Category / writing

by Nathan Coumbe

Why I still write a blog in the age of AI

Blogs are dead. They were at peak relevance about 15 years ago.

Then, algorithmically-driven social media platforms ruined them by providing perfectly curated, mind-numbing entertainment any time you need it.

Now we’re living through another significant moment for tech innovation and the internet.

When AI can write everything for us, why bother writing in a medium that hasn’t been relevant in more than a decade?

Because I refuse to offload my thinking to artificial intelligence.

I use AI every day to help me with work, complete minor tasks, and even sharpen my thinking. But I will not let it think for me.

So I write this blog. It’s not because I have a huge audience. There are only about 300 subscribers, and of those, only a third of you read it regularly.

So it’s definitely not because I’m reaching millions of people or making my living writing here. It’s because I need to do it for my own mental acuity.

It helps me crystallize ideas, expose gaps in my knowledge and logic. It makes me assert, which means I have to consider counterarguments and be okay with potentially being wrong.

So I continue to write. According to my WordPress dashboard, this is my 500th published blog post. That feels like a pretty significant milestone.

And if you’re reading this—thank you. From the bottom of my heart, I am truly grateful.

by Nathan Coumbe

The em dash exists for a reason

And I’ll be damned if I stop using them now. I’ve been using em dashes since I started writing—because they work.

They do things that other parenthetical devices like commas or parentheses don’t do.

They add force to your arguments. They separate potentially unrelated but still relevant or useful thoughts—have you ever noticed this?—from the point you’re making.

And for those of you who say that there’s no way to recreate them on a computer keyboard…

Shift + Option + – (for Mac users) gives you —.

Here are 11 of them: — — — — — — — — — — —

Also, there are two other types of dashes.

– (press only the dash key) is a hyphen most often used to separate compound words.

– (made by pressing Option + – on a Mac) is called an en dash and can be used to separate things like dates (April 20–23).1

And then you have the glorious em dash.

Why do they show up so often in AI writing? It’s simple: most of the best writers in history made (and still make) liberal use of it—because it works! And because AI has imbibed all the writing ever written, it also uses it quite often.

Does AI use them too much? Absolutely.

Does that mean we should stop using them? Absolutely not.

So what’s the solution? You get really damn good at writing.

Develop a style of your own, a voice, a way of writing that sounds like you—and only you. So when people read your writing, they know that you did it, not an AI.

And you’ll be able to use fifty em dashes in a single piece if you wanted to, and no one would care because they would know, simply because of your personal style, that you were generous enough to take time out of your day to share something worth reading.

If you write well—and like yourself—you’ll be fine.

(Ann Handley actually beat me to this a long while back. But I was so incensed by no less than 7 posts about this yesterday that I had to say something.)

  1. Unfortunately, there is a feature in WordPress’s code that prevents the three different dashes from rendering properly. I didn’t realize this until after I publish. So if you’re reading this on my site instead of in email, you won’t be able to see the difference between them.

    You can test this for yourself: pull up a blank document somewhere on your computer and try all three keystroke combinations.

    Also, this is a great reason to subscribe to my email newsletter, so you’ll see it rendered the way it’s supposed to. ↩︎
by Nathan Coumbe

The brilliant thinker

The brilliant thinker you love and admire, the one whose words you read and ideas you consume without hesitation?

She doesn’t write because she’s brilliant.

She’s brilliant because she writes.

Writing is thinking, the maxim goes. Or as Leslie Lamport said:

“If you’re thinking without writing, you only think you’re thinking.“

Writing comes before brilliant insights, not after. It’s the method by which we obtain them.

If you want to have more, and better, ideas, spend a little time writing each and every day.

by Nathan Coumbe

Deliberate practice and writing

Deliberate practice is essential for developing thinking and writing skills.

But how do you do that when it seems like such a nebulous skill to develop?

You practice by extracting the gist of an idea and writing it down in your own words. Then do it again tomorrow.

Now you’re a writer.

by Nathan Coumbe

Atomic writing

Atomic Habits by James Clear consistently tops every bestseller list.

And for good reason: if you follow the ideas, you’ll improve your habits. Improve your habits, and you improve your days. Improve your days, and you improve your life.

What’s the saying? “Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”

Emerson definitely said it better than I. But it means the same thing: your daily habits lead to your lasting legacy.

