Creative Musings

This is my first post on Today.com and it may not make me very popular.

While checking out the site, I came across some atrociously poor writing, actually quite a bit of it. Now I know, not everyone on this site has a long history in writing, many are simply trying to make a buck and write about topics that they are familiar with.

The first section I chose to look through was the Writing section. While I found several well thought out, well written posts, I also found plenty that were extremely sub par for anyone classifying themselves as a writer.

Even those that are writing on topics other than writing, have to at least put forth an effort to edit their work for spelling and grammar.

If you want to be a writer, great, then train to be a writer. Learn what it
takes. I can tell you right now, it takes knowing the English language
(or whatever language you plan to write in) and at least a little bit
of grammar.

I mean really, how can you expect your readers to
take you seriously if you don’t know the difference between your and
you’re? This is pretty basic stuff in the world of writing.

It’s also something potential employers will notice pretty quickly. With the
amount of people wanting to write these days, weeding out the real
writers from the wanna-bes is as simple as looking for poor grammar and
sentence structure.

Most word processors have a spell check feature; use it often. It won’t catch all of your mistakes, especially if you have used a word incorrectly (such as using senses instead of sensed), but it will help you find some of them.

Now it is not only new Internet writers that I take issue with. It drives me nuts to no end when I spend $30+ on a hard cover novel just to find errors within. These authors get paid a
LOT of money AND they have actual editors checking their work - or so I thought. I can’t help but red pen (correct errors) any book I am reading; I try to contain myself when it is a library book of course.

I am not claiming to be perfect - I know I have come across blog posts (different blog) I have written and published last year where I find errors. I make sure I correct them
when I find them. But as this is blog writing, I suppose I don’t spend as
much time editing as I do while writing for work, but I should and so should you.

I guess the point I am trying to get across is that, please reread your work,
try to look at it with fresh eyes, and if you don’t already know them,
learn the basics of grammar.

What you write is often the first impression you will make on your readers, and perhaps most of them are not as picky as I am on this subject, but I know if I am reading and
find grammatical errors, I won’t likely be visiting your site again.

Harsh? Maybe.

Put your best word forward.