My Lost Direction

Already.

Image: Alamy

I wrote the previous post “Day 1- One Step Forward”. Sent it to a few friends. The few who were having similar experiences understood. But largely, it remained confusing to the others.

This brings me to the second quote from the book by Lamott.

And there was a moment during my junior year in high school when I began to believe that I could do what other writers were doing. I came to believe that I might be able to put a pencil in my hand and make something magical happen. …. Then I wrote some terrible, terrible stories.

I have learnt by now that reading and speaking the language does not automatically make our writing mesmerising. Like my high school English teacher said,

You eat English, You speak English, You walk English, You stand English. But you cannot write English.

Also, reading books on How-to Write or watching videos without implementation doesnt make sense.

The earlier post and its writing lacked clarity in sentences, shift in tenses, poor punctuation, and confusing ideas. Also the concept of Show,Don’t Tell was stuck on my mind. This is a short list than to tell and demotivate myself saying everything is wrong. That is also an extreme of putting myself down. Even if one thing is right, I am happy. I just want to figure out what it is. May be after reading it again after a few days.

I spent time watching a YT video by Bookfox- “I Tried a 6-Step Formula for Writing Better Sentences”. And a few YT videos of TheWritingGuy by Brandon McNulty on Show Don’t Tell (2 videos).

And the obvious block was how do I move next ? The plan that seems right is to write sentences with clarity. Try lengths in sentences- Short, Medium, Long and still make sense.

I wouldn’t focus on Grammar. I will learn it on the go. Though, I have attended lengthy Grammar lessons and still nothing has made any change and I feel stuck at every level. So I thought I will practice as I write.

What are your thoughts ?

(Not Edited)