I didn’t plan to build an AI writing stack. I just kept getting curious.
That’s usually how it starts with me. One tool, one question, and one thought that won’t leave me alone: could this actually help?
Over the past year, I’ve messed around with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Notion AI. Not because I wanted to hand my writing off to a robot, but because I wanted to know where these things actually fit into my process. Could they help with research? Wrangle my notes? Or would everything start sounding like it came out of a corporate press release?
So, I started poking around.
What’s on my desk right now
- Claude: This is the one I keep coming back to. It’s good at tone. If something feels stiff, I’ll talk through it here first and find the conversational version. It also helps me spot where I’ve repeated myself or where a paragraph is working too hard.
- Notion AI: This lives inside my actual workflow. My process starts in Notion anyway with outlines, research, and half-baked ideas. Having AI already there means I’m not adding extra steps.
- ChatGPT: This is where I go when I’m stuck. It is great for “what if” questions and looking at an idea from a direction I wouldn’t have found on my own. When writer’s block hits, this is usually my first stop.
- Gemini: I use this occasionally for quick summaries or anything that needs a Google Search attached to it. Utilitarian. It does the job.
What I actually learned
Here’s the part that surprised me most. It’s also the part that makes my experience a little different from most people writing about AI tools.
I’m Deaf. English is my second language, and ASL is my first. Writing has never come easy. It’s something I’ve had to work at, think about, and keep getting better at over time. I overthink sentences. I overwrite when a simpler version would land harder. Sometimes I’ll repeat the same idea in two different places without even realizing it. Sometimes I go hunting for a word and it just won’t come. And sometimes I hit a wall and the whole draft stalls out.
That’s where these tools started making real sense to me.
They don’t do the writing. They help me see my own writing more clearly than I can when I’m too close to it. One catches the repetition I missed. Another finds the word I was hunting for. Another asks the question that unsticks me when I’ve been staring at the same paragraph for twenty minutes. Sometimes one of them suggests something I hadn’t even considered: a different angle, a cleaner structure, or a connection I walked right past.
But I’m still the one making the calls. Every suggestion is just that—a suggestion. The writing is still mine. The voice is still mine. The curiosity that started all of this is still mine.
The internet loves asking whether AI will replace writers. My experience so far says it’s not even close. It just feels like having better company while you work. For someone who spent years feeling like English was a wall I kept climbing, that company has been worth a lot.
Whether that changes, I have no idea. But right now it’s working, and that’s enough.