Comments on: Bossy Advice on Writing Well

By: Sandra

Sandra — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 01:48:57 +0000

Love all of this. Glad I found your site.
Sincerely,
A fellow wielder of the red pen

PS I realize this sounds generic enough to be just this side of compliment spam. Sorry. It’s sincere. Coffee just hasn’t kicked in yet.

By: vira

vira — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 15:19:56 +0000

I’m learning as I’m reading this post!
wait.. was it supposed be “I was learning as I was reading this post”..?

Thanks for the free brief lesson!

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 16:51:44 +0000

I just wanted to backpedal for a second. There are some phenomenal blogs and bloggers who undoubtedly do good (#PwP is a perfect example) and I didn’t mean to unfairly label bloggers as “narcissistic”. I actually meant more that the format of a blog feels more personal: we choose the pictures (and often take them ourselves), we upload and publish ourselves, etc. The more connected I feel to a piece of my writing, the harder it is for me to take criticism and blogs are incredibly personal.

Thanks for the names of people to follow….I’m always looking for interesting and good sites!

Perhaps my resistance to twitter’s limited characters is that I’m more verbose when it comes to describing a situation. I’m not one of those who believe that complex situations can be captured in a quick snapshot of 140 characters. Still, it’s always good to be stretched…

Happy Thursday!

By: pam || @nerdseyeview

pam || @nerdseyeview — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 16:25:43 +0000

One of the things I like about Twitter is that it forces you to select exactly the words you need to express a compact idea. I don’t like the netspeak of U/You either, but I’m forgiving of it in context. I like writers like Andrew Evans who are using Twitter as a way to share a place in tiny bites, and Andrew is rarely sloppy about grammar or word choice.

As for bloggers being “somewhat narcissist,” that’s generalizing. Some bloggers are that way, absolutely. But Chris Elliott uses his blog to solve the problems of other travelers. ProBlogger is really a teaching blog. Passports with Purpose is a blogger driven philanthropic initiative. Some blogs are purely photographic, others are associated with a business and there to drive sales and search… There are other bloggers I can list who are sincerely passionate about sharing information that helps others and others who are simply frustrated writers.

I still remember the first marked up document I got from an editor. It was excruciating. But she made my work better. I still gasp a little when confronted with a lot of red ink, but now I know, especially if I’m working with an editor I trust, that I need to either fix it or defend it. This has been a good thing for me as a writer and I’m sorry more writers don’t get to experience it.

By: Laura

Laura — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 15:51:58 +0000

I can see this from both ways. I worked as a writing tutor for years and there are only so many comma splices a person can take. I think texts and limiting formats (ahem, twitter….) are killing language. A part of my soul dies every time I see someone shorten “you” to “u”. Good writing is hard to find and a pure pleasure to read.

On the other hand, writing is such a personal activity, particularly when you’re writing about something that happened to YOU. I think the blog format particularly encourages this, as they have a somewhat narcissistic focus.

I had a thesis advisor who marked up my drafts until they literally looked like they were bleeding red ink. I drank a margarita and got over it, reminding myself she was trying to make me better. It can be difficult to separate the subject matter from the writing issues, but I think real learning and growth (as a writer) occurs when one can make that distinction.