On the Write Road: The Gift, the Grief, and your AI Go-fer

"For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." Sir Isaac Newton

It’s been a while since I was here last, hasn’t it. So this morning I blew off the dust from my desk, whisked away the cobwebs from the corners, opened the window to air out the room.

And got straight to work.

Rolling a fresh sheet of paper into the platen of my rickety old typewriter, I started the tappety tap tap process of pounding out words that, hopefully, would be meaningful.

Or at least make some sense.

(Hmm… there are a few sticky keys here and there. I should have some oil in the drawer.)

Of course, those descriptions are all fabricated and somewhat whimsical.

We writers live and work in a virtual world for the most part. So paper and typewriters are a bit archaic.

But even so, that blasted A key is sticking again… be right back.

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Okay, now where was I?

Ah, yes. I’ve been absent for a while, and for good reason. So that put a hold on my series about AI. You know, much of it was obsolete the moment I typed it out anyway. Things are evolving so fast, it’s nearly impossible to stay abreast of it all.

Therefore, I may have to revise my work and submit it to you at a later date.

Or maybe not. Who knows.

That said, I’m going to talk a little bit about how AI can be useful and relevant to writers in this digital world. That’ll be at the end, after we’ve had a chance to chat a bit about something far more important.

At least to me. And this is my newsletter, so…

The path our chat will take us is simple:

• The Gift

• The Grief, and

• Your AI Go-fer

That last one is kind of a side trip on the Write Road.

But, it’ll be a trip worth taking.

So, sit down with me at this roadside table and let’s talk heart-to-heart.

The Gift

A while back, I mentioned a “detour” taken on the Write Road last year. I left the road temporarily to pursue more pressing issues.

I wrote about it in “The Write Road: On Sideroads and Being M.I.A.”

And while I mentioned it was because of health problems my wife was experiencing, I wasn’t explicit in the specifics. It was too soon and too personal.

I talked about how illnesses and hospitalizations oft divert us down a sideroad. A few of you might recall reading it, and I thank you for your kind remarks.

Since I didn’t go into great detail, even fewer of you knew what was actually going on.

Well, the time has come.

Mary had a severe liver ailment called biliary cholangitis. It manifested because of a health issue back in 1996. At that time, she had her colon removed and they told us this was a distinct possibility in the future.

Sure enough, it happened a few years ago and they began monitoring it. The only remedy was an eventual liver transplant. But she wasn’t in bad enough condition yet to get a transplant, nor even be put on the UNOS list (United Network for Organ Sharing).

Late last summer, her lab work numbers got bad enough that she was finally listed.

So the waiting game began. And in the meantime, her kidneys started failing as well.

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It’s quite an experience, waiting for “the call.”

We packed our go-bags and they travelled everywhere with us. Our cellphones were always charged and on, ready to answer when the hospital called. The car was kept full of gas, never dropping below ¾ of a tank.

One morning, we were sitting in our offices. She was sewing away and I was typing as usual.

We got “the call”.

A donor organ that matched was being flown in to Little Rock and we needed to get down to UAMS as quickly as possible.

Honestly, the emotions when I got notified about the impending birth of our first child paled to what I was experiencing at that moment.

We scooped up a few last minute necessities, hopped in the car, and headed down the highway. It’s a 190-mile trip and would take almost three hours.

Time, obviously, was of the essence.

My heart raced as I navigated morning traffic on the way to UAMS (University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences). The admissions coordinator kept in regular touch with Mary during the drive, getting things ready so that she could be admitted to the prep room upon arrival.

15 minutes from the hospital… another call came in.

The plane bringing the organs had broken down and was delayed. It wouldn’t arrive in time for the liver to be viable. The operation was canceled.

The trip home was… quiet.

It was a disappointment, no getting around that fact. But, it did help us tweak our response to be even more prepared the next time we got the call.

The call… never came.

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We continued the weekly lab work regimen, along with the now weekly paracentesis to drain fluid from her abdomen.

During one visit, her chemical levels and blood pressure readings were so low that the hematologist notified UAMS. They instructed us to get down there immediately so they could admit her, monitor her vitals, and adjust the medications.

