Tuesday, March 17, 2009

On Writing Re-Writes:

I have been writing my daily blog here for over 300 days. I only missed a few days since I‘ve started. I have discovered that writing a blog and writing fiction stories to be a very different experience.

I have been trying very hard to improve my writing skills. My typing has improved and that has helped limit extra mistakes but not eliminate them. I still have to proof read everything I send out. This has helped my proof reading skills but I still see what I want it to say instead of what is on the page more then I like.

I hate to read my older blogs. The mistakes jump out at me and make me feel foolish. How could I be so arrogant to believe that I could write a post card let alone a daily blog.

To me, my older stories are such a joke. I have ideas, yes. New, good, and interesting ideas. But I still have trouble translating them to the paper.

My sentences come out backwards at times leaving the wrong thing described. Like; instead of an orange ball bouncing around a room, I have a ball in a bouncing orange room. When I read it back to myself I have to laugh but it really isn’t funny in the end.

Mountain Man has been helping me with my story re-writing this past week. In getting my story ‘The Playroom’ ready for the Thrill or Shiver blog we have had some less then stellar moments. Mountain Man and I have very different likes in reading material. He doesn’t like fiction much at all and I like the endless possibilities there.

He is good at finding and pointing out my mistakes but he doesn’t like the story line. I hate asking him to help me with a subject he doesn’t like to even think about.

I’d love to find a good proof reader and have asked others to point out my mistakes on my blog until I do, but I haven’t had much feed back. I even put out a badly written story last time in hopes of finding a Simon out there that couldn’t contain themselves and would let me have it. I would at least have a starting point on where to concentrate on my skills building.

So without any takers I’m back to torturing Mountain Man with my subject matter. I hope you like the story we worked on this past week.

4 comments:

Mouse said...

Its really sad that I had to sit here and think about what "finding a Simon" meant.. lol! I read the story but I didn't know if you still wanted critique or not.. but I don't think I could possibly be as mean as that Simon man! I have a few things that I'll email you about the story.. but I did like it.. very interesting ending!

fritopi said...

i've been for years and i feel the same way when i read my older posts, but i can also kinda see what i was going for and the creativity that i was trying to achieve. at the very least, i notice that i've improved immensely.

Grace Garton said...

Who is Simon? now don't you all laugh, but who is he?
A friend at work is obsesed by the written language. yesterday he was talking to us about his new girlfriend who for the first time wrote to him on his face book page. He had to hold himself back from writing to her about the proper use of commers. He was still thinking how he could approach the subject with her during the whole day!
Looking forward to the new story at Thrillor Shiver. I've read both and had a strange effect on me during the night and into the next day.

Zina said...

I've started blogging in the hopes that it will help me with my fiction. They are two very different experiences. Good luck finding Simon! I still struggle with showing people my work, much less hearing their critique. All the best.