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Day 5 of 2022: Writing Tools

Using The Writing Tool 


The reason I set myself the challenge of writing something every day for 2022, was to try to improve my writing. I remember watching an online meetup where a person discussed writing. This person suggested using tools to help to turn that turgid prose into a sharp and sparkly read. One such tool suggested was the Hemingway app, which I am currently using to write this with. The other tip was when writing was to write and ignore all the spelling mistakes and broken grammar. So write first and then go back and edit. Unlike many people, it seems I actually like to edit so the last tip for me was the revelation of sorts.

I am still out on the tool. The Hemmingway App is ruthless, it really pairs down on sentences. It does get you to try and kill off adverbs. A lot of writers see them as evil and I am inclined to agree. I am very prone to writing a lot of long sentences because my grammar is so bad it caused at least one of my high school English teachers red pen to run out of ink. The other thing is this tool takes the sum total of Hemmingway books, so everything will sound like Hemmingay ( Which I hasten to add I have never read, I should change that for this year's reading challenge).

I ponder sometimes if using this tool will make my writing sound and look it's taken out of the box and is not mine. As an experiment, I have left one of the paragraphs in this blog untouched by the Hemmingway App. Can you guess which one? You have a one in three chance! I will continue to use the tool as it does help with the editing. Even if I still like the odd waffle-head spitting sentence.

Stay Safe and Well.

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