Someone asked me the other day if I enjoyed being a writer. They were referring to my blog I discovered later, after my look of utter confusion prompted an explanation. I am so not a writer… I can’t write… I don’t like writing…. I was never any good at writing. Oh and then there is the grammar thing.
Why can’t I start a sentence with ‘But’?
I want to do it. Actually I do do it all the time, otherwise I’d write paragraphs that were just one big long huge sentence.
And on that note… Can I start a sentence with ‘And’ too please?
While I’m getting into the ‘…’s is there some magic rule about them too? I am a bit prone to writing sentences with three or four sets of them… it sounds right when I read it back but I’m sure someone is sitting out there shaking their heads in disgust.
Oh and did you know they were called ellipsis?? I had to ask my smart friends on twitter… I bet my parents are wondering why they wasted so much money on my education around about now.
Oh and brackets. Can you have brackets inside brackets? You see I kind of write like I talk (and if anyone has heard me talk you’ll know that once I get going (though I am kind of shy at first but once I am warmed up) I talk a lot) and it seems feasible to use brackets inside brackets when you look at it like that.
Can you over comma a sentence?
What about these little buggers ; and : how do they work again?
Lets not get started on spelling or paragraph formation and I read something the other day about only using ‘interesting verbs’…. what?
But then I also read this blog post a while back about Story Telling the Story and it made me stop and think. When I think about ‘writing’ I think about rules and essays and the kind of writing we did at school. I worry about grammar and sentence structure and, well, making sense. Most of those things I don’t ever manage when I blog… but I am still writing, I am still telling a story… and shhh… don’t tell my year 11 English teacher… I think I actually like it.
But about that bracket thing…(oops there I go with the but thing again too)
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
When I blog, I write the same way as if I was chatting to a friend so I can guarantee you that English teachers would cringe when reading my posts!
Enjoyed this post…LOL
You are a wonderful writer. You have naturally what many who aspire to writing cannot find – a personal voice.
Grammar ! Spelling! Forget them, They are the province of editors not writers.
As someone who has at times made a living writing govt docs ;) I am also someone who doesn’t edit my blog. I too use … (but & and at the beginning of sentences are complete no-nos for me though!)
I really do know better – but I think blogs are blogs – and depending on their purpose you don’t have to edit if you don’t want to. Business blog – edit. Personal blog – enjoy.
Grandma Jill is right – your blog is an enjoyable read :) However she does need a comma after naturally; remove the – before ‘a personal..’ ; change the comma for a full stop or adjust the capital T in they and last but not least give her name a capital G as Grandma.
Which proves my point, it is informal language and she probably wrote it out of love, not to be grammatically perfect.
;)
ROFL … I just had a very similar thought conversation with myself last week.
In short – Who cares?!!
I know what I mean.
I’m pretty sure I know what you mean.
Commas, are meant to be, over used, I say!
I’m giggling, because you just summed up everything I do too. I write like I talk and sometimes I think that probbaly comfuses people.
So thats the door Story opened for you… you are going to relax more about the writing rules, tell more stories and enjoy the whole story telling deal… excellent!
hehe
I start sentences with ‘but’ and ‘and’ all the time. Keepp writing like you talk. Blog posts are a conversation start after all…….
LOVE IT! Hilarious… I too tend to want to write the way I talk, which is usually going off on semi-related tangents … bring on the brackets!
Great post.
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