Expert: Susan Rand - 6/28/2007

Question
Hi, susan I have just read your answer to the 16year old girl regarding the writng courses.
This may seem a bit odd that I want to become a writer but never actually have i done anything to move me forward in that direction.

I am 20 years old and have a wild, creative imagination that can sometimes run away with me, when about 16years old myself I wrote love stories and a lot of poems.  I stopped at some age between 17 and 18 and concentrated on getting a work and finishing matric. I am a receptionist now for more then a year. And my fiancè one day said that he thinks I should've been a writer.  This got me thinking about how passionate I can be when writing a piece.
I am afrikaans speaking and write in afrikaans as well as english.  I do know my english needs a lot of work considering spelling and grammer etc.

My question simply is:
How do one start to live out a dream you failed to believe in in the first place?
How do I improve on my own mindset regarding the dream of writing and to actually start somewhere and do it!
* about the writing my mom usually were the only one to read my short stories and she reads a lot so I trusted her point of view, She once said to me about a english story I wrote - I don't describe the setting of the story well enough and I jump from place to place to get to the end.
How can I adjust to the right feeling of the story to describe charachters more clearly , and create the right setting in my writing for the story.

Answer
Hello Adri:

I am sorry, but your questions are much too broad and vague to answer in the space allotted here.

If you are contemplating writing in English - and perhaps making a career of it at some point in the future, you need first to learn the basics: spelling, grammar, usage, etc. It will help if you will read as many books written in English as you can find, also to practice your writing. It seems you have a good critic in your mother; I would continue to seek her advice.

At http://worddistillery.com (You will have to cut and paste as this site does not support hyperlinks), you will find a group of helpful folks who are willing and able to aid you.

I hope this helps. If it does, a nice rating would be greatly appreciated. I am proud of my high score over 1,000 questions.

And good luck with your writing!