What software do you use to write your books? Yes, that’s an engagement question you’ll see at least once per day if you follow enough large accounts. God, I hate social media engagement questions. Those will be an entire post all of their own. It is an interesting query, however, and it points to a ton of hypocrisy in the writing world.
Most will say they use software like Google Docs, and proudly proclaim their use of Grammarly as a helper. The funny part to all this is both of those tools are AI (artificial intelligence) powered behemoths. It’s only humorous because writers and authors will proclaim their hatred of anything AI and vow to unfollow anyone on social media who uses it. “Oh, but those aren’t actually writing it. They’re just tools.” Barf.
Even Microsoft Word has AI muddying up our world. So, what do I use?
I write with LibreOffice Write and LibreOffice Calc, Word and Excel doppelgängers, respectively. It’s free, and it runs on the big three operating systems: Linux, Microsoft, and Mac. It also has a poorly rendered, but functional, smartphone app called Callabora Office. I’d love to talk to the developers of that app and let them know some of my little annoyances… but… it’s free so I can’t really complain.
Yes, LibreOffice has a grammar checker. It may have AI somewhere in it. I don’t care, and I don’t publicly shame people who use AI while making lame excuses for my “tools”. I will avoid people who write an entire book for sale using AI as the book’s author, unless they admit it. I’d probably avoid them regardless, but I wouldn’t curse their existence.
Let me make this clear. If you use software from a huge company, you are using and feeding AI. Shut up about people who use it. Being holier-than-thou on social media while posting your Grammarly stats make you look like a moron.