Some Advice On Writing


Many people, for many reasons, find writing in English difficult, including native speakers.  Writing is not an easy task.  Like anything worthwhile, it takes time and effort to learn to do it well.  And as you know, writing in a second language is especially challenging.  But!  It’s not impossible.  And here are few words of advice to help you along the path.

First – vocabulary. There is a funny little word in the English language -“bugaboo.”  Bugaboo means something that bugs you, irritates you, makes it harder to do something you want to do.  And a bugaboo is what vocabulary can become, if you’re let it.  (But you don’t have to!)

We use words when we write, and English has the largest collection of them of any language in the world, so naturally we think we have to use a whole lot of them (and very big ones at that) to write well.  Wrong!  Writing is not about big words, nor is it about long ones.  If you think about, many of the greatest writers do not use particularly big words.  In fact, in order to reach as many people as possible, many of them rely on the power of ideas and emotions and good storytelling, rather than long words, in order to get their point across. 

That’s because good writing is about communication.  Remember that, and you’ll get farther faster than any other route in your efforts to write in English (or any other language) well.

When you want to communicate, whether in music, writing, speech or any other form, you have to know what you want to communicate, who it is you’re trying to communicate with, and how to communicate it, in other words, the basic patterns, rules and regulations of the form you’re communicating in.

Looking at that where writing is concerned, we can break these important points down as follows:

THINK CLEARLY
KNOW WHAT YOU WANT TO SAY
KNOW WHO YOUR READER IS
KNOW HOW TO TELL A STORY WELL
KNOW THE RULES OF GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION

The last point – grammar and punctuation – exists to serve the first ones.  If every writer made up their own grammar and punctuation it would be pretty hard to understand all that was written.  A common and standard form for things does make it easier to share and receive information.  But that's all grammar and punctuation is there for – to help us understand each other – not to get in the way of things.

Don’t let concerns over grammar, punctuation or vocabulary convince you that you can’t write well!  Think of them as the tires on your car.  Yes, you need good tires and you need air in your tires!  But it’s not the tires that move the car from place to place.  It’s YOU!  Your mind, your heart, your ideas, your storytelling are the motor of that car.
So if you need new tires or you have a flat, deal with it, but don’t think that means you can’t get anywhere.  Don’t let small problems stop you from big accomplishments.  After all, if you’re reading this, you’ve already proven yourself capable of a very big accomplishment.  If you can move to a new country and deal with a new culture and new language, you can certainly tackle the small problems that come up in writing well.

So here we go.  My final words of advice to you are:

IF YOU WANT TO WRITE WELL, WRITE.  DO IT EVERY DAY.  DO IT WHEN YOU GET UP IN THE MORNING OR DO IT ON THE BUS OR DO IT LAST THING BEFORE YOU SLEEP.  BUT DO IT.  ESPECIALLY DO IT WHEN YOU DON’T FEEL LIKE DOING IT, BECAUSE IT’S THE THINGS WE’RE WILLING TO WORK ON EVEN WHEN WE DON’T FEEL LIKE WORKING ON THEM THAT WE HAVE GREATEST SUCCESS IN.

IF YOU WANT TO INCREASE YOUR VOCABULARY, READ.  THIS IS TRUE FOR EVERYONE, INCLUDING NATIVE SPEAKERS.  READ.  READ.  AND THEN READ SOME MORE.  MAKE A LIST OF WORDS THAT ARE NEW TO YOU.  LOOK UP WHAT THEY MEAN IN A DICTIONARY.  THEN USE THEM.  USE THEM AT WORK, WITH YOUR FAMILY, AT THE GROCERY STORE, AND IN DREAMS.  YOU ONLY OWN WHAT YOU USE.

IF YOU WANT TO IMPROVE YOUR GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION, LEARN THE RULES OF GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION.  THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN FAST AND UNLESS YOU ARE A SPECIAL SORT OF PERSON, THIS WILL PROBABLY NOT BE A LOT OF FUN.  BUT THIS IS REALLY THE ONLY WAY AROUND DOING IT.  BE PATIENT.  GO A STEP AT A TIME.  IF YOU NEED ADVICE ON WHERE TO START, ASK ME.

FINALLY, REMEMBER THAT ROME, AND EVERYTHING ELSE, WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY.  AS SOME OF YOU KNOW, I HAVE A YOUNG – VERY YOUNG – DAUGHTER.  AS I WRITE THIS, SHE IS 11 WEEKS OLD.  SLOWLY, VERY SLOWLY, SHE IS LEARNING HOW TO DO THINGS.  SHE IS LEARNING HOW TO REACH FOR THINGS.  SHE IS LEARNING HOW TO ‘TALK.’  SHE IS LEARNING THE SOUNDS AND RHYTHMS OF ENGLISH AND IMITATES THESE SOUNDS AND RHYTHMS EVEN THOUGH SHE IS NOT “SAYING” ANYTHING AS SHE DOES THIS.  THIS IS THE SAME WAY WE LEARN EVERYTHING.  IN FACT, SHE IS PROBABLY LEARNING HOW TO DO THESE THINGS MUCH FASTER THAN YOU OR I EVER LEARN TO DO ANYTHING BECAUSE AS WE KNOW, BABIES ARE AMAZING, TURBO-CHARGED LEARNING MACHINES AND WE’LL NEVER LEARN ANYTHING AS QUICKLY AS WE DID AS CHILDREN.

SO BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF.  LAUGH AT YOUR MISTAKES AND REWARD YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND REMEMBER, IN YOUR JOURNEY TO WRITING WELL, TO ENJOY THE RIDE.

(Oh… as for spelling… it takes years to master spelling.  Children in the U.S. must spend grades one through five working on spelling, and still have years of work ahead of them.  English spelling is difficult for everyone.  But not to worry.  There are solutions for that problem, also, and we’ll go into them.)

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