Saturday, May 21, 2011

Am I that bad a writer?

A very close friend of mine has a very well written and thought out blog, one of his features is “people I know” and he featured my blog with respect of what it is like to live with a drug addict. He stated that he admires my leaving it all on the table and I should publish a book on the matter. He also cited a problem that I am familiar with. My “stream of consciousness” prose isn’t very user friendly. I tend to write in a blaze of glory, and use spell check only to ensure accuracy, not readability. I have very long sentences and have been chastised since I was 6 that while grammatically correct, it gives the reader an ice cream headache and my pov is lost.

Since I have problems with authority I rebelled, took the criticism as an attack on my beliefs and refused to yield.

I always wanted to be a writer, but since I was far too stubborn, I didn’t learn to work at my craft, my brain worked faster than I could hand write, and since this was before word processors, typing proved to be a impossible chore. I was weak, I gave up before I fired a shot.

As I approach retirement I wished I kept a log of my wars with authority, every slight, every block in my path. It also would have been helpful to have written even a paragraph a day during my 19 year journey with the DA.

So I will start writing about several things on my mind and return to my ‘musings’, and post only the abridged version, and work on the chapters of my masterpiece.

Only a few will read, if I reach the journey by faithful and diligent work, I will be the victor, or at least have a few stories to tell my fellow inmates at the asylum

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dude, let it flow. There are rules of grammar for a reason, but sometimes when your thoughts are jumbled and flying in every direction, your writing should be too.

After you pour it all out, try reading your words out loud to yourself. You'll get a feeling for where things are flowing (maybe chaotically but flowing nonetheless) and where the rushing waters get too frothy for casual rafters.

Whether or not your find that helpful, keep writing.

Sir-eats-a-lot said...

thanks Jerry, it is most important to keep writing, also important to revew