That was the norm for over two weeks. I stayed with her in the hospital room, and kept writing on the trusty Road Warrior 2. Near the end of the stay, she had two dialysis treatments, and they were looking for a dialysis seat back in Fayetteville for her before they released us.

The evening before we were slated to go home, the attending ward doctor burst through the door, announcing they’d secured a potential donor for the liver and kidney. It would be there at midnight. If the procurement team cleared it, she would be scheduled for the transplants in the morning.

They… cleared it.

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At 4 AM that Thursday morn, I sat in the visitors’ lounge on the second floor, waiting for updates on the procedure. The room was vacant, save for the occasional nurse or staff member coming in for breaks.

I paced around in the dim light, phone in hand. It’s an operation that could last well into 7 hours or more.

As the sun started to peak up over the horizon outside and shine through the huge glass windows, people started walking in and out of the lobby below. I noticed one couple walking slowly toward the exit, holding each other tightly.

Hospitals are always emotional places. And these folks seemed to be having a hard time.

Others were walking briskly, carrying gifts for their family members. Hospitals are a strange mix of hope and despair, happiness and fear, confidence and uncertainty.

Finally, in the afternoon, they called and said Mary was out of the operating room, and into recovery. The operation was a success. I could go down to the ICU and wait for her there.

I’ve got to say there was a spring in my step as a wave of relief wafted over me.

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After a week’s recovery in the hospital, I secured lodging for us down in Little Rock. For a month or so, we needed to be located within 60 minutes of the hospital for regular bi-weekly tests, keeping in close proximity the event of an emergency.

We rented an Airbnb and lived down there for over 2 months.

Finally, after spending 3 major holidays and Mary’s birthday in Little Rock, we were finally able to click our heels three times and go home.

Those who previously knew of Mary’s condition had given us their support, hoping for a quick road to transplant. I had hoped for that, too.

And she was welcomed home the same way, with cheers and prayers from friends and family for her swift recovery and continued health.

And condolences that she’d have to put up with me doting over her for years to come.

Just kidding about the condolences to Mary… or am I? 😉

(By the way, Mary’s doing amazingly well! She’s back to sewing for her clients. The musical humming of the sewing machine, accompanied by the clickety clack rhythm of the keyboard in the next room is once again emanating from the little green house at the corner of West Anne and Florene.

But… there’s a flip side to the coin.

The Grief

While we were in the hospital pre-transplant ward, helicopters flew over our room multiple times a night. Each one brought a glimmer of hope that she would be next.

After leaving the hospital to live in the rental, we’d hear the choppers fly overhead, heading for the UAMS landing pad.

I will never see nor hear a helicopter in quite the same way again.

When we left the hospital, we were given yet another huge packet of material to study. Along with daily diet menus and restrictions, med lists, and other instructions designed to keep Mary healthy, there was one other paper.

One that made me pause for a moment.

Or two.

It was a form you could fill out to send to the family of the organ donor. They would remain anonymous. But there is an organization that would convey your thanks and condolences to the grieving family.

My mind drifted back to one of the times Mary had a paracentesis procedure done in our local hospital. The PA system gently called for the nurses to assemble for “The Honor Walk.” They gathered in the hall to pay last respects as a donor was transported to the operating room for organ harvesting.

Suddenly, my mind snapped back to that distraught couple, holding each other tightly as they left the hospital while I was eagerly waiting for news of Mary’s transplant outcome.

What if the donor was…

It’s a humbling thought.

Excuse me for a minute… there’s something in my eye.

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As of September 2023, there are a reported 103,000+ patients in the United States, waiting for transplants. And every 8 minutes, another is added to that list.

Of all the organs needed, kidneys and livers top the list.

While a person can donate a kidney and still live, most livers come from the recently deceased.

We count ourselves fortunate. And will be forever thankful for the unknown family who lost their loved one, and yet donated the organs so mine could live.

Amen.

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That my friend, brings us to the last discussion before we part ways and head back on down The Write Road.

And it may sound kind of strange, given what we’ve talked about thus far.

But stay with me. There’s a reason. We do need to talk a little about writing.

After all… that’s what this newsletter is about, right?

Your AI Go-fer

(To clarify, when I worked at the job, we always sent the new kid to go for our tools and materials. Hence the term, go-fer. LOL)

Be honest with me.

