AI, a year in

AI made me a worse writer before it made me better. I leaned on it, my sentences flattened, and a real editor told me. Six weeks of writing by hand to get the ear back. The tool stays; the crutch is gone.

I'm not claiming this is true for everyone. It's true for me, and the version I'd tell a friend is shorter than the marketing version.

The pushback I get is always the same, and it's usually right at the edges, not the center. The center holds: the boring practice beats the clever one most days.

If you take one thing from this, let it be the unglamorous part. The flashy bit is what gets demos; the plain bit is what gets used.