AI be damned.

I want to tell you about something that's been bothering me... AI is causing me to be someone I'm not.

A long time ago, I noticed that I tend to conjoin ideas and sentences using the word "and" quite a lot. I know, I know, run-on sentences and all that. So I very intentionally started using what's often called the long dash, or the em dash. That became my style of writing. I write and talk with a lot of em dashes and a lot of exclamation points!

Well, guess what? AI also uses a lot of em dashes. 😳

So now, because I do my own writing and I want to make sure people know it's authentically mine, I've had to stop using my em dashes. Do you understand how messed up that is? Someone who edits my work strongly advised me to avoid the em dash because it makes me look inauthentic, as if I've used AI.

Writing has gotten harder and harder for me because I'm less myself while creating this workaround because of the technology and how it reflects on me.

When I was writing my book, I probably overdid it with the em dash. So much so that my editor did a universal delete and then went back through to fix things manually because she thought all those dashes were too jarring. Turning an em dash into a comma is perfectly acceptable and grammatically correct, so that became our solution.

But when I was recording the audiobook, I realized those changes made some sentences incredibly difficult to read out loud. In a sense, I gave up my power by allowing all of my beautiful em dashes to be deleted.

This is probably way more than you wanted to know about the em dash, but I think about it a lot because it has caused me to feel inauthentic and misunderstood. I had a friend ask, "Have you thought about using an editor on your next book?" when the issue was never about needing an editor but about being asked not to be myself.

I have quite a negative reaction when asked not to be me.

So here's what I'm thinking. I might just say "I don't care" and let my em dash fly. AI be damned.

Because giving up your power to be yourself, even in small ways, adds up.