How did you feel, emotionally, as you read the above story?

Did you smile? Did you laugh… did you, perhaps, shed a tear at times?

I did.

All the above. And I was the one writing it!

Why?

Because, above all else, stories move us.

We hoomans are intrinsically wired for story.

Before there was written text, there was the spoken word.

Story.

From cavern walls to lecture halls, stories matter.

Is it any surprise that history contains the word… story?

That brings us to one major limitation of AI in writing.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should necessarily eschew using it.

It can be a helpful tool.

But never a replacement for your organic brain.

Why?

Because stories, whether in content or copy, are crucial.

AI has no stories. It’s an algorithm, a computer program. A mass of code, traveling a highway of diodes and resistors and circuitry, assembled on computer chips somewhere in the ether.

It cannot think as humans think. It chooses the next logical word, based on what it has been trained on.

I type “Cat in the…” and it returns “hat.”

That word garnered the highest logical percentage.

It used statistical prediction, governed by percentages, to return an output that made logical sense.

We carbon-based entities, comprised of flesh and bone and blood, are anything but logical most of the time.

In the consumer world, people buy based on emotion and justify their purchases with reason and logic. Gotta explain that new golf club to the wife somehow!

Good copywriters use stories to facilitate those purchases.

So, is AI (artificial intelligence) a bad thing? Well, that depends.

If used to write your completed manuscript, whether book or blog or ad, you’re missing the one major ingredient that makes a humungous difference.

Emotional intelligence.

The human element… story.

AI can fabricate a story… but it can’t tell an authentic one.

Get my drift?

It can talk about emotions, but not feel them.

It can be a copy cub, to some degree.

But not a copy chief.

So in my opinion, what’s the best use for this thing called artificial intelligence?

Ideation. Brainstorming. Content suggestion. Beating the blank page blues.

It’s great for that, now that most LLMs (Large Language Models) are connected to the internet. For example, I just asked ChatGPT for three article topics that safety managers would appreciate.

In less than 10 seconds, it gave me three good topics:

• Integration of Advanced Technologies in Safety Management

• Mental Health and Safety in the Workplace

• Global Best Practices in Safety Management

Along with those topics, it gave me a brief description of each. If you suffer from an idea blank, an AI can help if used correctly.

The same question, entered in Perplexity.ai (which is quickly becoming my favorite ro-buddy) rendered different results, ones I like just as well: Maybe more so.

• Personal Protective Equipment

• Ergonomics

• General Health and Job Hazard Analysis.

Perplexity also gave brief descriptions of what I could write about the topics. And it also gave me five sources it drew the information from.

Will I use it to actually write the article?

Heck, no!

But for ideation and research, it can be a valuable assistant.

(You still need to verify facts. All LLMs can (and will) lie to you occasionally. They explicitly warn you of that.)

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Yeah, it’s possible to get a lot of articles out the door in near record time using AI.

But… there’s a catch, a caveat, a bite-you-in-the-butt problem.

In a word… sameness.

Not similarity… sameness. There’s a difference.

This is nothing new under the sun. But there are distinctly different ways of writing about them. That takes a human touch.

It’s an issue that was recently mentioned in research done by the Content Marketing Institute. A problem that occurs when AI is used too extensively or too heavily, particularly in B2B content.

To put it bluntly, you lose your differentiation. Your uniqueness… your edge.

The words become flat and lifeless, sounding like everyone else’s copy.

A company’s USP (Unique Selling Proposition) becomes a universally similar point.

Their star will grow dimmer in the constellation of competition.

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Only you can supply the human elements of emotional intelligence, empathy, of … story.

AI is a tool. Use it wisely, grasshopper!

Until next time… write on!

Steve M

P.S. The stories above were generated completely by a hooman bean… me! No names have been changed, of that I’m completely innocent. Nanoo nanoo. 😉

PPS. Want to learn more about blending artificial intelligence with emotional intelligence? Then check out this invaluable training from my mentor, good friend, and amazing web copywriter Nick Usborne. Full Disclosure: This is an affiliate link. I’ll get a buck or two… You’ll get astounding information on how to  Future-Proof your Copywriting Biz. Worth way more than a couple greenbacks.

Shazbot!!