The Writing Roller Coaster

Roller Coaster at
Dorney Park in PA

When it comes to writing, it's been an up and down sort of relationship for me. As a child I enjoyed it. Book reports, short stories, poems... I couldn't get enough. And I was pretty good at it. A book I wrote for a writing competition in the 8th grade actually earned an honorable mention. A book... 45 Pages, 27 Chapters - though to be fair, each chapter is only one page. But, still. It even had pictures! I still have it. Someday, I might even type it up and post it online.

Even in high school I didn't mind the creative writing or research paper assignments. Papers on books, however, I started to hate. A book report in elementary school, no problem. Analysis of a literary classic, no thank you. As the analysis papers started to outnumber the creative writing projects my dislike for writing grew. And it got worse and worse as I got older. Every correction on a paper sent closer to the edge. The older I got, the more mistakes I got corrected on and the more I dreaded writing. It got to the point in college that I would have a full on panic attack over having to write a paper. Had to take English 101 4 times (or was it 5) before I passed it. Thankfully, my last English teacher was very encouraging and that calmed a bit of the anxiety. But it's not completely gone... If I get pressed with a deadline I get terribly freaked out. And it takes everything I have to try and get it done. It's why I only write for my own blogs these days... Can't handle the pressure of someone else's deadline.

One of my reasons for getting papers back with the dreaded red marks is I am a terrible speller. And that spelling issue led to a hatred of really long words. We did have computers back in the day, so I was able to type out the larger assignments. And there was spell check, although it was pretty basic. It told you if something was wrong, but no options for how to correctly spell the word. And with no real Internet at the time you had to crack open a dictionary to find the correct spelling. Or if you were like me, rewrite the entire sentence to avoid using that word. I had to do that a lot on in class work where a computer wasn't an option. I still do it today, though thanks to spell check being everywhere, I don't have to do it a lot. And I know there are critics who say spell check makes you lazy or a poor writer, but I feel because of it I'm a better writer and my spelling has improved.

Even with spell check, to this day I still have issues with words like thing/think, change/chance, and of course, then/than. There isn't a spell checker in the world that can cure me of those errors. If you are ever reading something I wrote and see something with those words and it doesn't make sense... replace it with its match. I'm constantly doing it on Facebook and Twitter. Even when proof reading my posts I tend to miss them. The only way I really know if I made the mistake is my mom points them out to me. I've gotten a whole lot better at proofing my work, so I find I'm making the mistakes less and less.

Speed is another reason for errors in my writing. I think way faster than I write or type. This causes words and letters to get a little "out of order" so to speak. There is a classic quote by A. A. Milne, the creator of Winnie-the-Pooh that pretty much sums me up in the spelling and writing department:

“My spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places.” - A. A. Milne

Thankfully, these days the writing bug seems to be returning. Because of a lot of praise for my writing in recent years and my biggest cheerleader, my mom, I've been pushing myself to write more and worry less. If it's a tricker piece, I have editor friends that are happy to help. If it's a more personal post, I don't sweat it... The mistakes add character. ;) And I've come to rely a lot on my dictionary widget on my MacBook, you know, for those tough words. Also, general experience, lots of reading, and a ton of college classes has done wonders for my vocabulary and spelling, though it's not nearly as impressive as I wish it was. Maybe by the time I'm 60, I'll be able to toss around those massive words that my professional writer and teacher friends use... Though, if I did, someone might think I was body snatched, because big words aren't really my style. Unless they are words like Raxacoricofallapatorius... then it's okay, unless you ask me to spell it.