I recently had the pleasure, or lack thereof, of stumbling upon some of my old papers I wrote back in 8th grade that I still have saved on my hard drive. Now mind you, this isn't even very long ago, this stuff is from early 2007, after I got my current computer. I look at how much I've evolved in my writing in just two years, it's really quite astounding. Hell, even something from December 2007 is such a huge jump. I can probably really thank my English teacher last year, as we had to write a paper pretty much every week. Most of it was just a page or so, but it really helped me get ideas across more concisely than what I ever could have done before that. I might also thank forums to an extent, even though I really haven't posted on many. It's generally good practice for writing, and has probably improved my typing speed greatly.

And I consider myself a strong writer today, when I read other people's current stuff in school I silently laugh and think how much better mine is, and give them tips on how to improve their work. I think I've really developed an appreciation for the English language in the past year or so, and I find myself writing as much as I can. I love that feeling I get when I take something I wrote up, and play around with the sentences until I think "Wow, this is really good!"

I wish I knew where my old Power of the Pen stories were from 6th grade, because those were awful, I even knew it at the time. My creative writing sucks though, I've never gotten the hang of that.

Hmm, it seems I just kinda rambled on there, so contribute how you will. Talk about the evolution of your writing that you've seen since years ago, maybe someone helped you write better, post a small sample of something if you aren't too embarrassed, etc. Also how good of a writer are you today? Are you better with creative writing or something else?

Just talk about writing I suppose.

I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

xitel:
I have found that I do all my best writing a) without any pre-planning, and b) at 2:00 AM the day it's due.

QFT.

~~ I don't know where you're from Shivari, or if you're even a native English speaker; But I'm Danish myself, and I had the same realisation that you've just had, a few years back :)
Whenever I start slacking, get sloppy, make both misspellings, and grammar errors, I take up some sort of English-speaking forum. Everyone on the Internet are elitist snobs, anyhow (Wink wink) and as such errors are quickly corrected.

In the schools I've gone to, I think I'm the only person that knows the difference between there, their and they're.
I'm like...a novelist or something. So, I try to improve my writing skill. Any lack thereof I blame on the public school system.

Give me 24 hours to get back to my PC. Do you want fictional or non-fictional?

I'd say my writing really improved last year. Partly due to a great English teacher and partly due to regular practice (writing reviews.) Looking back on some of my old pieces I can see how my style has evolved and improved. I'm really enjoying writing reviews and getting feedback on them too.

smallharmlesskitten:
Give me 24 hours to get back to my PC. Do you want fictional or non-fictional?

Whatever you want to post, it's up to you.

s0denone:
~~ I don't know where you're from Shivari, or if you're even a native English speaker; But I'm Danish myself, and I had the same realisation that you've just had, a few years back :)
Whenever I start slacking, get sloppy, make both misspellings, and grammar errors, I take up some sort of English-speaking forum. Everyone on the Internet are elitist snobs, anyhow (Wink wink) and as such errors are quickly corrected.

I live in the US, so I'm a native English speaker. In a few years when I'm better at Spanish (I'm in Spanish 3 right now) I might try out a Spanish forum, as that sounds like a good way to practice and get some new words down.

smallharmlesskitten:
Give me 24 hours to get back to my PC. Do you want fictional or non-fictional?

Fictional.

Main character:
Full name: Jack "Smack" Chad.
Occupation: Detective.
Personality: Jack is a lowlife thug gone detective, he carries weapons on his person at all times, and forces himself onto others at all times. He loves the women, and "specializes" in adultery cases. He has a camera with zoom, although he claims otherwise in certain cases, so he is sometimes forced to "move closer" to his targets.

Sidekick:
Full name: Betty "McBoob" Fanny.
Occupation: Woman with large breasts. "Secretary".
Personality: Betty likes Jack, because he has her smack. She provides comedic relief in an otherwise dark and stale atmosphere, along with carrying her evident very womanly figure.

A-go-go-go.

Both it is!

Shivari:

smallharmlesskitten:
Give me 24 hours to get back to my PC. Do you want fictional or non-fictional?

Whatever you want to post, it's up to you.

s0denone:
~~ I don't know where you're from Shivari, or if you're even a native English speaker; But I'm Danish myself, and I had the same realisation that you've just had, a few years back :)
Whenever I start slacking, get sloppy, make both misspellings, and grammar errors, I take up some sort of English-speaking forum. Everyone on the Internet are elitist snobs, anyhow (Wink wink) and as such errors are quickly corrected.

I live in the US, so I'm a native English speaker. In a few years when I'm better at Spanish (I'm in Spanish 3 right now) I might try out a Spanish forum, as that sounds like a good way to practice and get some new words down.

