I have always said that I do not have an aptitude for languages and my creative writing absolutely sucks. Making my nightmare worse here on steemit is the fact that English is my second language and there is nothing flowing naturally from this limited database of mine.
I was crazy enough to put my "Brave girl panties" on and enrolled for an English course this semester. What a challenge this is going to be . . . . with my first week of assignments, I already started to sweat blood, learning some very important grammar rules, having to read a few articles and giving my opinion on the discussion board about what I have learned from it. The worst of all by far for this week was the "love letter" to an object I had to compile. It took me hours trying to suck some creative juices from "who knows where all" to complete this assignment.
This week's reading and discussion board assignment included four articles of which "Born to Write" by Hal Zina Bennett was my chosen one as he argues against the idea that writing is a magical gift bestowed on a few. What I have learned from this article and by studying up a bit more on the net about the subject, opened up a whole new world for me. I now have the confidence and belief that I too with hard work and determination can become a better author here on steemit.
The article "Born to Write" started off with a quote by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi which I feel is incredibly encouraging and true: "When we choose a goal and invest ourselves in it to the limits of our concentration, whatever we do will be enjoyable. And once we have tasted this joy, we will redouble our efforts to taste it again. This is the way the self grows."
Being born with a talent or an aptitude for writing can surely assist in making the task easier, but often we see in nearly every discipline that talent without passion, determination and hard work fades along the way. Stephen King had this to say about talent: “Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.” The Famous John Irving, an American novelist and Academy Award-winning screenwriter said the following about his talent: “I wouldn’t say I have a talent that’s special. It strikes me that I have an unusual kind of stamina.”
I always felt quite content in saying that I do not have the aptitude for languages or creative writing, but yesterday after reading these words below, I had to face the reality that I have always been making an excuse, taking the easy way out of which there is none. Barbara Baig in “The Talent Myth, The Writer, April 2012” explained: “Talent, I have long told my students, is the assumptions we make about other people’s abilities that keep us from developing our own.”
We all here on steemit can develop a talent or aptitude for writing with the endless supply of tools available at our fingertips. It requires of us to seek the knowledge in the craft of writing, obtaining the necessary knowledge of the chosen subject, and knowing what our niche is. We need to practice a little self-belief (we are all original and have some value to add), build up the courage and take the bull by its horns with the sheer determination to succeed.
I wish you all who struggles with English writing good luck and will leave you with the words by Sylvia Plath: “And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt.”
Please drop me a line in the reply box as I would love to hear your voice on this topic!
Keep smiling, reading, writing and voting!!!
.. I always has a self-doubt ... thats is really my enemy. .. and English is my 2nd language which is kinda hard for me to make a good article ' ... but thanks for this i learned something. .
Roykie17, I know you will get better as you practice writing here on steemit. The only advice I can give you is to read a lot and keep a notebook where you write new words which you have learned from your reading. Make it a goal to learn 5 new words a day.
thank u for the tips... i will do that...
This is really nice, thanks for sharing. English is my second language also , it's difficult to come up with good write ups most times but I just relax ,sit back and you my own to think . What ever comes out then I can edit to make sure it's good to be posted . I haven't really done much posting but I would catch up . Thanks for the inspiration. It would be nice if you can check out my page and see if you enjoy some of my post and support from time to time . Thanks again.
Cheers
Thank you janrotas, I appreciate this comment and will go look at your posts.
@crazymumzysa People with Talent exist and they don't need to work hard to be good at something, but that is actually a problem with talented people they can only be good if they don't work hard. Most talented people get praised for they natural gift and think they do not need hard work. Someone who is not talented but loves working hard can destroy talent at any time.
Thank you, redbikk. A person with talent has that something special which you just cannot get even with dedication and hard work. I have 3 boys, all of them playing the recorder, piano and guitar. Each one of them can make one of these instruments sing so beautifully that it touches your soul and gives you goosebumps. For my oldest it is the guitar, for the second one it is the flute, and for my last born, it is the piano. When comparing a talented person with one who had to work hard, you can pick up the difference. The one who works hard will technically have no flaws but yet it will not touch your inner being as the talented one would.
I don't think it's a born gift, I certainly believe writing is something you might be prone to, but if you're not connected to what you're writing, it will never be as powerful. Writing needs to an honest exposure of the writer, when pen touches paper, the ink should be the glue which holds that writers soul to his words. I think this ability comes about the same as any art form does, with desire, practice, and integrity.
Thank you so much for these true words, migzillion: " ....when pen touches paper, the ink should be the glue which holds that writers soul to his words." I have experienced while writing on steemit that when my heart and soul is not in a post, my audience does not enjoy it as much. It is also so much harder for me to order my thoughts and be creative if I am not in the right mind. I often feel guilty for not producing quality work.
You don't need to feel guilty, the quality is only a matter of truth - if you were honest in what you wrote, it should be the only requirement!
well great strategy to work on and develop on itself
Thank you very much and good luck, gkumar.
upvoted and follow :) i hope u upvote and follow me :)
Well, writing. I can't say much just that with any other activity, you have to put in your best, and that applies to writing as well.
Great post there. Kudos.
Thank you krystalzone. True, all we do requires hard work.
You have got really creative talent. Nice post @crazymumzysa
Hi! I am happy to inform you this post made it to the TOP 7 POSTERS & POST OF THE DAY
You can Read more about it here TOP 7 POSTERS & POST OF THE DAY
I wish it will send some more traffic to your Post.
