Hey all! I am just curious as to whether or not YOU would read a blog if it didn't have the best sentence structure, punctuation, and so on. Like if it was still clear as to what was being communicated. Would you continue to read it despite it not being perfectly structured, if it was comedic and painted a solid picture of the stories in each post?

Here is an example:

The Dental Saga continues!

It's been a full 2 weeks of dental hell, post my oral surgery. It remains to be that I cannot fully open my jaw. If there is anything to know about me, it is that I am an absolute foodie, to say the least! Beyond that, I am an emotional eater. I mean, how is a girl supposed to eat her feelings when she can't open her mouth taller than a slice of bread? At this point, it's more of a mail slot than a food hole. Still, you know this girl right here is gonna try! Chicken nuggets, cheese puffs, something has to fit past my teeth.

I thought about what all I could potentially get into my mouth (giggidy).

Aha! Pizza! Not just any pizza... Round table - Italian garlic supreme. drools. That garlic sauce, those meat toppings, and the lack of height allowing it to cram into my yapper. Yaaas! Pizza.

After pulling up Uber Eats on my phone, I put in an alarmingly expensive order for one extra-large pizza, an order of BBQ wings, and all the ranch dressing they would allow (because I'm THAT person). I excitedly waited for my order to arrive and once it was here, it was GAME ON!

I piled my plate 4 slices high. This had been a long time coming. Finally, a substantial amount of food that I could actually eat. No more sodium-laden soups. No more generic vanilla protein shakes. Some propper, greasy, eat my feeling, junk food!

I fed the slices of pizza into my mouth one at a time, like paper feeding out of a printer. It couldn't be more satisfying. The garlic cream sauce, the gooey cheese. I was in love, and once I got to the last bit of pizza on my plate, I leaned back and patted my belly with satisfaction. Sure, there would be heartburn later. SURE, I was about to have the carb crash of a lifetime. I didn't care. In my eyes, I had won this round of dental food battle. Till breakfast my friends...till breakfast.

chuckles that was cute! and I get it. I had the same problem when I had my wisdom teeth pulled. :) Regarding feedback of your blog. I can get past punctuation, errors, etc. if the story is there. Probably because I am that person. With a story to tell accompanied by all the glorious lack of proper English grammar to tell it. I think you did well :)

Ok, I have a degree in this sort of thing and have worked professionally in the publishing world, so let me offer some advice:

You have raw natural expressive talent in your writing, the kind that cannot be taught! I would encourage you to cultivate those talents with craft, the actual nuts-and-bolts command of your writing that you can learn. Your prose is lively and interesting but also a bit haphazard and riddled with mistakes. Yes, this matters.

Grammar matters. Spelling matters. Sentence and paragraph structure matter. They are not just formalities or nitpicky reasons for stuffy English professors to downgrade your college essay. You need to be in command of the language in order to be in command of the story you are trying to tell.

Consistent grammar and spelling demonstrate that you care about the work you are creating. A solid structure helps you convey your message and retains your audience's attention. Reading through this post, the mistakes took me out of the story you were trying to tell, like I was driving down a lovely, scenic road, but it was full of potholes.

A blog page riddled with mistakes, with no consideration paid to structure, sends a clear message: The writer doesn't care about this blog, and I shouldn't either. This is true no matter how much your friends and random people on the internet tell you otherwise because it works on an almost subconscious level. Each mistake is a distraction, and these add up to a very uncomfortable reading experience.

That doesn't mean I'm discouraging you, far from it! Like I said, it's the natural talent part that can't be taught, and you have that. If you want to create a blog, my advice is to respect yourself, respect your readers, and respect the work you are trying to create by paying attention to the craft of writing. I firmly believe that anyone can learn the craft. If there are gaps in your knowledge the web is full of helpful resources (and text checkers like Grammarly, which I haven't tried but have heard good things about). You can also ask the smartest and most literate friends and family you have to read over your work and offer revision suggestions before you publish. (Revision, often multiple passes, is a must). You can even hire a professional editor--you'd be amazed at how inexpensive they can be for short work. Seek the advice of critical people who are going to put red marks all over your pages, not people who are going to just praise it without giving critical feedback.

