Tag: voice

AI is Watering Down Your Voice

It’s been a minute since I’ve talked about publishing on this blog. Mostly, I was just tired of giving advice. Still am.

Most of the work is doing the thing. Failing at it. Succeeding at it, and failing again until you find your groove.

Buttttt… our latest viral sensations have brought me out of hiding.

Enter AI and Dr. Cheyenne Bryant

These seem like unrelated, separate topics, but stay with me.

Lately, I’ve been noticing tons of creators with social media captions that use the same “It’s not x, it’s y” ChatGPT cadence, including authors.

Why are people who write books using AI to write their social captions? Isn’t being creative like, our literal job?

The “it’s not x, it’s y” cadence sounds like: “It’s not just a meal, it’s an experience.”

The words are also structured a certain way, and it is noticeable for those who know what to look for.

For me, it’s mostly noticeable when someone drastically changes how they write. Since I’m a poet, I compare it to suddenly sounding like a poetic professor. You’ve once been an emperor of typos, and now the words flow neatly on top of one another.

The phrases are very well-written, too well-written for a person who has never written in such a way.

It seems to mimic how professional writers write, except now everyone is doing it.

Suddenly, everyone’s Insta captions and Facebook posts are grammatically correct, inspirational, and profoundly poetic.

It is also profoundly fake.

While it might read pretty, it waters down the writer’s authentic voice.

I’d be remiss not to mention that this is not everyone. There are some fantastic, extraordinary writers out there, and for the record, AI is mimicking the genius of the real brain.

The most tell-tale sign is whether I can sense your personality in your writing, or if instead you just sound like an English teacher when you are not one.

The twist in all of this is that typos will become the new normal. They will signal that the person who wrote the piece is a human who makes mistakes and uses their own mind.

You Sound Just Like Everybody Else

What should be most disturbing is that using chat to write will have you sounding like everyone else in the same way that all those AI flyers look the same.

These flyers are always way too cluttered. There is too much information on them, and they end up drawing attention away from the core message, which is drowned out by so many colors and images.

This leads me to question if people are even trying to make changes to the prompts, templates, or whatever they are using.

As a reminder, Canva still exists and has some great free and paid templates from real graphic artists. For my poetry contest, I hired someone on Fiverr to handle the initial design, then paid for the source file. The source file allows me to go in and edit it into as many versions as I want without paying for them. So far, I have turned two graphics into seven to promote my sponsors and judges. It was the best $20 I’d ever spent.

Ya’ll are watering down your voice and image.

I’ve also been seeing a ton of new self-published books with AI/ChatGPT-generated book covers. I cannot emphasize how strongly I recommend not doing this.

You are likely damaging your author brand and marketing strategy before they even begin.

And this isn’t just my opinion. It’s what readers are saying.

An arts digital marketer and historical fiction/romance author conducted a survey asking readers whether they were interested in reading books with AI-generated art.

84% of the people who took her survey said NO.

Additionally, I have been monitoring the bookish community on Threads, and many readers say they don’t trust books with AI-generated covers.

If your book cover is AI-generated, it’s hard not to wonder if your book was written by ChatGPT, Gemini, or any other artificial intelligence software.

It’s hard not to wonder if you’ve put the hard work in to write or if the computer has done the writing for you.

Consequently, even if you did write the book, it’s challenging for readers to see you as an authentic voice.

The book cover is your first impression. Lose readers there, and they are not reading your book.

Speaking of authenticity, enter Dr. Cheyenne Bryant, the woman currently under fire for the legitimacy of her doctorate and the location of her dissertation.

Dr. Bryant also just published a book that people are saying sounds like it was written by AI.

With twelve 1-2-star Amazon reviews, it is littered with claims of fraud stemming from her latest allegations that she is not a real therapist or psychologist.

More of this in part 2…

Mine

The way my “no” used to get scraped
off the plate
like it didn’t belong there.

I used to think saying no was dangerous.
That my voice
was optional.
That my boundaries
could be bent
by someone else’s appetite.

So I chewed and I swallowed
society’s thoughts of what I should be.
It lingered in the bite I didn’t want to take
but did anyway.

Because saying no felt like breaking a law
I never agreed to.

I learned to shrink
before I even grew.
To please
before I even spoke
To disappear
before I was ever seen.

But I’m done swallowing silence.
I’m done seasoning my discomfort
to make others more comfortable.

My “no” is full-bodied now.
My “yes” wears boundaries like armor.

And I don’t eat guilt.
And I don’t eat shame served cold
on expectation’s plate.

I eat truth.

