Is Ai ruining my unique writing style? A dyslexic lifeline or red-flag?

My blog is a way of allowing glimpses into my world. A way for you to get to know the person behind the art. The thoughts and ideas. The human who lives as you do, but instead chooses to paint as a means to understanding and expressing that experience.

I must admit I have been a bit lazy and relying too much on chat GPT to add flow, flare and sort my punctuation out. It meant I could get a lot of posts written and out there, but I never really felt fully immersed within the process. I still took my time to write the thing but I knew it would be edited by Ai later, so I didn’t put the same level of thought and intention into it. Sure I still spent 1-2 hours writing it but then it was done. This time I’ve spent that time writing it but another two hours editing it . It’s dyslexic and errors but it’s mine. I hope I’ll find a way in which I wish to write these as time goes on.

What you may be surprised to discover is that I have written a few more blogs before. Over the years, long before this one. There have been a small handful of various blog and subject matters.

This was before Chat GPT, Ai and even social media or least in the vain social media is now.

Those blog posts felt a real achievement. I wouldn’t say I find writing that natural, in fact most of the time it is stressful. This stress however comes from comparing myself to amazing creative writers, where their words become art. Where as I just write.

The thing is I am dyslexic, my spelling is not too bad because I can visually remember them. I had to repeat constantly for years to remind myself that restaurant had AU in the middle, and for a long while I just couldn’t spell that word. There are many other words I am still working on memorising. Most of my spelling test was learned in the car journey to school. Most of my exams memorised three days before the exam, where as everyone else had been studying for months.

I could play the game of passing academically but never really grasped the concept or learnt the subject properly. I just knew how to pass.

The main hurdle for my dyslexia though is, as you may have figured out by now, the grammar! if I pause to gather my thoughts for writing, does this mean there is a comma or was that not a natural pause?

Relying too much on Ai has really taken the fun out of writing. So this is fully my own words. And yet Ai if we are to use it, should be for allowing us to manage the jobs we don’t have the time or energy for. So I experimented but the conclusion is I would rather be more involved in the process and just have a few less posts.

So those blogs if yesterday, where are they now, I hear you ask?

Well the first was on live journal called the psychotic skunk, all about my inner thoughts and how life stunk. It was before the days of internet safety as we know it, and those following my private account were five friends. It was more of a curated diary than a blog. Aw teenager me! If only my younger self had known that I was autistic and ADHD, perhaps I wouldn’t have overshared so much trying to figure it all out.

Then again isn’t oversharing just sharing, and it is just the reaction of someone saying “hey thats oversharing” that we are afraid of? When did that happen? Arnt we all going through the human experience and not all of those experiences are good? So why then, can’t we talk about it?

Anyway once again I digress, I do that a lot, but there wouldn’t be a word for it if others didn’t also struggle with switching (digressing) to other related subjects.

The next blog I can remember is one I actually got paid to write. It was during my third year of university, I didnt have the health nor energy to manage any jobs, part time or otherwise on top of the course. So I found this freelance blog writing from home gig through the university notice board. It was for a motoring company. Thinking I know nothing about cars and that my email would be rejected. Nonetheless I began to think of what sort of approach I could take.

In the end I wrote to them saying I knew nothing about cars but I would love to write about the cars within movies, the delorian , the mini in Italian job and so forth. And I called this blog “clutching onto reality” Which to this day I think is one of my more clever names I have come up with. It was one of those that just came to me, cars, clutches, films not reality and my own disillusionment with existence. It all fell into place. The pay wasn’t all that high even back in 2011. However it paid £7 per 1000 words, and as I can type at around 80-120wpm even with just using three fingers (have keyboard memorised rather than touch type ) I managed to write those blog posts in around two hours and over the course of 6 months, along with my essays I managed to be paid £160, nothing to “write” home about but it was money paid for by my writing. My dyslexic writing!

Next was more recent which I began in March 2017 following a nervous breakdown triggered by mixed early, evening and night shifts being a support worker to autistic adults with learning difficulties and challenging behaviour. It came after sports massage which I did for around 5 years, while thinking the art wouldn’t work, and I switched tk support worker due to needing a way to earn enough; not realising I was putting my health on the line, thinking I had recovered.

The blog was a way to highlight to others going through it, that they were not alone and to explore some of my existential ideas and philosophies.

So while none of them were creative writing in the broader sense as an art, they were still a way to get my thoughts on paper and express an idea, much like the paintings express an idea or feeling. While they never were thinking too greatly about who might see them, the paintings and blogs can still connect a community of like minded people.

So I hope going forward, while it will take me perhaps longer, that perhaps these blogs will begin to feel more like me and be like looking behind the curtain. Taking a glimpse into the artist and how they see life - although I hope my paintings tell that story! Even though I consider my wacky colourful paintings to be separate to me, there is obviously something within that makes them arrive in that way.

What are your thoughts on ai and it interfering with a way a creative produces their work (due to attention to embrace technology ) ?