The first thing you should do is learn more about the craft of writing. I recommend Stephen King's book On Writing as a starting point. It has an excellent section on craft and why it matters. He visualizes craft as tools in a toolbox. There are many more important issues to consider beyond grammar, spelling, and sentence composition. You understand a lot by instinct but learning about your tools helps you make deliberate choices while writing. Let me throw out a few topics for research: Voice Point of View Pacing Tension Narrative Summary/Exposition (And when not to use it) Dialogue Description Characterization Theme Tone Sense of Place Tense Sentence Variation

Also, blogs like the one you are proposing are essentially diary-style personal essays, so learn more about essay writing and read a lot of blogs that inspire you. Read high quality blogs that you aspire to, including the kind that come from people with editorial staffs at their disposal. Push yourself to be the best writer you can be.

The next time you read a blog post, do so with a critical eye. Try to actively think about what you do and do not like about a particular blog post. Write down what works and what doesn't work. Print it on paper. Cross out any mistakes you find. Circle any areas that could be improved. Try and understand the blog post from the writer's perspective: Why did they make the choices they made? How did they succeed and how did they fail? All of this helps you develop a critical mindset that informs your writing process. It also gives you strong footing from which to analyze and revise your own work before you publish it.

Workshopping (trading your work with another aspiring writer who writes similar stuff, and doing in-depth analysis for feedback) is highly recommended if you can find a good partner or group. You not only get a lot of feedback this way, you also develop your own analytical mind and cultivate your own personal aesthetic by thinking critically about the work of others.

Note: If you want to just write for yourself and a handful of friends, don't worry about anything I've just said. The advice still applies but your friends won't care and will appreciate the things you write anyway. However, if your intention is to write something you can take pride in and publish it for a wider audience, learn your craft. It's simply essential if you want what you write to be taken seriously or enjoyed outside of a small circle of friends.

Producing good writing is not easy, it takes commitment, hard work, and a lifetime of learning and growing! There are no shortcuts and no substitutes for learning your craft! You are competing with tens of thousands of other good storytellers who have put the nuts-and-bolts work in. Like anything, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing your best!

<3

I agree with Vic that those things are important.

However, if you are writing just for fun, then pick it all up as you go. Sometimes it is fun to just write from your heart and not worry about all the rules.

I very much enjoyed your piece; I got the picture you were trying to convey. I would read more as you are writing now.

What would turn me off - is misspellings and chat-speak... I cannot read things like that. It makes the writer sound uneducated.

Thank you all! <3

Vic, that was amazing helpful of you! It means a lot that despite knowing where my mistakes fall, you still see potential. I have been dipping my toes here and there and trying to see what feels right in terms of the next step in my life so I get what you mean about committing fully. You're right, there are no short cuts. I think that is what scares me. I feel that crunch for time, especially with the desire for my hubby and I to have a kid. I know I am going to have to full commit myself to something and the fear of that something being the wrong thing has me spinning a bit. It's really good to know that someone professionally finds it to be worth my effort to sink time into.

I definitely think so!

As far as time is concerned, one of the great things about writing is that you can learn and explore it on your own schedule.

There are also writing retreats and workshops you might want to attend. Universities in your area probably offer public readings and lectures you might look into attending. There are some amazing youtube channels out there. If you ever find you have taken your work as far as you can take it alone, there are also Brief Residency MFA programs (which are traditional university Masters Degree programs in writing that are done largely through correspondence with your mentors, so you can do most of the writing work from home and minimize the disruption in your life). I was lucky enough to attend a wonderful school and they offered Brief Residency programs in nonfiction, fiction, drama, and poetry. These programs provide opportunities to travel with other up and coming writers to learn from some of the best writers in their fields. <3 You don't really need formal higher education in writing to write great stuff--but it helps a great deal and def helps a motivated writer take their good work to a new level. The community aspect is also so encouraging.

In any event I would recommend utilizing professional and academic resources, as well as advice from published writers, editors, and publishers. Be careful of amateur youtube channels and clickbait-style advice. You might find something useful there (there are sparkling gems) but there's also a lot of bad or poorly understood practice circulating online.

Anyway good luck and I'd love to read your writing in the future!