Getting back into writing (obstacles and thoughts)
If you follow me, you'll have probably noticed that I spent almost two months away from Steemit (and from everything, really). I didn't write, I didn't draw. I let my creativity stagnate during this time. Then, I came back for a @steemmonsters contest (that I lost) and wrote over 8 thousand words in one day.
That pumped back my creativity, but I noticed a grave issue in my writing.
Let's go back for a second to my last two years of studying at my university. I wrote countless essays during that period of time. I wrote descriptive articles, narrations, poems, and whatnot. I had teachers critiquing my style and my organisation nonstop. They taught me to write outlines, the basics of the introduction-body-conclusion structure of any text, the rules of paragraphs, grammar and punctuation, etc.
Before I came here, I hadn't practised these skills for over a year. And in fact, I didn't practice much of them during my stay. All I've written, I've done so without thinking much, without organising my thoughts previously, without outlines, without much consideration about the structure of the texts.
So, when I wrote these ~15 pages of text in one go, I noticed that if I didn't think about it, my writing was all askew, completely disorganised. I digressed, repeated my self a lot and sometimes used the wrong words. I noticed all of this after reading. My text was like a beginner's compared to my expectation. I was so astounded that I didn't feel motivated to write anything else for a while. I stayed away from Steemit for a few days or weeks after the fact because of this.
Now that I have set new goals for myself (obstructed by silly RAM-squatting Firefox, but that's another story), I decided that it's time to set another goal. I want to practise my writing in a different way than I've been practising it before. Not much of this is being done on this text, which I'm writing on the go and without much editing, but I really, really want to at least improve the appearance of my works.
It's like drawing. I don't want to paint every day and still have an unrefined and ugly style. I want to improve and this requires effort.
Sometimes, I see very good writers on Steemit and I'm filled with admiration. I want to be able to have such a broad vocabulary. It's hard, however, for many reasons. One is that English is my second language. I know a lot of words and can recognise them if I read them, but they don't come naturally when I write. I don't have any idea how to fix this (I don't even know if this phrase is grammatically correct). I'm a bit lost and it makes me anxious, but I'm sure that I'll manage to improve regardless. It's just a matter of effort and consistency.
Another reason for the lacking size of my vocabulary is that lately, I feel much more desire to write than to read, to create than to observe. This has been going on for a couple years ever since I started programming. I had been reading novels nonstop for a long time, then I started translating and had no time, and then I stopped translating, started drawing and noticed that I had acquired a strong drive to create and that reading for a long time had become a much more difficult task. It's been said by many writers that I admire that reading a lot is an essential quality in this trade. It seems I need to work on my discipline in order to improve this aspect of myself.
How to solve all of this? I don't think that there are any cheap tricks I can go for. I'll have to work hard, but it's worth it. I hope that in a few months, I'll be nurturing better habits and that the quality of my texts will start to gradually improve as I go.
I understand your struggle very well, I too, went away from steemit for a while, because I felt that my content and my ideas weren't good enough for this platform, because I kept seeing such great posts and I felt that what I had to give just wasn't cutting it, but I decided to give it a go once more, because our minds are our worst enemies.
My advice would be to keep practising and writing, English isn't my first language either, but I am always writing and reading (even if it's just small meaningless stuff) because I just got myself used to it, I can't stop hehe.
Practice with yourself, write for yourself and don't compare your writing with others, compare it to old stuff that you've written, that way if you make progress it will show somehow and you'll realize that you're improving. Keep reading, and also try to find at least 2 or 3 new words each day, and try to incorporate them into your writing that day, so you keep expanding your vocabulary. It isn't something that happens overnight, and it's okay if the only thing you do on a week is learn one word.
"Progress is progress no matter how small."
I've read a few of your posts. I think they're better than most of the content on the platform. Maybe not better than the best, but they're certainly top notch. I'd like to see you around more often! I'll keep an eye on your blog. :)
My upvote is worth almost nothing, but I think you deserve a lot of support given your talent, the clear quality of what you do and the fact that we're both from the same country, lol.
Besitos :*
No dudes en preguntarme cualquier duda si la tuvieras.
Jajajaja ajáaa, so we're from the same place, qué bien. Y bueno, muchas gracias por las flores jajajaj, I think I'm an ok writer, there's always room for improvement.
Yes, I am making an effort to be more active on the platform, but between work and daily things it's been tough.
The keyword is trying, though! Nos vemos por ahí <3
This is probably going to be useless and empty but I'm going to go for it anyway. Two things:
Use others for what can be, but look and see at how you are improving or where you can improve. This is what I'm telling myself anyway, as I also feel like I compare to other writers in awe. And you know, it's still fine to take a break from it if you feel overwhelmed. You don't want to force things anyway. So here I am, writing all this empty advice that sounds good but I am unsure whether or not I will be able to follow it myself. Ah well...
But yeah I don't really have specific writing advice tricks. I have a friend that wants to get better at English and I never know quite how to help... So I wonder if someone else has good tricks and I'll follow along :)
Hey! It's not shallow advice. :) I feel that it's good. Sometimes I fall into that pit of contrasting my creations with the creations of others and I feel like my doing it is pointless since they can do it so much better and I can never hope to get there. But beyond that, I know that I have value and I have to remind myself that. My creations have value for me, if not for others, and comparing myself to natives with decades of experience is unfair since I only have a few years' experience in writing and just about a decade learning the English language.
About taking a break, I'm on the other side of that. I take too many breaks, lol. I create for a few days or weeks, then I stop for months. I should balance my time out in order to be consistent with my workflow. I've been thinking of setting fixed times each day for working and fixed times for resting and playing.
I got much better when I started sharing my writings with others, reading the writings of others and comparing what we did differently. I didn't take differences as mistakes, but I didn't discard what they did as mere "differences". People always have different experiences and they know things I don't. I like to think that many differences are the result of breakthrough's that either of us has never had.
Thanks for the tips <3 They really put me under the wheels of a heavy train of thought.
I actually noticed you have been AWOL in all social platforms..i was kinda worried but am glad you are allright ..just overcome that urge ..and try reading more cos we sure do learn from other people's experience..
Thank you :) I've been reading a lot these couple of days. I might post a review later. <3 Thanks for the encouragement. I your words had a lot to do with the fact that I managed to come back emotionally to a productive stage and to reading.
Hello @cryptosharon, thank you for sharing this creative work! We just stopped by to say that you've been upvoted by the @creativecrypto magazine. The Creative Crypto is all about art on the blockchain and learning from creatives like you. Looking forward to crossing paths again soon. Steem on!
Great! :)
Thank you.
This is my first visit to your blog and i have to say i am already impressed with your writing. We all want to continue to improve though, right? I believe that your work is great and I am going to read more. I don't really have any advice because I don't really feel as though I am good writer in the technical sense.
Sometimes I feel that people get so wrapped up in syntax that the creativity actually suffers. Whenever I try to focus on having perfect sentence structure rather than using an ellipse or a hyphen whenever i feel like it - that my creativity actually suffers. Therefore, I don't really focus on that so much since I am not submitting these things for critical peer review :)
I also feel as though emoticons are just fine on here :P