Reclaiming My Voice

AI isn't perfect, and neither am I.

When people tell me to “engage my audience to build readership,” I always feel that little pinch of pressure. I’m one person, writing alone, trying to keep up with everything authors are supposed to do these days. So I thought: why not let AI help? Let’s be real — Grammarly, ProWritingAid, even Microsoft Word are all forms of AI. It seemed like a reasonable shortcut.

I turned on the AI tool in Wix and let it generate blog posts for me. At first, it felt efficient — clean, polished, consistent. But it didn’t take long to see the problem. AI didn’t sound like me. It sounded like an elevated, generic version of what it pieced together from the flawed databases of the Internet. Polished, yes. Efficient, sure. But not me.

And over time, I noticed something subtle but important: the connection I used to feel with readers wasn’t there. The posts didn’t carry my voice, and I suspect readers felt that too. The more “perfect” the posts became, the less they reflected the real person behind them.

So here’s my plan moving forward.

I’m taking my blog back — not from AI itself, but from the idea that everything I publish needs to sound flawless. I want to write genuine posts again, the kind that come from my lived experience rather than a machine’s best guess at who I’m supposed to be.

And yes, I’ll still use AI — just differently.My grammar, punctuation, and communication flow sometimes need a nudge, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. AI is great at smoothing the rough edges, but the voice, the ideas, the perspective… that’s on me. That’s the part only I can bring.

This space is going to be more personal, more honest, and more human. Imperfect, probably. But at least it will be mine.

The hardest part will be this: in the middle of writing, reading, gardening, fixing something around the house, I’ll get an idea — and if I don’t stop and write it down, it’s gone. To be honest, the idea I had just thirty minutes ago has already vanished. A reminder to myself… keep your journal at your side at all times.