful for crafting drafts of things like emails or blog posts, when you’ve fed it with the ideas and frameworks and material you’ve already developed.

Though please please please edit those drafts into your own voice.

I’m tired of meeting someone who’s dynamic and amazing in person, only to get a watered-down, AI-ified version of them once I sign up for their newsletter.

I mean, if I wanted to hear mindset coaching tips from Claude, I’d go ask it. I’ve got my own subscription, thx.

I want to hear what you specifically have to say. I want to hear your own stories. I want you to tell them in your own voice.

Pretty please!

In the end, I view AI use less as a moral issue, and more as a marketing and legacy issue.

If you want your writing to matter, if you want it to last beyond you, if you want it to connect with your audience and change lives—then you can't outsource your thinking and your writing to AI.

Why bother creating content that means nothing, that speaks to no one, that will last no longer than a breath?

Use your voice while you have it, friend.

​You can listen to the segment here if you like. And if you have thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

Cheers,

Jessie