A Brave Writer's Life in Brief

In a world of AI, your original voice is even more powerful than ever. The handwritten card becomes a keepsake, the thoughtful letter or email that identifies details only you know, matters more than ever. Never underestimate the power of your own voice! Even if it is less perfectly spelled or even articulated—it comes from a living source: YOU.

Ever since someone mentioned the idea that artificial intelligence could write on our behalf, the world has gone bonkers trying to decide if that’s a good thing or a horrible no good very bad thing.

Understandably, writers are nervous. So are teachers.

OTOH…

Students who hate writing are THRILLED!
Marketers and entrepreneurs are LOVING IT!

Is writing over?

It’s not. But this new technology is here to stay and it has some powerful uses. Think of it a bit like a calculator or Adobe In Design. It’s a tool that has the capacity to launch more writing, more prolifically. But to use it well, one actually does need to know a thing of two about writing.

AND—writing from scratch still has supreme value. The trick is: the person who writes has to value writing. That’s where Brave Writer excels. From the beginning, I’ve been obsessed with kids learning to write because their words matter and they get to express them so that an interested audience (you) values them.

The reason students are turning to ChatGPT in droves is that they haven’t yet had the experience of their own writing voices mattering. They write for teachers and grades. They don’t write to self express or know their own thinking or to explore an idea.

In Brave Writer, that’s what we do every single day—demonstrate how valuable a child’s inner life and thought world actually is. ChatGPT can never replace the thoughts YOU have about a topic. But if you don’t think your thoughts are good, why work so hard to think and write them?

Do you have teens? Kirsten and Jen did a massively powerful webinar on this topic, particularly for high schoolers. Check it out!

When the way things are is too costly to your well-being than the way things could be if you blew up your life to expand your choices, you’ll change course.

Big choices feel big because they are. They alter how you see yourself.

• Putting your kids in school or pulling them out.
• Staying married or getting a divorce.
• Going to grad school or putting it off.
• Doing chemo or stopping it.
• Moving away from your family or moving back to be near them.
• Staying in your religious faith or leaving it.
• Exploring a new perspective or doubling down on the one you have.
• Having another baby or stopping.
• Working outside the home or being a SAHM.
• Giving up an addiction…

You’ll know when you know.

You deserve to lead a life that gives you hope.

You deserve as good a life as the one you want for your children.

One question that helped me was: “If I were to counsel one of my kids about this issue once they’re an adult, how would I lean?”

One idea that helped me: “You get to keep making choices. This isn’t the last one you’ll ever make.”

Keep going. Rooting for you.

No one changes course until the tipping point. It’s okay if the tipping point hasn’t yet tipped. Be patient. You’ll know when you know. You’ll move in the direction of your hope and release at the right time for you.

This post is originally from Instagram and @juliebravewriter is my account
so come follow along for more conversations like this one!