I use Google Docs for all of my writing. In my opinion, it is the best word processor out there right now. We can debate about how Google might be peeking on what I have written down and using it to develop their new AI and so on. They may well be doing that. But it is the best, most user friendly word processor I have worked with. Or maybe I’ve just been brainwashed with brand loyalty.
No matter what, I like Google Docs because I can auto save to the cloud and log into my account on another device and have my dozens and dozens of my documents right there. I love the ease of their comment feature so I can document my thoughts on a specific word, line or section that I wrote for future reference with no fear that I will miss it, but also not fear that leaving a comment will make my work feel cluttered and crowded. It’s well designed. I like that adding links, editing, sharing and organization are easy. I even like that grammar and spell check are user friendly and seem to almost always get it right. There are lots of great word processors out there I imagine. I haven’t used any but Google Docs in a few years and the reason is because I love it.
As a wannabe writer, there is one thing about the word processor I use that I don’t like. It’s going to sound extremely trivial, but to me, it’s a big deal. It’s also a little in the weeds. I apologize if this becomes hard to follow for a minute, but honestly that’s kind of my style. Spell and grammar check are wonderful. They have saved me from publishing typos and other errors many times. A red line appears under a word if I spell it wrong, and a blue line appears under a word or phrase if it isn’t grammatically correct. I love this feature. What bothers me about it is that when I move my cursor over a word or phrase I have somehow gotten wrong, suggestions pop up giving me what the computer determines to be correct spelling or grammar, and if I simply click on that suggestion, what I typed will disappear and be replaced with what Google deems as correct. Convenient, right? It saves me two or three seconds that I would have otherwise spent correcting my mistakes.
It is such a petty thing, but I have a real problem with clicking on the suggested edit and letting the computer system make it for me. I always exit out of the suggestion, delete my own mistake and type in the correction on my own. It takes only a moment longer, but the entire work feels like my own if I do it that way. I cannot fully articulate my reasoning for this (though that’s what I’m trying to do), but I believe that if I started autofulling in suggestions from Google Docs, that it wouldn’t fully be my own work. Perhaps there’s a romantic part of me that still thinks I’m some sort of artist, but autocorrect feels like cheating when creating something more than a text message.
I truly believe that there is a part of each of us that wants to work. It’s part of being human, the need to look at a finished product and know that I did that. Hell, it’s said that even in heaven we are going to have jobs to do. I’m pretty sure I’m not making that up and that it’s in the Bible somewhere, probably Revelation. And something about letting something I don’t fully understand correct my work makes me feel as if the work isn’t fully mine. Accepting electronic help on something like what I’m writing now and sharing with you feels like I am coauthoring something I never intended to ask for help with, and simply typing the spelling corrections out myself makes it feel somehow more honest.
I have spoken to multiple people, some of whom enjoy writing like I do, and some who only use their computer to check personal emails from time to time, who have shared the same feeling that they don’t like to let their computer correct their mistakes. I think the reasoning is simple. People like to feel like the thing they’re working on is their own. It isn’t a stubborn refusal of help, but rather an acknowledgement that it will feel better to complete a task on your own. And of course, I would be embarrassed if I published a book but had to admit that somebody else wrote a percentage of it for me. I take great pride in the ideas I write about being my own originally formed ideas, and in the writing and editing I do being work that I sat down and put the hours in on so that I can at least look at something I finish and know that I did something. Something good, perhaps, and at least something I did.
We are designed to feel good about things we work hard on. Completing things moves lives along, opens new doors. There is something that feels a little wrong about accepting help from a computer on the work I take lots of pride in. I appreciate the suggestions but would rather complete the tasks myself, thank you, because I want to know that what I did is something that I did. The finished product is a little sweeter when I can honestly say that every last detail was created, checked and revised by me and me alone.
Yes! Pride in finished work is elemental to any creative, or even non-creative! I even like to finish small mundane tasks myself. While I appreciate the small helping hand, then it was not all my job...or story.