Soul vs. Silicon
How to Write with ChatGPT and Not Lose Your Soul
A guide to staying human in the age of AI copy-pasting.
Introduction
One afternoon, staring at my shiny new TimeBack Workflows website full of neatly written copy, I realized I had lost my soul.
I should have seen it coming. With a few published short stories and a doctoral thesis behind me, I'd assumed writing my company's website copy would be easy. ChatGPT had already helped me build the visuals in Gimp from scratch, so of course I pasted my first paragraph of copy into it to "just see what it thought."
ChatGPT was nice (always so nice!) but blunt. Too verbose. Wrong tone. Not as clear as it could be. And reading its revision, I couldn't deny it: its version was better. So I pasted it over my own.
Then I did it again. And again. At some point, I started just writing the hook ("probably the most important thing," I told myself) and letting it produce the rest. And then it was a natural slide to just asking it, "What should go next?" for the entire paragraph.
The moment that stopped me cold was when I told myself, "I'll just remove these dashes. Dead giveaway of AI writing."
That's when it hit me. I wasn't writing anymore; I was just copying and pasting. The words weren't mine. I had lost my soul in this writing project.
Here's what I learned about taking it back.
Enter the AI
You may remember the South Park episode where Stan leans so heavily on ChatGPT to write romantic texts to his girlfriend, Wendy, that he ends up sending every message the AI writes without even reading them. It's a moral disaster even without the show's usual absurd fallout. Love letters are supposed to come from people, not AI prediction models.
But even setting morality aside, there's a creative cost. AI writing often feels same-ey: clean, competent, and strangely flat. It lacks surprise, humor, and the odd spark of imperfection that makes writing feel alive. It lacks soul.
Meanwhile, AI is creeping into nearly every space where words live: inboxes, documents, resumes, websites—everywhere we write. Apps and platforms practically beg us to let their pet AI "save us time" and "make writing easier."
And it is useful. AI catches structural slips, grammar mistakes, punctuation errors, and mismatched tone. So, do we have to throw all that away just to get our soul back?
I don't think so. We've used spell checkers and grammar tools for decades without moral panic. They were simply part of the craft. The same can be true for AI, whether it's ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude, as long as we stay in charge of the process.
Phase 1: Creating the Topic and Scope
The reoccurring theme of everything that follows is simple: stay in control of the creative direction before AI enters the picture.
If you're brainstorming a topic, feel free to chat with ChatGPT, but only after you've made your own list of ideas first. This is important.
There are hordes of people who want ChatGPT to do all the heavy lifting, to spit out ideas, drafts, and polish, all in one go. The more thought you put in before inviting AI to the table, the more your writing will sound like you, not like everyone else pressing the same button.
Start with your ideas, then let ChatGPT build on them. Because it's riffing on your input, the results stay personal. Even if you end up choosing one of its suggestions, the work remains a collaboration, not a delegation. You are the ideas person on the human-AI team.
Pro Tip: Never forget that if ChatGPT thinks it's heading in the right direction, it will happily drive straight into the weeds and keep its foot on the gas. Only you can tell it when it's time to steer back.
Phase 2: Writing the First Draft
The dreaded first draft. This is where your human brain has to do the job all by itself.
It helps to write somewhere the AI can't spy on what you're doing. I write in Obsidian, a note-taking app without AI. Creating your draft apart from the machine forces your creative energies to face the blank page alone, and that's exactly the point.
Write the first draft entirely by yourself. Yes, it will be terrible. First drafts are terrible. Once you've finished, you can invite the AI in—but only under strict terms.
Ask for structural feedback, not rewrites.
Copy and paste the full piece into ChatGPT.
Ask it to comment on organization, flow, or clarity.
At this stage, you're just testing the skeleton. If the AI suggests major changes, pull the piece back into your offline zone and make those moves yourself.
Phase 3: Writing Later Drafts
Most important rule: never paste AI rewrites.
Use the AI to diagnose, not to dictate. The moment you start copying and pasting its revisions, you're standing on the top of a very slick slope.
Here are the steps to handle your second and later drafts:
Human Pass First: Read through your piece on your own and fix clarity, order, and any obvious grammar or spelling issues. Reading aloud works wonders.
Chunk It: Work in small sections (300-500 words) to stay focused. Copy one section into ChatGPT.
Ask for a Plan, Not Prose: Tell the AI to outline how to revise the section for structure, flow, and tone, but not to rewrite it. You want coaching, not ghostwriting.
Section Revision: Go through the revisions and apply the ones that make sense. Because you're revising rather than pasting, your voice will sink deeper into the prose.
Manual Apply: Recreate the changes you agree with manually, paragraph by paragraph, word by word, keystroke by keystroke.
It might seem like extra work, but this is an important part of the learning process. Manual rewriting trains your writing instincts. Thinking through each revision will flex and build your writing muscles, making you a better writer.
Taking Back Your Soul
Yes, this takes longer. But it sets you apart from the hordes who simply let ChatGPT spit out whole writing pieces without a second thought.
The writing will be yours. It will sound like no one else's. And it will have a soul.
As we enter the new Age of AI, pause, check in, and reclaim your voice. AI makes writing easier than ever before, but we owe it to ourselves to ensure that we don't just produce words—we also retain our soul.
