Dear Writer — Why I hate grammarly and 3 Tools I Use as a Professional Writer
I just turned off grammarly because it’s a distraction from writing. It feeds into this idea that every sentence needs to be grammatically PERFECT. I understand that as a beginner writer you might find it useful, but overall, if you are going to be putting down a personal narrative, grammarly takes away from it without adding anything of value.
Useful writing tools besides grammarly:
Hemingway app: https://hemingwayapp.com/
Helps you view your writing from a different perspective. As a beginner writer, you might find yourself using run on sentences and passive voice. Heminway helps you see them and most of time the suggestions are useful.
Google Docs
For sorting out ideas and for those first drafts. I love that in docs you can create multiple tabs now. Makes it easier to sort ideas into multiple types or by month.
Though if you are writing on medium, I suggest getting started on the medium’s native editor. Your goal is to reduce friction and starting right here makes it easier to hit publish.
Chatgpt
Chatgpt has been the best thing ever not because it writes for you, but because it helps you overcome the resistence between your idea and the output. I have been using it to brainstorm ideas, come up with different angles for my other professional content and also summarise new concepts when writing about something new and unknown. Use it, embrace it and learn to utilise the tool.
That’s it for today. See you tomorrow.
Disclaimer: This draft was minimally edited because my goal for 2025 is to hit publish more often than not.