Thank you for writing awesome content
Thank you very much, ambmicheal. I truly appreciate your support. Enjoy a lovely week!
Hey, my name is Nadine and I am new on steemit. Maybe you can check out my post as well and follow back, Thank you :-)
https://steemit.com/travel/@leo-tmp/a-wonderful-weekend-at-mon-jam-chiang-mai-my-travel-diary
I really love your post. Great!!!
For some they are born with it but some develop a habit to write and boy they are good.
A very nice and impressive article..exactly,we must think outside the box. One can show his creativity in this platform..
Those who read the most tend to have the ability to write better. I wanted to be a writer once but finally had to accept the fact that I suck at writing or perhaps it was just an excuse and I didn't want it badly enough to pursue it.
Well, for someone who thinks they're not good at writing, I think you're doing a stellar job!
So, I started my degree this year after 14 years of putting it off. As those who study know, a lot of writing is envolved. I always struggled to write anything coherent and the only place I woyld really write anything, was in my journal. I never thought that writing for public consumption would ever be something I would enjoy.
Two months ago, I had a few thoughts in my head and consequently pulled out my phone and started typing out what I wasbthinking on Google Notes.
I discovered something. I like to write. Who would have thought?
Now I am on Steemit, a place where that is what you do.
Now about yout views on "talent". I agree with you, no one is born with talent, but I do believe that we all have the potential for any particular talent, just some of us have more of an inclination to pursue something that interests us.
Then the hard work ensues and after years of practice and excercising that talent, people will say things like, "she is a musical genius." Not realising that that "genius" took years to develop.
Hard work. Lots and lots of hard work!
I love this post! I wish Steemit had a section for favourites.
WHAT TO DO WITH GRAMMAR? I relativly know english, ukrainian and my native language is russian. But at every those languages I have problems with grammar. I don't want to learn all those rules, do someone has an idea how to understand grammar?
I don't think you can be born with it because you need to know some language and language have to be learned. Whether it can be created, I'm not sure. To certain extend it can. I know there courses on writing short stories which I know were useful to people whom I know attended in the sense it helps them write better. However, not to the extend they write so excellent stuff that made them some big famous celebrity writer. :-)
well great strategy to work on and develop on itself
I was also once very bad at writing, but as they say practice makes perfect, I kept writing and I think I have noticed some improvements over time.
This piece really touched my heart, thank you for writing it. I just love these two quotes you used, they gave me a real smile because they are so true:
I appreciate the fact that not only are you making a huge effort to learn the English language; you are actually humble enough to admit that you struggle to write in it quite as well as you could if you were writing in your native language. Don't worry, I feel your pain; although I can understand a fair bit of Mandarin, I lack the confidence to write lengthy articles in that particular language. I think that you are doing a very good job of writing in English so far, keep going!
One thing that has been irritating me on Steemit as of late... This may come across as insensitive, prejudiced or even racist, but I am getting rather annoyed by the amount of poorly written English language articles that have appeared recently. It often appears that many an author is not really writing these articles in English, but merely feeding articles written in their native language into a translation website and posting the results in the hope that their work will be read by a wider audience.
In my opinion, such authors should restrict themselves to posting in their native language until they feel confident enough to write in English without relying too heavily upon the use of translation tools that have a tendency to produce absolutely awful results.
Thank you for your reply, strayenglishman. I can understand where you are coming from, but feel the main motive which drives these people is money. I know some steemians for whom one dollar is like manna from heaven. We should assist by giving them uplifting feedback and advice on how to improve, together we can make this a better platform.
Wow,what an encouraging post! I loved it.
I also believe writing can be learned through hard work and passion. Anybody can write, I mean we all write, either through text or emails. But to be a writer who evokes emotions with words, then you need to practise and practise more. You need to learn from great writers out there. Writers like Stephen King. Writers who take you places. Writers who can make you sad and angry in just one paragraph. When you reach this level of writing then you'll be on another level. And this level can only be reached through constant practice and hard work.
help me to earn dollars
Well said. I think Steemit is the great tool to boost our confidence in writing. Thinking that somebody who doesn't know you agrees with you, regardless on which topic, is liberating. So thank you for this post. But I must say, that I would never imagine that English is your second language.
As a writer by profession, my analytical side immediately jumped awake and alert when I came across your post. You are right to quote the legends on this one - talent and hard work, and the perfect balance between them is what lets you master absolutely anything in this world - be it a career, a book, an ability - anything.
The difference is that talent is loud and fierce, and hard work is silent and consistent. This is why you can often tell if a stranger is talented, but not quite as many instances would there be when you can easily pass a verdict on how hard working someone is.
With that idea in mind, I personally saw that you do have talent - why else would it keep me scrolling and reading till the end of the post? You have an earnest, true and simple way of writing that may let people easily relate to what you're writing about. I myself could.
About refining this skill and hard work, however, there is so much that you can do. I could suggest some life-altering, captivating books that not only help you grow in your person, but also help teach you about language, literature and discovering your own way of writing. It's an art. And art merely flows.
Never settle for "good enough", keep trying and you're set. :)
That John Irving quote sums it up for me.
I would say that there are people who are talented with writing words.
It's lies within them.
But i am for 100% sure that everyone can learn how to write.
Why i am saying that?
BecauseI have learned it myself.
I made a course in creative writing. Primarily for fiction writing.
But I know that everyone can learn it.
I love that photo about nothing being impossible! Now I feel all fuzzy inside.
I love writing. But I have the fear of not putting words in the right structure. In a proper English. Hence, English is my second language.
soooooooo cute