When i was in High School i hated my English class. I managed to fail every class since the 1st semester of the 9th grade. (It was one of the reasons i eventually dropped out.) One semester i realized that i had not been marked late once - despite being late numerous times (it was my first class of the day), so vowed to make a marked effort to be late. One day i even showed up five minutes before the end of class thinking, "there's no way he won't mark me late today"... there was a substitute who, wait for it... didn't mark me late! LOL I got to such a point that i would take dice into class, rolled them noisily on my desk, then took the results to answer the multiple choice questions. *sigh* I was far from a model student.
This comes to mind because i was re-reading my blog from yesterday and i kept finding little mistakes.
Ok, perhaps big ones. Ok, back to my original train of thought... I eventually went back and obtained my G.E.D. (i had to if i wanted to ever get promoted to Sergeant in the
National Guard, or wanted to go to college - which the NG had encouraged me to do) and started college. Yet i avoided the core English requirements like the plague. Finally, after i got married and i found out that my beloved was good in English and was willing to tutor me, i finally took an English class. When i took the placement tests to see where i needed to start at the school - since i had never taken an S.A.T. i had apparently scored pretty well. Before i had received the results back from the placement tests i received a letter congratulating me, and inviting me to join the Honor's Society at the school. I had actually seriously considered it... right up until i found out that i was going to have to take English 010. That's right... it's not a typo. English 010... English Composition. What's worse... it took me four tries to finally get a "S" (satisfactory). not even a letter grade. That is a long story, but here is the kicker... it taught me to enjoy writing! I am still not very good when it comes to punctuation, or grammer, or spelling. I have always enjoyed reading, but writing is not something that comes easily. Well, publishable writing anyway. Re-reading yesterday's blog sort of reitterated that to me. It's hard to be taken seriously when you writing skills are so poor. And yet i hate to edit my own work. I have no qualms about having others mark it all up with a red pen and then combing back through it to make it work and correct, but it is like dragging my own nails across a chalk board (ah the days before white boards), and still not liking the sound.
Well, i have the ideas in my head to continue my on-line story series as well as the "novel" i am writing, but i've not been able to get the words out. Mostly because of being in a constant state of something other than quiet, but also because i want it to be what i want it to be... and not some trailing thought that doesn't flow with the rest of the story. So... i spend my time re-reading my background material (previous stories i've writen as well as a plethora of old articles that describe the various aspects of the world i choose to write in). I will get back to it though. I just enjoy writing too much.
Various tatics i use to get "pen to paper" - or more accurately "fingers to keyboard" because i can't write fast enough for my thoughts to flow, but i can type much faster than i can write... and yet that is still not fast enough at times. Anyway... my tactics include... outlining to give the story a framework... just diving in a typing from the beginning... and just random note taking of various ideas. For a person who has some "compulsive" tendencies in doing things certain ways... for me the writing process is rarely the same way twice. I think in the end i know my 'audience' is pretty small - but then i am not doing it for fame, fortune, or a paycheck.
Ok, perhaps big ones. Ok, back to my original train of thought... I eventually went back and obtained my G.E.D. (i had to if i wanted to ever get promoted to Sergeant in the National Guard, or wanted to go to college - which the NG had encouraged me to do) and started college. Yet i avoided the core English requirements like the plague. Finally, after i got married and i found out that my beloved was good in English and was willing to tutor me, i finally took an English class. When i took the placement tests to see where i needed to start at the school - since i had never taken an S.A.T. i had apparently scored pretty well. Before i had received the results back from the placement tests i received a letter congratulating me, and inviting me to join the Honor's Society at the school. I had actually seriously considered it... right up until i found out that i was going to have to take English 010. That's right... it's not a typo. English 010... English Composition. What's worse... it took me four tries to finally get a "S" (satisfactory). not even a letter grade. That is a long story, but here is the kicker... it taught me to enjoy writing! I am still not very good when it comes to punctuation, or grammer, or spelling. I have always enjoyed reading, but writing is not something that comes easily. Well, publishable writing anyway. Re-reading yesterday's blog sort of reitterated that to me. It's hard to be taken seriously when you writing skills are so poor. And yet i hate to edit my own work. I have no qualms about having others mark it all up with a red pen and then combing back through it to make it work and correct, but it is like dragging my own nails across a chalk board (ah the days before white boards), and still not liking the sound.
Well, i have the ideas in my head to continue my on-line story series as well as the "novel" i am writing, but i've not been able to get the words out. Mostly because of being in a constant state of something other than quiet, but also because i want it to be what i want it to be... and not some trailing thought that doesn't flow with the rest of the story. So... i spend my time re-reading my background material (previous stories i've writen as well as a plethora of old articles that describe the various aspects of the world i choose to write in). I will get back to it though. I just enjoy writing too much.
Various tatics i use to get "pen to paper" - or more accurately "fingers to keyboard" because i can't write fast enough for my thoughts to flow, but i can type much faster than i can write... and yet that is still not fast enough at times. Anyway... my tactics include... outlining to give the story a framework... just diving in a typing from the beginning... and just random note taking of various ideas. For a person who has some "compulsive" tendencies in doing things certain ways... for me the writing process is rarely the same way twice. I think in the end i know my 'audience' is pretty small - but then i am not doing it for fame, fortune, or a paycheck.
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