Reflecting on My 30-Article Journey with AI as My Co-Writer

6 min readOct 26, 2023

I recently completed 30 articles in just 3 months — an intense 🥶 writing project for me. I embarked on this journey with three main goals:

Collaborate with the dbt Taipei community for the 2023 iThome writing (in Chinese.)
Transform writing from a mere passion to a disciplined craft.
Seamlessly integrate AI into the writing process.

I’m proud to say that I’ve achieved all three goals! In this reflection, I want to shed light on how I harnessed AI to enhance my writing.

I highly recommend this enlightening article How I use AI when blogging and writing by Andrew Chen 👍. Andrew’s insights gave me the confidence that I was on the right path.

The AI Writing Process 🤖✍️

Writing with AI process (Miro board here)

Use this article as an example, see chat history here.

1. Bounce Ideas with AI:

Request AI to brainstorm ideas based on my writing description.
Get an outline from AI for my intended topic.

2. Drafting with AI’s Help:

Have AI review my draft against the content checklist.

3. Iterative Content Modification:

Post modifications, and submit content to AI for another check. Repeat this cycle until all checklist points are ticked.
Instruct AI to refine content based on a separate modified work list.

4. Personal Touch and Review:

While AI often suggests advanced vocabulary, I decide whether to adopt the new term or use familiar words.
I reinstate sentences that AI trims if they resonate with my personal voice.
The refinement phase is typically swift.

5. Finalize and Publish:

Once the content feels perfect, use a final work list with AI.

The three lists, prompts 🔮, I rely on, specially tailored for writing a series of articles, are

#1 Content Checklist:

Remember this title and content, I’ll give you a checklist. OK? title: content:

1. Maintain Consistency: Make sure to keep the structure of the articles consistent. This will help my readers follow along easily from one article to the next.

Call the previous article
Introduce the next article

2. Engagement: Continue to engage your audience with personal anecdotes and practical examples. These make your content relatable and easier to understand.

Use emoji in the article

3. Engaging Title: Consider occasionally using question-based titles or ones that provoke curiosity. The title should not be a question.

4. Keep It Practical: My series is about providing tips to aspiring data practitioners, so always remember to include practical advice, resources, or steps that your readers can take away and apply.

5. Linking: Be sure to link your articles together where appropriate. This can encourage your readers to engage with more of your content. In this article, for instance, you did a good job linking back to the previous articles.

6. Stay Focused: Each article should focus on a specific topic or tool. This will keep your content concise and clear, and it will make it easier for readers to find the information they’re interested in.

7. Proofread: Be sure to proofread your articles or use a grammar and spell checker. This ensures your content maintains a professional and polished tone.

8. Balance between technical and non-technical content: While it’s essential to go into technical details, ensure your articles are still accessible to beginners by explaining concepts in simple terms or using analogies.

9. Structured Flow: Have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. Use subheadings for better readability.

10. Real-world Examples: They always help in making abstract concepts concrete.

11. Visual Aids: Charts, infographics, or diagrams can be very effective, especially in data-focused articles.

12. Conclusion & Call to Action: Sum up the key takeaways and perhaps encourage readers to leave comments, share their experiences, or read a related article.

#2 Modify Work List:

Rectify typos and grammatical errors.
Incorporate emojis for added flair 😊.

#3 Final Work List:

1. Write a summary with 1 sentence of this article.

2. Count words if it has more than 300 words

3. Read the content below, and summarize it for a LinkedIn post. Here are key things you need to cover in the summary

Let readers know this is one of a series of post
Attract people to read the whole article instead of showing everything here
Use emoji

4. Now, rewrite for a Twitter post, limited to 140 characters

Developing the Process 🛠️🧠

The aim was to craft a cohesive series of 30 interconnected articles. After laying the foundation for the entire series, individual articles flowed more effortlessly.

During the brainstorming phase, AI proved invaluable as a soundboard. While everyone has unique perspectives and insights, the challenge lies in articulating them. Engaging with AI, I could jot down initial, unpolished thoughts and refine them through iterative interactions. AI’s feedback, along with my own reflections 🔀, culminated in the creation of a 12-item content checklist. Some may seem basic, like “Stay Focused,” but they have been pivotal in guiding my writing.

The modified worklist ensures that AI enhances my work both grammatically and aesthetically. AI’s knack for emojis is particularly impressive! And, since AI has access to the entire content, it’s only logical to get it to craft succinct summaries for various platforms.

The Challenges 🚧❌

My aspirations for AI were ambitious:

Recollect all 30 article titles.
Retain content across the 30 articles for cross-referencing.
Remember our entire interaction history.

Alas, AI couldn’t retain specific details across sessions.

For instance, when I prompted AI to reintegrate an article into the list of 30, the response was entirely off the mark. 🙄

I hoped AI could guide me on where to insert specific pieces of content, but it would often just display it. 🤷

I wanted the list but AI gave me the content

I ended up archiving the 30 articles and the checklists on my Notion workspace for easy reference. Even though the process wasn’t as automated as I had envisioned, AI was undeniably instrumental in enhancing my writing. However, a significant drawback is that my conversational eloquence 🤪 has waned because of excessive reliance on AI. This is an area I aim to work on.

Your Turn! 🌟👩‍💻👨‍💻

Do you leverage AI in your writing? I’d love to hear your experiences, feedback, and techniques.

Update 🙌 Writing with GPTs

See my another article: Harnessing GPTs for Enhanced Writing: A Personal Journey in AI Collaboration

🤩 I’m happy to hear how you do data or products. Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn Karen Hsieh or Twitter @ijac_wei.

🙋🙋‍♀️ Welcome to Ask Me Anything.