I’m worried that my writing skills are slipping so for the past few months I’ve taken measures to work on my craft and make sure I’m staying sharp.
It’s kind of funny how you can get comfortable in a certain role or with your way of doing things, and you no longer think of improving. But I’m making mistakes, I’m getting sloppy. I’m letting auto correct catch things for me.
Ways I’m keeping up my writing skills
In the spirit of staying sharp I attended an afternoon writing seminar where it was said I would learn about first-person storytelling. And I thought, excellent! I’ll see what I can learn.
It was an interesting day, and I enjoyed interacting with other writers, but when we actually sat down to do our exercise I found it…I don’t know what the right phrase is. Too easy? No, that’s not it. I’ll explain.
After sketching out five or six quick ideas for the assignment I completed my five-part outline in 10 minutes. Maybe less.
Then I played Words With Friends and Draw Something for the rest of the brainstorming time. It was weird. In school I was always the one taking each and every last second to finish my assignments and exams. In fact I distinctly recall times where I failed to complete my exams because I either ran out of pages or time.
Things have changed
Now I’m the one goofing around waiting for an appropriate time to get a coffee refill. It’s uncomfortable.
Next, we went into sharing time and once again, I was different.
People were sharing touching and meaningful stories. There were emotions. More specifically sad ones, with tears. Then came my turn.
Succinctly I shared the five parts of my article. It took about three minutes. Then I smiled and folded my hands. Everyone stared at me.
Strange experience.
My story wasn’t less personal, but I was detached from the details. I pondered this my entire drive home (which took an hour longer than I expected it to) and for the next two days.
I did learn something, but not what I thought I would.
Now I know I have become a prolific writer…and can probably find a story from any experience.
But…Well, I have questions.
Other ways I’m keeping sharp with my writing
One more thing. You may be interested in my free resource library. This is where I keep my files, downloads, ebooks, worksheets and whatever else I manage to create. I love sharing what I learn and want to keep adding to this library so it becomes a wealth of helpful goodness.
This is a free resource but I do require a password to access the library itself. You can get access by popping your email address into the form below.