Some readers say to me, “Please don’t stop blogging: you have such a talent for writing.”
I shrug at this point. “I don’t know about that,” I laugh, “I’m just an opinionated fool.”
They want to convince me that I have some unique gift, but I know the truth: I’ve just had a lot of practice.
If you could read my writing from the early days, you wouldn’t be saying this. My writing then was atrocious.
If I have improved over the years since, it is only because I have writen more-or-less daily since 2005.
“If you want to start a blog, just do it,” I reassure them, “the more you practice, the better you’ll become.”
If they think I was a gifted child, they’d be sorely mistaken. Actually, I didn’t start writing seriously until after I left school.
It’s true that the written word is my preferred medium of expression, which makes all the difference, but that’s more by necessity than choice.
“What you see,” I tell them, “this apparent fluency: that’s merely the fruit of unceasing practice. A daily habit.”
Last modified: 5 January 2023
