I’m a “pistol”, as my grandfather would say, all grey-haired and lopsided grins.

As a writer, we call it having a voice — a personality — deeply embedded in each letter, every sentence, down to the punctuation marks. I’ve infused them with my own unique blend of humanness.

I called him Chuckles, but his name was Charles. “You shoot from the hip, finger on the trigger ready with a quip,” he’d say with finger guns and that old man wink.

As a reader, your eyes pick up on the scents: notes of wit, aged with gracious sarcasm and life experience.

I bet you it’s female-coded.

This is the power of good writing, honed by interest in the craft. (AI could never.) I transform the 26-letter alphabet into a composition that miraculously comes out different with each project despite its constraints.