Before we dive in, a quick reminder that the new version of Hooked on Writing hooks is available for 6 more days. This new version has massively upgraded AI sparring partners, new principles based on what's working in 2025, and a monster 450+ swipefile of excellent hooks+posts (plus 150+ email subject lines + preview text). ​Grab Hooked on Writing Hooks: 2025 →

Hey Reader,

Every time I mention AI in my content, my DMs blow up with some version of:

"But Erica, isn't using AI cheating?"

Or the complete opposite:

"Why bother learning to write hooks when ChatGPT can do it for me?"

Both of these camps are missing the point entirely, and I want to address why.

The "AI is the devil" people

These folks act like using AI to brainstorm is the same as letting a robot ghostwrite their autobiography.

They're convinced that real writers must suffer through every blank page, wrestling with each word until they've bled enough to earn their creative credentials.

I get it.

Suffering through the blank page is how I learned to write. I've experienced the pain of staring at a cursor blinking for 45 minutes until I finally squeezed out one terrible sentence that I'd rewrite seventeen more times.

I'm grateful for that experience. It taught me to think critically, to understand what makes writing work, to develop my own voice through sheer force of will and way too much coffee.

But like...not everyone is trying to be a writer. Some people are just trying to write. And to me, there's a big difference. (I'll save this deep dive for another day.)

The bigger gripe I have with the AI purists is...

What's the difference between:

• Doing all the hard thinking and having AI help you with the writing
• Doing all the hard thinking and hiring a ghostwriter

A ghostwriter will give you something that you then edit and make your own. Or you give them feedback and go back and forth until it sounds like you.

AI does the exact same thing. Except it's faster, available 24/7, and let's be honest, if it's prompted well, it can be better than human ghostwriters.

This isn't a dig at ghostwriters. I love you. Please keep doing your work.

But I'm coming at this from the lens of a professional editor, so I have a unique take (this may sting, but it's the truth).

I've seen every range of human content, and a lot of it is...not great.

Some days, I'd spend 4 hours editing something a ghostwriter produced, even if I gave them the world's best brief.

I never spend that much time editing AI output. I just don't. I'm really sorry if that's hard to hear. I've trained my AIs to write really well for me. You may have a different experience with ghostwriters or with AI, and that's totally fine.

But please tell me, why is one collaboration acceptable and the other labeled "creative sacrilege"?

If you're using AI as a partner (rather than a do-all-of-it-er), both the AI and ghostwriter scenarios require you to think first. Both require you to edit and refine. Both require you to inject your personality and make it yours.

The "AI will do everything for me" people

On the flip side, you've got people who think they can type "write me a viral hook about productivity" into ChatGPT and BAM, they're content geniuses.

Hilarious. This is the fastest way to kill your brain cells and piss off your audience.

I actually tried it. Well, not the publishing part that would piss off my audience, but the using AI to do all my writing part.

As an experiment, I spent a week letting AI tell me what to write (based on what it knows about me) and then write it for me. Just to see what would happen.

It was a really bad week.

I felt like my brain was atrophying in real time. Like I was getting stupider by the day. Slower.

I'd get so frustrated with the generic nonsense that I'd end up scrapping everything and starting over anyway. Which meant I was actually taking longer to create content, not faster.

But you know what? I'm grateful for that miserable week.

Because it proved to me that AI absolutely cannot replace the human side of creative thinking. It can't understand nuance, it can't capture your specific voice, and it definitely can't connect with your audience on an emotional level.

I'm glad that's true because I want to keep the thinking part. That's the fun part. That's where the magic happens. And if you don't get that, then good luck to you.

But I think you agree with me here because you're on this newsletter. I don't think most of you fall into this camp of letting AI take the wheel. I think the majority of you either fall into camp one or are more like me, where you believe a mix of you + AI is best.

So, here's how I've been using AI as a creative sparring partner

If we mostly agree AI is fine as a sparrer, not a do-er, where do we go from here?

Well, I think we need to do what we've always done as humans: learn and share with one another, so we can navigate this massive transition together.

So allow me to start. Here's my process that's been really working for me lately:

First, I think really hard. I never let AI think for me.

I figure out what problem I'm addressing, what emotion I want to capture, and what specific struggle my audience is facing. This is the hard part that requires actual human brain cells.

At this stage, I might upload a transcript and ask it to pull out some important themes we discussed. Or have it tell me, based on everything it knows about me, what my typical advice would be in a certain situation.

To me, that's just a shorter way of doing what I'd do anyway, which is scroll back through my older content to remember what I've said before, so I can say it in a new way (based on how my thinking has evolved).

Then, I tell AI what I'm thinking and what I want to say. Or, I feed it a shitty first ramble of what I want to say.

Something like: "I want to write about how people stare at the little LinkedIn writing box for 20 minutes, knowing what they want to say, but they're stuck on how to say it. I want to capture that specific frustration of feeling stuck. I know I've talked about this before, but my thinking has evolved. So, can you tell me what I've said before, even pull out specific quotes, and then I'll take it from there?"

Next, I take the ideas it gives me and I think again.

Finally, when I'm ready to write, I'll either scratch out a few hooks or messy drafts myself, or open up one of Rob's bots and tell it what I want to say and pick my favorite hook idea or angle from it.

Now that I have the foundation, I can go one of two ways:

• Write the whole thing myself, and then see if AI can polish or find glaring logical gaps
• Ask AI to write a shitty first draft for me based on everything it knows about my style, tone, preferences, and POV on the subject

And then I ultimately edit the crap out of it cuz I know best.

So yeah, this is my process. And it's exactly why I've been obsessing over the new bots Rob built for Hooked on Writing Hooks: 2025.

These aren't your typical "write me a viral hook" generic AI tools. They're built specifically for creative sparring. They understand nuance. They can take your messy thoughts and help you refine them without stealing your voice.

I've been using them all week, and honestly? They're making my creative juices flow even harder.

(In case you missed the video where I show you this process in real time, here it is.)

If you've been struggling with that "I know what I want to say but I'm stuck on how to say it" feeling I mentioned earlier, these tools might just be the creative sparring partner you've been missing.

​I WANT TO PLAY WITH THIS RIGHT NOW →​

I know this is a messy conversation, but it's one I think we need to keep having. The loudest voices in any argument are always going to be at the end of the barbell. But the solution is generally closer to the middle, which is where I plan to ride this wave.

Cheers,

Erica

PS. The course and the bots that go with them are only available for six more days. So if you're not one of the 73 people who've picked it up so far, get in there before the launch ends.

(And if you did grab it, thank you, and I hope you're enjoying it!)

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New here? I'm Erica. Your seltzer-loving solopreneur who helps you earn more money by closing the Recognition Gap. ​​​​

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