Why I stopped trying to prompt my way to good writing

I spent months trying to find the perfect prompt that would make an AI model write like me. I never found it, because the thing I was asking for doesn't exist — "like me" isn't a style, it's thousands of small decisions made under specific pressure, deadline, and mood.

What actually works now: I write the ugly first draft myself, badly and fast, then let AI clean up the parts that are purely mechanical — grammar, redundant phrases, a stuck transition. The voice stays mine because I'm the one who put it there in the first place.

Prompting for style was always the wrong target. Prompting for cleanup was the right one.

Part of the deeper dive: The Practical Guide to Using AI Tools Without Getting Burned.