Do it your way. Throw the rules away and write however you want to. You are who you are and must find your own way. The reason I say this is that after reading my own writing and then reading what others have written I am blown away by what others write. Then when I read my own writing, I see that I am trying to follow all the rules for grammar, punctuation, and all the other CORRECT ways I learned in school. So it comes off as stiff and informal. So today, I am going to have to just toss those rules away and just write. Sounds easy enough but I know I am going to have a tough time following my own advice. I hope it helps some of you other writers.
For instance, when looking at one legendary author such as Mark Twain, his grammar and words fit the people and time period he is writing about. Some people today call it racist but he wrote what he lived and how the people he knew spoke. Can you think of other authors that today we would say didn’t follow the rules of writing? This is something I must learn to do. Just let the words put themselves down on paper or the computer these days. Go with the flow, so to speak.
If one of your stories or projects is not going well, switch gears and start something new and fresh. You can always come back to the first story with a fresh approach. In fact, it might be a good idea to have several projects that you are working on at the same time. I know I have pages of notes of stories I have put aside. I guess it’s time I get back to some of those and see if I can approach them in a different way.
This is certainly going to be the hardest thing for me to do. And that is asking others to give me this criticism and harsh judgments on my writings. I am totally afraid of hearing that something I wrote sucks. But I am going to try to toughen up and take others advice and criticism and learn from it. I may even write some articles just for the purpose of getting feedback from some of those authors who have written some of those awesome articles that I said just blew me away. So I am inviting everyone to give me some feedback on this or any of my other articles. I promise not to weep too loudly, scream too loudly or walk in front of a bus, unless of course the bus in not moving. Just trying to add a bit of humor here. Two new things right here for me. Humor and the last sentence are not correct but I didn’t feel I had to force myself to change it.
Time is important. Find the time to write or sometimes just to sit quietly and brainstorm. Make as much time as you possibly can to write, rewrite and edit. How much time you spent writing depends on how seriously you are committed to become a writer. The more you write the better you will become. Like most jobs you learn and continue getting better the longer you do the job. As a teenager I knew nothing about being a waitress but thirty years later I was quite an experienced waitress. As the old saying goes “practice makes perfect”. Well, maybe not perfect but great.
So I am asking for your opinions and criticism. Be honest.
History Lovers Corner 