I eat meals made of my own choosing.
And this voice?

This voice is seasoned.
Bold.
Loud.

This voice is mine.

Let No One Censor You

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio

Your written content
your voice
copy
blog posts
texts, captions
the way you capture feeling on the page
contextualize thought
empower us through emotion
breathe life into the human experience
remind us what it feels like to live
to remember
minister to our memory
and most sacred truths
the way you poet
your words, spoken or written is, power.

A historical document your grandchildren
will one day cherish
resist the urge to withhold words
hold them like you once held your babies
precious and true
their bodies snug in the crook of your arm
and the warmth of your chest
Wrap your arms around this text:
Your intellectual scholarship has merit.

Let it be a legacy for the next generation
Gift them this birthright.
So we may have a right to a better future.
Let no one censor you into silence.

Not even yourself.

Listen to this poem (and others) on TikTok @yecheilyah.

Let the Words Be Seasoned

Photo by DapurMelodi from Pexels

There are times when Black authors find themselves fighting against those who wish them to edit their soul. Take the salt out the meat. Take the voice out the work, and leave it seasonless. To quote Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, “People still have a white, western idea of how intellect is ‘spose to walk in the world.” 

Let it not be lost that how Black people speak, including how we write, has been under fire since the days they forbade us to read and write. Considering us fools (and hoping we’d believe we were), they told us our language was broken. Told us massa was some jumbled version of master to justify our alleged stupidity and inhumanness. (Note: Massah is a Hebrew word meaning burden or oppressor. We called them what they were.)

The audacity to dilute language rich in culture by “correcting” it is just as brutal as stripping away someone’s name and replacing it with your own. What does your Ph.D. in poetry have to do with my grandmother’s tongue?

The way our slang terms do not always mirror what is heard or written within collegiate circles.

The way proverbs and parables roll off the tongue only to be shackled to some white scholars’ standards of brilliance. He think it’s nonsense how Jay Jay and Man Man ‘nem talk about how they be chillin. Or how Aunt Lou tells one of her grandchiren to go wrench off this spoon. She puts her hands on her hips, waves and says ‘How you?’ (She means it the way she says it, leaving out the ‘are.’) 

The way the world attempted to tuck knowledge away from us, hide from us its secrets. (Though, we already knew them.) 

Black writers do not need to sacrifice their soul or shapeshift into white standards of intellect to create something beautiful. They need only to be who they are and let the words be seasoned.

Your Blog

A platform. A podium. A stage. A virtual loudspeaker in every corner of the world. A map. A tour guide. A historical document. An ear. A hug. A friend. A translator of every language. A light. A dictionary. A notebook and pen. A portrait on the wall. A wall. A spreadsheet of feeling. A prayer. A song. An instrument. A melody for the broken. A doctor. A midwife. A counselor. A teacher. A healer. Your blog is so much more than a blog. Your blog is a voice.

YouTube: New Poem Added! Listen to “The Colors of Poetry” #Poetry #SpokenWord

Listen to The Colors of Poetry below. Be sure to subscribe to this blog by clicking on the button in the sidebar and my YouTube page HERE for notification of new poems.

I Was Not There

I do not entirely agree

with the actions of my ancestors

cannot say with a straight face that I would have stood there

In the crossfire of oppression, falling

while being bit by dogs

smiling

while being spit on

not with a straight face will I say

that I would have been there

to ask my oppressors their permission

to walk down the street

but I was not there

and me not being there leads me to do nothing

but honor their legacy in humility

I do not know the taste of their humiliation

as closely as they experienced it

my young palate is a prejudiced mixture

of what I’ve seen in footage and read in books

I did not feel the lash

or salt in-between their wounds

know nothing of the seasoning

of stripped identity

of throats closing in on tongues

I know only of gentle waters

the kind that bathes, and cooks and quenches the thirst

I know nothing of the kind that pierces

the skin on contact

I do not know because I was not there

but I can write

like Baldwin did

as a witness

I can write the stories

and un-fairy tale the tragedy

of being colored

to make alive again

a history left virtually unknown

because I was not there

not when Moses died or Malcolm slain

but I can write

articulating the suffering

of the now silent

 

Copyright©2017 by Yecheilyah Ysrayl. All rights reserved.

Yecheilyah (e-see-lee-yah) is an Author, Blogger, and Poet of nine published works including her soon-to-be released short inspirational guide “Keep Yourself Full.” Learn more by exploring Yecheilyah’s writing on this blog and her website at yecheilyahysrayl.com. Renaissance: The Nora White Story (Book One) is her latest novel and is available now on Amazon.com.