Which brings me to an idea I presented to someone the other day.

A friend told me he wanted to write. And he’d considered going the “Stephen King” route, writing 2,000 words a day, but he seemed daunted by that prospect.

I agreed. That’s a lot to commit to at the beginning. So I suggested he go the Atomic Habits route instead.

What’s the smallest version of that habit he could reasonably commit to?

My idea: write one sentence every day. Then don’t break the streak.

I find it hard to believe that anyone reading this can’t come up with at least one original thought every day.

It doesn’t have to be brilliant. In fact, I guarantee that 50% of your ideas will be “below average.” But so what? Half my blog posts are below average—that’s the definition!

It doesn’t have to be brilliant—it just has to exist! Do that for 30 days, and the 31st sentence will be infinitely better than the 1st one.

A writer writes. So be a writer and start writing!

by Nathan Coumbe

Writing changes how we speak

I sent my mom a hilarious video the other day. One portion contained tons of Gen Z slang she didn’t understand. 

Now, me being a millennial, I knew what it all meant (even though I don’t use it myself). She asked me to translate, so I did. 

Now, as hysterical as this scenario sounds, it actually brought up a good point. 

Members of Gen Z speak the way they text rather than texting the way they speak (which is what us “old folks” do).

Nearly everything said is a shorthand for something else… because it’s faster to type the slang or shorthand than it is to write out the word or sentence. 

Now, even though my generation had AIM (that’s AOL Instant Messenger for you youngsters), Napster, MySpace, and the like, we never adopted shorthand as a way of speaking in person. I would argue that’s because only a small portion of our communication happened in shorthand using this technology. 

We spent most of our time hanging out in real life, talking on the phone, chatting in class (and being punished for it). In short, most of our communication was through spoken, rather than written, word.

But since Gen Z was the first generation to grow up with the ubiquity of cell phones and social media (rather than having it introduced later in life like it was for Millennials), it’s completely changed the way they communicate. 

A huge majority of their time is spent “writing” in the since that they are using written communication in some form. 

Texting. Messaging. Making Reels and TikToks. Creating snippets of text on SnapChat.

Which brings me back to the original point of this post. 

Language changes as writing changes, so writing changes how we speak. 

It’s a fact of history: our vocabularies expanded exponentially because we started writing things down. And the more we wrote down, the more clarity we were able (and needed) to create about what we were trying to say.

So when you spend all day writing as your main form of communication, the spoken language changes to reflect your writing.

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by Nathan Coumbe

What do I need to hear today?

You may have noticed by now, but…

Many of my blog posts probably seem like they’re written for me. 

That’s by design—this blog, more than anything, is a way to get my thoughts out of my head and into the world. And often, these thoughts are ones I wish someone had told me years ago. Or perhaps reminders of what’s important. Or what I need to pay attention to.

This isn’t uncommon. One of the greatest books of philosophy was never meant for publication. 

It was a journal that Marcus Aurelius wrote in every day to remind himself how to live. To practice what he was learning. To gird himself against the trials and tribulations of his time (and there were many). That book became Meditations.

St. Augustine also had a journal that became a book of wisdom. As did Ralph Waldo Emerson. Their musings became widespread, even though that wasn’t the goal. 

So maybe you should start a daily blog. Or a daily YouTube video. 

Not because you’ll get famous. Or because you’ll make a lot of money. (You probably won’t do either.) 

Do it to stretch that muscle of putting your ideas into the world. And maybe also to tell yourself what you need to hear.

Who knows? Maybe someone else will benefit from it too.

by Nathan Coumbe

It’s hard to write when…

…you don’t have any way to write!

I apologize to all my loyal readers for my absence these last few days—my computer was being repaired, and I found it impossible to blog using my phone.

Sometimes, you really just can’t follow through with your commitments. But rest assured, the blog posts are beginning again.

As always, thanks for reading! You’ll hear from me tomorrow.

by Nathan Coumbe

Blog in community (and grow your blog fast)

One of the most helpful things I’ve learned as a blogger came to me from David Meerman Scott. There are two parts, and the first is this:

Before you start your own blog, follow other blogs and bloggers and engage with the ones that matter to you.

I’ve been an avid blog consumer for years, reading from great thinkers and companies like Seth Godin, Michael Hyatt, HubSpot, and Mr. Scott himself of course. They’ve shaped my own thinking and helped me figure out my path forward as a marketer.

