On Writing Well

That title sure does sound presumptuous. But you're reading it all wrong. And I likely said it all wrong. One of my New Year's Resolutions is to be a better writer. It's actually been a resolution of mine going on five or six years now, but I never quite verbalized it before.

How does one become a better writer? I actually do have some insight here.

When I was in high school I loved math. I was really good at it, but that wasn't why I loved it. I loved it because it was easy, which is quite different than deriving pleasure from something due to mastery. And it's a shame I loved it for the wrong reason; I could have been really good at it had a applied some energy to it. And it's funny how similar mastery and ease can feel. How close, yet how far apart, hard work and laziness are. On the other hand, I hated writing. I hated writing because it was hard. My grammar was poor, my spelling was horrible, and I felt I had nothing to say, much less any way to say it. To write well, or even passably, I'd have to work hard at it. And hard work was the last thing I wanted to do as a teenager (this hasn't actually changed too much, even into my 30s.)

When I went to college one of the top three reasons I picked computer science as a major was because I was almost certain I could get away with writing a very minimal number of papers while acquiring my degree. And I was right! After four years of college I had exactly three classes that made me write papers, two were required English classes that couldn't have been avoided, and the last was an elective that I took pass/no-pass partially to insure that my lack of enthusiasm for writing wouldn't hurt my GPA.

But here I am now saying things like, "My New Year's Resolution is to write better." Alas! What has become of me? It's a good question. The short answer is, "The Internet happened to me." And the long answer?

I got a job after college. It was a sweet job for a kid fresh out of college. One thing I had to do at this job was communicate with people via email. I quickly became embarrassed by my inability to communicate effectively with my coworkers. It wasn't that I couldn't put an idea together; it was just that I was clueless about where commas and semi-colons should go. I never capitalized words. Paragraphs were a foreign concept. If one could puke words onto paper that would be a very close representation of my process of composing an email. One day I decided to take writing emails very seriously. No more throwing thoughts down. No more writing and hitting the send button. Everything was read at least twice if not more, even the shortest responses. It took longer but it was worth the effort.

Then things became more complicated. Then I stumbled across a website (affectionately called SWAB) where people shared their thoughts and ideas. I loved it. And I wanted to share my thoughts and ideas, but I was still horrible at it. That didn't stop me from writing. No, I dove in and wrote paragraph upon paragraph of ideas. I crafted long and likely odious posts about any topic that was remotely interesting to me. I wrote literally thousands of these posts, over eight thousand of them. These posts didn't help my form too much, but they gave me a passion for writing, and they gave me a voice and style that slowly emerged. Also, not to be under appreciated, the site exposed me to many other writers who not only could put together a sentence but who could do it in beautiful ways.

In the early days most of my posts were either about philosophy or politics. But one day I sat down and decided I would do something artistic on SWAB. I decided that I was ready to brandish my pen as not just a simple tool of communication but as something akin to a paint brush. I was about to put love into my writing.  I can still see this post in my head, it's something I'm still proud of, even in its imperfections (which it had no lack of). It was well received and a great feeling came over me. It was the feeling that comes with accomplishing something because of hard work. I'd sort of unintentionally worked really hard and reached a level of mastery at something I'd avoided for so long. Sometimes I kick myself for the late start, for all that avoiding I did. Where could I be, I wonder, had I tried harder when I was younger, when my mind was more agile?

But more importantly, I'd found a voice! From that day forward my writings on SWAB slowly changed. The shift can most accurately be described as a change from concrete to abstract. I was putting feeling where before only lived words. And I was loving writing. I still sucked at aspects of it. I'd still never gone back and given grammar the proper respect it deserves. Recognizing this deficiency I found my way to Strunk & White (of course) and read it twice. If you've read this far, you're likely aware that reading the book twice hasn't exactly made me a grammar expert, but knowing I've read it twice in great earnest might at least let you imagine how poor I was at it previously. I've read a handful of other grammar books by now and an assortment of books on other aspects of writing and story telling. I've come a long way.

So how does one become a better writer? By writing. There are other methods I'm sure, and I'll likely partake of some of them as well. I believe reading is equally important in honing your writing craft, but I've been easily and gladly devouring books for years. The consumption of books and other's writings is the easy part for me. It's the math. The writing is the hard part. It's the part that still scares me. It's the part that I still doubt I'm good at. It's the part that brings me the greatest joy when someone praises it. It's the part I love. It's the part I hope to improve. And to do so, I must write more. There are a couple specific things I'll be doing this year to improve my writing. First, I plan on finishing a set of short stories. In my head the idea of these short stories, and the few I've started, will result in something good enough to be published by someone other than myself (this is very lofty, I know). And secondly, I plan on writing here more. I see people often taking the 52 books a year challenge; I instead will be partaking of the 52 posts a year challenge. I hope during that time I write a thing or two you enjoy. That I move your soul. That we are drawn closer together. And that I take a few more willful steps toward my goal of writing well.