The Urge to Fix the Weird Parts

What this episode is about

AI has become the most rigid, literal editor in the world—determined to stamp out your unique writing messiness every time you color outside the literary lines. But some of your real voice lives in the roughness. This episode is about why the weird, unpolished parts of your writing might be the most valuable parts, and what happens when you let AI sand them off.

In this episode

Emily Dickinson's fight with her editor Thomas Wentworth Higginson over her "weird" punctuation and rhythm—and why AI is now playing the same role. Why the sentence that sounds "better" can be the wrong sentence if it no longer sounds like you. What I learned writing my own memoir, The Power of the Curve, about sharing the messy vulnerable stuff—and how my mess became a reader's miracle. The micro-decisions that happen in the friction between your rough draft and AI's polished output, and why those micro-decisions ARE your voice.

HumanPrint homework

Write something messy and YOU on purpose—the kind of messy that makes you nervous. Ask AI to polish it but NOT to make it into something that's not you. Share it with the world or just one person. See how it feels.

Three questions inspired by Emily Dickinson: What would a rigid editor "reject" about your natural writing voice? What's valuable about knowing that? And how can you push back?