Writing and Self Discovery
By Donald Jones
Self-discovery is one of the benefits I have received from writing. First, I discovered how much I failed to learn about English when I was in school. This became another demon to fight with as I struggled to learn the craft of writing. Second, the colloquial speech habits learned while growing up more often then not creep into my writing. Even though I want to write like a pro, I find myself sliding back into old habits without recognizing it.
As a young man starting out in the ministry, I discovered as I moved across the country that there were some words I used that were not found in the dictionary. These were a cause for some very embarrassing moments. One of those words was” wasp”. I always heard it pronounced as “wasper”, which one would think would be easy to catch. However, if everyone around you uses it, you don‘t notice. Then, there is the well used “ain’t”.
Learning when to use a comma, and sliding in and out of past, present, and future tenses, are also big hurdles for me to overcome. Then there is the problem of misusing a word.
Recently I asked a friend who is a professional writer for his opinion on one of my articles.. When he sent it back, he had edited and corrected some minor mistakes. The things he changed did not appear to me to be in error, but they were wrong. It made me realize just how little I know about the English language. For me, writing is not only fun, but has become a passion. If I continue to write, and I will, then I will have to accept that I will always be involved in the process of discovery and learning, as well as re-educating myself on those early principles that I failed to pick up when I was in elementary school.
Self-discovery also means developing a willingness to be corrected by your peers, to learn that writing is about re-writing until you get it right. No matter how old you are, you are never too old to learn new tricks.