Every writer to have ever lived has had the same common foe: the blank page. We each develop our own strategies to how we slay said beast yet every writer will tell you their individual method is fool proof and try to pass it off as definitive. We’re all wrong, of course, what works for me might not be feesible for your brain, depending on how it is wired. There is one prompt, however, every writer is told when we are learning our craft from those who came before us, write about what you know about.
While I was in college I had to write a ton of crap about things I had zero knowledge of and even elss interest in. While write what you know sounds good, in theory, let me tell you as a former professional journalist, sometimes you have to get to know something in a hurry, and as such you never fully become an expert in that subject, you just learn enough to do the job and move on to the next project. Things move pretty fast in the breaking news cycle so your constantly learning, and immediately forgetting so much useless crap that it starts to make you feel like you never get to actually wring about the things you do know, like your professors kept saying.
So here I am writing about what I do know about. That is myself. This isn’t just an opportunity to jot down my own thoughts on what writing means to me, although I can clearly see it going in that direction. I also want to kinda of use this as a chance to talk about a few things I am familiar with that I probably wouldn’t do so otherwise.
The first thing I want to get off my chest is the false narrative surrounding the importance of proper grammar. Sure in my English classes the professors insisted grammar was essential to good writing. Yet in my Linguistics class my professor proved, time and again, how false that notion truly was. The common example English nerds use is “We’re gaving grandma for supper” versus “we’re having grandma, for supper.” they argue that placing the comma in the wrong spot would confuse the reader into thinking the familer were cannibals. Yet my Lingustics professor pointed out that based on context clues, even without the so-called correct placement of the comma, the context dictates that nobody would read that sentence and immediately assume cannibalism. Obviously this is a single example grammar nerds use but there are surely others. Even when I was still in college I hard to learn MLA style APA style and AP style. If you are not familiar with AP style, that is Associated Press, they are less interested in correct punctuation and grammar as they are more about concise thoughts. The idea is newspapers used to have to pay for ink so they wanted to minimize the charatcers put to page to reduce the cost of going to press. This led to the development of a semi formal but casual, readable gramma that, technically more correct than spoken vernacular, is still not what English professors would call “proper” by any stretch. Of course these days everything is written with digital in mind so the ink cost is no longer a factor. I guess my point is focus more on clarity than so called rules. If the reader is confused, in our world of instant feedback, they will surely let you know in which case you can provide additional clarity if needed, or edit the article to rectify said perceived wrongs. The point is write what you know and don’t worry if it is English school textbook correct or now. Because at the end of the day, nobody cares.
Stephanie Bri 