04
§ work & creativity
Grammar Bot
The other day my good friend Neville Chamberlain wrote a blog post about how checklists help him get stuff done without (too) many errors. He also has taken on the 100-day writing challenge, so it was interesting to get a glimpse into his process and what’s working/not working for him. As mentioned above, one of the ways he manages his process is through a checklist—for the record, Neville is a big geek. His checklist is grand and perfect and considers everything, ensuring an excellent bit of writing and posting every time.
Checklists are good, but not really my thing for this project.
I’m not that meticulous about my writing, but I did glean something noteworthy I could use from his article. Neville talks about struggles with grammar and punctuation; this has always been a challenge for me. My passing interest in commas and apostrophes is the stuff of legend and has caused more than a few gray hairs in readers and Editors alike.Part of the 100 Day Project is to help me rediscover and hone the unique voice in my writing and become a better writer. So it made sense to hire an Editor. It made sense, that is until I thought about it a minute longer. How would I factor in the time and expense of someone reading, correcting, and suggesting edits every day for the next 75+ days? This great idea suddenly became too unwieldy and impractical. What to do?
Enter my new favourite robot, Grammarly.
Grammarly is an AI-powered Robot Editor hell-bent on making your words infinitely more readable and engaging, for lack of a better description. After checking out the free version, I decided to buy a year-long membership to really let this ROBO-EDITOR rip. My pacing, style, and tone are essential; equally essential is that my abuse and misuse of the same don’t become a distraction. There is a fine line.My process is now this: Write directly from my heart (careful to bypass the brain and all that entails) with all the typos and grammatical flotsam and jetsam that typically accompany my writing before bringing it into Grammarly. I like to make a mess when I create things and then tidy up. Depending on the length of the piece and the passion I wrote with, the Grammarly step takes about 5 minutes.
Anyway, I’m not here to pump the tires for Grammarly; they’re doing just fine on their own but feel the need to let everyone reading this know there is help for the hopeless. However, I am curious if you have noticed a difference in the flow of the last few articles and if you see improvement or the opposite. Has the robot gone too far or just far enough?
COMMENTS FROM ASTUTE READERS
"Sorry. Or maybe congratulations, Michael! I'm finding no change. I'm a grammar and punctuation fanatic. And I can't say as I've picked up any gross errors in either, grammar or punctuation in any of your 100 Day Challenge blog posts. Except, of course, for the words you make up -- which I'm totally fine with, they're part of your style." — Yvonne