This first step lets you figure out how you can contribute to the discussions and the questions being asked on the internet. This is a great starting point for creating your own content.

But the second part of what David taught me was the most profound: engage with their content, leave comments, start discussions. And when you do that, include a link to your own blog.

We often forget the “engagement” step. Don’t just consume—engage! And almost no one links back to themselves for follow-up.

Bloggers like to support other bloggers. They like to talk, discuss, disagree in a civil manner, and try to make the world a better place. By engaging with their content and leaving behind a link as a calling card, you’re encouraging this type of civil discourse.

Now, if you don’t yet have your own blog, you can do the same thing by linking to your LinkedIn profile. Or better yet (since people won’t be able to see your whole profile or its content without connecting), create a free, public about.me page to leave behind.

Think of it as your digital business card, a way for people to learn who you are and follow up with you if they’re so inclined.

Try it the next time you comment on someone’s blog or social media post. I guarantee people will want to hear what you have to say. And they might follow up as well.

(If you want to learn more about David Meerman Scott’s blogging strategies, check out his book The New Rules of Marketing & PR (7th Edition) wherever books are sold.)

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by Nathan Coumbe

Should You Get Paid Every Time You Send an Email?

Wouldn’t it be great if you got paid every time you sent an email? I dunno about you, but I’d love to live in that world. 

I send hundreds each week. If I earned the price of a postage stamp on each one, I could make a pretty easy living.

Am I Devaluing Myself?

I’m an up-and-coming copywriter. To make a living, I spend several hours each week reaching out to potential clients, offering them my services as a writer and marketer. I do this because I’m a salesperson. And if you’re trying to make a living in a similar way, so are you. 

I recently came across a Twitter post telling me that I was devaluing my work by selling myself. To sum it up, the writer said I should either:

  1. Have clients beating a path to my door willing to pay me, OR 
  2. I should get paid every time I send an email, proposal, or pitch to a potential client before any work is done. 

I understand the author’s point. My time is valuable, and it stinks when I feel I’ve “wasted” my time pitching to someone who doesn’t buy. But I 100% disagree.

Sales Professionals Don’t Get Paid to Prospect

How do professional salespeople get paid? They sell a product and get paid a commission. They don’t get paid when they prospect or send proposals to customers. The only way they make money is by closing a sale. 

I sell a service, and I only get paid if I provide that service. And that service is not pitching ideas. If it was, I’d be a billionaire right now because I have a few thousand ideas each day, and most of them are awful.

Selling Your Service Is Like Applying for a Job

Each time I pitch a client, I’m putting in a job application. Think about all the jobs you’ve applied for in your adult life. What if you got paid for every job application you ever completed? Wouldn’t that make for an awesome career?

Often we don’t have a lot of experience for the jobs we are applying for, especially if we are new to the workforce or a field. When asked what a beginner should do, the Tweeter said, “get paid to pitch.”

We’ve all gotten those phone calls from sleazy salespeople. Does this sound familiar?

“I’ve got this great new system that will keep you from paying any taxes this year. But I can only tell you what it is if you sign a non-disclosure agreement and pay me $2,000 upfront.”

You know you’re losing money and going to jail if you get in bed with that guy. You don’t want to have anything to do with an idea you can only hear after signing an NDA and paying upfront.

How to ACTUALLY Get Paid to Pitch 

There are two parts to this tactic:

  1. Charge higher prices to compensate for the inevitable rejections you’ll get.
  2. Overdeliver to your clients and customers so it’s worth paying you higher prices!

One of my favorite phrases comes from the marketing genius Seth Godin:

“You’ll pay a lot, but you’ll get more than you paid for.”

That is the only way this guy’s Tweet works. 

Selling Is Tough

I get it. Creating proposals, pitching to customers, and facing possible rejection—it really stinks. It takes a lot of time and hard work. It’s frustrating. 

But let me be clear: THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANYONE OWES YOU ANYTHING!

The world doesn’t work that way. We are all in sales, and much of that involves reaching out to others. It means facing the very real possibility of rejection coupled with no monetary gain. 

So go ahead and pitch. And if you want to get paid for that, build the cost into your pricing structure. 

But make sure you overdeliver on that promise to your customer. 

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