GRAMMARLY. That is All.

 Apparently, I suck at writing. I say that because I downloaded Grammarly and used it to edit my book "Of Kilted Pleasure," and let me just say I made more mistakes than Carter has little pills. NOT joking. (and yes, Grammarly just told me that I wrote a fragmented sentence.) I am the worst about writing as I speak, and you can't always do that when you publish a novel.  I mean, you can, but you probably shouldn't. 

    First, I was pretty sure I had done a really good job at my personal editing. Then my friend in Greece went through only about 100 pages and was coming up with so many errors on my part that I thought I had to try Grammarly. I have used it for emails and Facebook, but I bit the bullet and I paid the $30 monthly fee to use it for ONE month. When I write the next book, I'll do the monthly service, where I pay for a year for a reduced price each month. I think it's $12.99 or something like that when you pay for it all at once. I'll do it. I will DO IT, PEOPLE!  It is so worth it.

    Not even going to laugh about it. I was so far from being a good writer that I decided to ask myself what the hell I'm doing every day on this keyboard. Well, turns out I'm writing!  I actually do write the blog as if I'm talking to you, so I'll use colloquial terms, and I'll shorten sentences too. I'll throw in some trash if I need to in order to make my point. I can't even say "in order to" with Grammarly. It stops me and says it's too wordy; it wants me to say "to" instead.  FINE!  You should have seen the errors it was throwing at me when I wrote the spoken dialogue in Scots! LOL...that was funny.

    Well, as it turns out, I am not a poor writer, just a poorly disciplined writer. I had 84% of the mechanical structure, which was good, and the average is 68%, so I don't feel too bad about that. My comma usage was hovering at 68-70%, so I could work on that for sure. My tendency to use words I don't need to is WAY up there; I don't even want to talk about it.  I have an old-school (1800-1900) way of writing, and the darn thing wants me to step up my game and use more modern words. I was using gender-based words, offensive and defensive words, and words that could be considered non-inclusive. A few of the words just made me laugh.  Grammarly wanted me to use another word other than "battle" because the word was combative....you think!  It wanted me to use "competition" instead. I'm thinking the Battle of Culloden was, in fact, a real and actual battle. It wasn't a competition.  Another one that made me giggle was the phrase "old woman."  Grammarly said that it would be considered disrespectful.  The woman I was speaking of was in her 90s. She's OLD.  I kept the words and added "elderly" and "grandmotherly" a couple of times.

    The bottom line is, I was so very lost without it, and I'm swimming in the best pool out there with Grammarly. You need it. Get it. Use. It. So worth it. I'm only speaking in fragmented sentences now to make Grammarly work for the $30 I put out for it.  (Psst, Grammarly doesn't like it when I say "boo bear". It's never heard of one.)

LOL....it doesn't like LOL either.

Photo Credit: Grammarly.com