Wordy -or- Writing about Writing
Sometimes I get that feeling. Antsy. Like I need to do something, need to say something, need to talk to someone. But there's nothing to do, nothing to say, no one to talk to. That's one of the times I feel compelled to write. Like now for example.
I make no claims that I'm an excellent writer, that my grammar is perfect, or that I have anything interesting to say, but I like writing. When I first started writing in middle school and throughout high school, I was wordy, and I made poor word choices. I was an average, maybe even a poor writer, and I did not enjoy it at all.
My sentences were consistently circuitous and I made my points in round about ways. It was as if I said things backwards, and by stating the last bit first, I had a heck of a time explaining what I meant in the beginning and had to use many many words to make sense of the whole thing. Apparently not even good words. My papers in school were always underlined and circled with red. "Wordy," "W/C (word choice)," "Split into 2 sentences," "Start new PP here," were the words commonly scribbled in the margins.
When I had to revise my papers my brain would switch off. Wordy though a sentence might be, I could never figure out another way to say exactly what I wanted to communicate. I started to get better at editing papers toward the end of high school, but on the whole writing still perplexed me when I graduated. I knew that when one wrote an essay, the goal was to say something and get the point across clearly and efficiently, but the whole idea of outlines, structure, thesis statements, transition sentences, etc., well, somehow it all eluded me.
When I signed up for English 101 at Montgomery College, I decided I was going to start over. I'd forget everything I knew, or thought I knew, and allow myself to be taught. From the beginning.
I was amazed because it worked.
I learned that there are rules, guidelines, and methods for writing! Rules for grammar. Guidelines for structure. Methods for research.
I can do rules. They made sense, and for the first time I understood when to use a comma. Before that first college English course, I literally thought that a comma was inserted everywhere there was a pause while speaking. In high school I'd quietly speak my research papers out loud to myself and listen for the pauses. Sometimes I'd have to say the same sentence a few times with different inflection to decide where a comma was supposed to go or if one was needed at all.
With clear simple explanations of those rules, guidelines, and methods, I caught on quickly. I was soon the star pupil in my class (not too difficult an accomplishment in any class at MC). The proper use of the rules lent immediate structure to my papers. When my wordy habit crept back into a paragraph, the structure around it helped me to see how I could easily condense the sentence, simplify the idea, or split the idea into two or three separate sentences.
It's been a while since I've had to write anything "official," but I'm glad that I don't dread writing papers as I used to. I still dread writing papers with looming deadlines (have I ever mentioned that I'm an extraordinary procrastinator?), but I feel confident that if I have enough time, I'll be able to write well.
Lately the only chance I have to write is when I'm blogging. It's a different sort of writing.
I have one blog where I write about my art projects. I guess that's a little more like "official" writing, but even those entries are mostly for myself.
When I write here, I don't follow the rules. I just write. Whatever comes out, comes out. When I have something I want to write about, sometimes it finds a way of being said that I couldn't have thought of before the words started flowing from my fingertips.
I usually read through what I've written once before I post an entry, catching an errant comma or a misspelled word here and there, but I don't care if I have a one word sentence. Or a sentence that starts with "and," "but," or "or". I might spend a moment puzzling over quotation marks if I'm not sure if the period goes before or after the mark. (Seriously, is it "or". or "or."? ok now I'm just confusing myself.) Quotation marks are still the one bit of punctuation that escapes me at times. I forget the rules for them. I should look it up, but usually I make the effort to rearrange a sentence so that the quote marks go in the middle, or so I don't need them at all.
I do know that you have to be careful to insert actual quote marks and not use inch marks when you are typesetting, but I digress; that's a Graphic Design thing.
When I read through entries, I always find a lot of "justs" and "reallys" and I usually take them out. I think it's just that sometimes I really want to add a certain feeling to a sentence; you know, really drag it out and make it seem important, even though I should really just take out all the modifiers and just say what I want to say. I've deleted at least 5 reallys and perhaps 4 justs from this entry already.
So now I have fun with writing however and whenever I feel like it. I remember my professor teaching us that you have to learn the rules and learn them well. She added that when you know all the rules very well, you will then know when to break them. I still don't know when and where it's ok to break the rules, but I do know that sometimes it's just fun to write improperly. To break the rules simply because you can.
