How I created a dictation robot that helps me create a first draft of a blog post.

Right now, I'm dictating in a car, wearing my AirPods Pro 2, and just talking into iPhone Voice Memos. 

The car is a great place for me to make blog posts, especially since I spend a lot of time on the road. I tend to just want to bang a blog post out and if I feel I don't have time for it, I wont do it. When I'm writing I struggle at that ominous blank page, but if I'm physically talking about a subject, I can just ramble on and spend as much time as I need talking about it. 

It might not all be good, but the goal is to just talk it out. From here, I've created a pipeline in N8N that takes my raw dictation to a first draft + extras.

The Transcription Pipeline

Once I'm done rambling, I open the iOS share sheet. I've created an Apple shortcut that hits a webhook on my server, which triggers an n8n workflow. 

That workflow sends the audio to a local Whisper Docker container to transcribe the voice memo. I'm wondering how well Whisper will be able to deal with the car noise, but as evidenced from this blog post it works fine.

Generating the Outline

From the Whisper service, the raw transcription goes straight into an outlining AI agent. Right now I'm using Gemini 3.8 Flash.

I pass the transcription directly to it and tell it: create an outline from what I talked about, organize it, and give me a good hook right up at the beginning. I want to make sure my best hook leads the outline.

Drafting the Post

From there, I pass the outline and the raw transcription to another agent. Again Gemini Flash 3.8.

I tell it: organize my thoughts, use this outline, do not change my words, but make this into a readable blog post. Clean up the rambling, but keep what I said intact.

And it does just that. It gives me a workable first draft without changing my voice.

The AI Critique Agent

Then, lastly, it passes the draft into a fresh agent that critiques me. 

The critique agent tells me what sounds bad in the blog post and what I should work on. I have it check for a few specific things:

• It makes sure the post actually makes sense.
• It double checks to make sure nothing sounds like AI.
• It checks that there are no em dashes or whatever weird phrasing AI likes to use.

Just having someone to check me and make sure things are working is very helpful to help me be the best writer I can. 

Output and Final Polish in Obsidian

Finally, the n8n workflow creates a note in my Obsidian folder. 

That note lands with everything in one place: the outline, the first draft, and the critique. 

It will always require 10 to 15 minutes of me actually working on that draft to correct things and make sure everything looks good. 

Instead of being stuck at a blank page, or making excuses that I don't have time to write - I painlessly have a complete first draft waiting for me when I'm ready to write. I'd be happy to share my N8N workflow, my prompts, or anything for that matter! Just hit me up on bluesky.