I make no claims that I'm an excellent writer, that my grammar is perfect, or that I have anything interesting to say, but I like writing. When I first started writing in middle school and throughout high school, I was wordy, and I made poor word choices. I was an average, maybe even a poor writer, and I did not enjoy it at all.
My sentences were consistently circuitous and I made my points in round about ways. It was as if I said things backwards, and by stating the last bit first, I had a heck of a time explaining what I meant in the beginning and had to use many many words to make sense of the whole thing. Apparently not even good words. My papers in school were always underlined and circled with red. "Wordy," "W/C (word choice)," "Split into 2 sentences," "Start new PP here," were the words commonly scribbled in the margins.
When I had to revise my papers my brain would switch off. Wordy though a sentence might be, I could never figure out another way to say exactly what I wanted to communicate. I started to get better at editing papers toward the end of high school, but on the whole writing still perplexed me when I graduated. I knew that when one wrote an essay, the goal was to say something and get the point across clearly and efficiently, but the whole idea of outlines, structure, thesis statements, transition sentences, etc., well, somehow it all eluded me.
When I signed up for English 101 at Montgomery College, I decided I was going to start over. I'd forget everything I knew, or thought I knew, and allow myself to be taught. From the beginning.
I was amazed because it worked.
I learned that there are rules, guidelines, and methods for writing! Rules for grammar. Guidelines for structure. Methods for research.
I can do rules. They made sense, and for the first time I understood when to use a comma. Before that first college English course, I literally thought that a comma was inserted everywhere there was a pause while speaking. In high school I'd quietly speak my research papers out loud to myself and listen for the pauses. Sometimes I'd have to say the same sentence a few times with different inflection to decide where a comma was supposed to go or if one was needed at all.
With clear simple explanations of those rules, guidelines, and methods, I caught on quickly. I was soon the star pupil in my class (not too difficult an accomplishment in any class at MC). The proper use of the rules lent immediate structure to my papers. When my wordy habit crept back into a paragraph, the structure around it helped me to see how I could easily condense the sentence, simplify the idea, or split the idea into two or three separate sentences.
It's been a while since I've had to write anything "official," but I'm glad that I don't dread writing papers as I used to. I still dread writing papers with looming deadlines (have I ever mentioned that I'm an extraordinary procrastinator?), but I feel confident that if I have enough time, I'll be able to write well.
Lately the only chance I have to write is when I'm blogging. It's a different sort of writing.
I have one blog where I write about my art projects. I guess that's a little more like "official" writing, but even those entries are mostly for myself.
When I write here, I don't follow the rules. I just write. Whatever comes out, comes out. When I have something I want to write about, sometimes it finds a way of being said that I couldn't have thought of before the words started flowing from my fingertips.
I usually read through what I've written once before I post an entry, catching an errant comma or a misspelled word here and there, but I don't care if I have a one word sentence. Or a sentence that starts with "and," "but," or "or". I might spend a moment puzzling over quotation marks if I'm not sure if the period goes before or after the mark. (Seriously, is it "or". or "or."? ok now I'm just confusing myself.) Quotation marks are still the one bit of punctuation that escapes me at times. I forget the rules for them. I should look it up, but usually I make the effort to rearrange a sentence so that the quote marks go in the middle, or so I don't need them at all.
I do know that you have to be careful to insert actual quote marks and not use inch marks when you are typesetting, but I digress; that's a Graphic Design thing.
When I read through entries, I always find a lot of "justs" and "reallys" and I usually take them out. I think it's just that sometimes I really want to add a certain feeling to a sentence; you know, really drag it out and make it seem important, even though I should really just take out all the modifiers and just say what I want to say. I've deleted at least 5 reallys and perhaps 4 justs from this entry already.
So now I have fun with writing however and whenever I feel like it. I remember my professor teaching us that you have to learn the rules and learn them well. She added that when you know all the rules very well, you will then know when to break them. I still don't know when and where it's ok to break the rules, but I do know that sometimes it's just fun to write improperly. To break the rules simply because you can.