I credit most of my written English to forums and computer-games in general. Most of my oral English to my time in World of Warcraft. I even got myself a "Brighton accent", can even switch to Irish or Scottish if you like. Haven't got my American under control though :)

The interwebs are gut praktise.!

And I have already written my pieces. They are at home however.

Shivari:
I recently had the pleasure, or lack thereof, of stumbling upon some of my old papers I wrote back in 8th grade that I still have saved on my hard drive. Now mind you, this isn't even very long ago, this stuff is from early 2007, after I got my current computer. I look at how much I've evolved in my writing in just two years, it's really quite astounding. Hell, even something from December 2007 is such a huge jump. I can probably really thank my English teacher last year, as we had to write a paper pretty much every week. Most of it was just a page or so, but it really helped me get ideas across more concisely than what I ever could have done before that. I might also thank forums to an extent, even though I really haven't posted on many. It's generally good practice for writing, and has probably improved my typing speed greatly.

And I consider myself a strong writer today, when I read other people's current stuff in school I silently laugh and think how much better mine is, and give them tips on how to improve their work. I think I've really developed an appreciation for the English language in the past year or so, and I find myself writing as much as I can. I love that feeling I get when I take something I wrote up, and play around with the sentences until I think "Wow, this is really good!"

I wish I knew where my old Power of the Pen stories were from 6th grade, because those were awful, I even knew it at the time. My creative writing sucks though, I've never gotten the hang of that.

Hmm, it seems I just kinda rambled on there, so contribute how you will. Talk about the evolution of your writing that you've seen since years ago, maybe someone helped you write better, post a small sample of something if you aren't too embarrassed, etc. Also how good of a writer are you today? Are you better with creative writing or something else?

Just talk about writing I suppose.

Y'know, I was in exactly the same position as you are. I remember (and I'm not being arrogant here, it's the truth) being a far more competent writer than anyone else in my class. For example, when given a creative writing task and everyone around me was writing about batman or soldiers, I decided to write about the crisis in Somalia (this was some time in the early 90s). And so it turned out to be around six pages long and got full marks.

Childhood win, methinks.

But seriously, writing is a great skill to have, in the workplace and outside of the workplace. Keep up with it (I'm trying not to sound patronising here).

I really miss writing... I used to be good at it, according to all my old english teachers, but I haven't writen anything since I quit college, when I was forced to write because it was homework. I dont think I can write unless I'm being forced to...

I think I will take a creative writing class whenever I decide to go back...

I've always loved writing and pretty much from the start I've been better at it than my peers. (I really hope that doesn't sound pompous). My parents never really bothered reading me kid's books when I was young. My earliest memories are my dad reading me Jules Verne's Journey To The Center Of The Earth as nodded off. And of course I didn't understand half the words but I'd ask and he'd explain; so I started pretty young with a larger vocabulary than most people my age and a good example of what strong literature looked like.

That being said, when I look back at my old writings I really am equally surprised by how much I've grown as a writer. I don't know if it's being actively involved on a forum (although, the Rating War Thread definitely deserves some credit), reading more things from different genres or just simple maturity but I really cringe when I see my old stuff.

I'll post something if I can find it. I got this computer a little less than a year ago so it hasn't really got any of my old stuff.

I've always been quite good at the structured argument style writing (I did do a politics degree so I'd hope so!) but I went back to a copy of my 10,000 word dissertation on Christian American Zionism to type it up for a job application (original file had died in the Great Hard Drive crash of '07).

Clearly my enthusiasm for the subject had overridden my ability to type, it was a fucking joke! Still got my 2.1 and done.

I love writing. Most of my writing isn't done for school, though. Most of my writing is done when I'm sitting in my room all filled up with those bastard "emotion" thingies. You'd expect that from that that most of my work would seem all emotional (as in "emo" and "I'm-going-to-kill-myself"), but it almost never is. Usually - since I'm a lonely guy - I write about my most recent feminine interest. And from that you might expect some sort of erotic thing going on, but I've never written anything like that (okay, but that one time didn't count). Nah, I write about... ahem... sorry, not used to stuff like this being said in a public forum... I write about what I like about them, why they're so appealing to me, stuff like that, except I try to make it flow, so it's readable as if it weren't a list. After they're done, I'm nice and cheery, and I throw the paper away.

As for school-related writing, I usually get top-notches on my papers. Last year, in my first week in the class, which was in the second semester of the class (mid-year schedule change), I was in an English class two grades above where I should have been, and we had to write an essay. I came in two days before it was due, so I wrote it up real quick the day it was due, in the classes I had before English class. The next day, the teacher approached me and asked for permission to submit my essay for publication in some magazine or something, because it was among the best student-written essays he'd seen. I felt good, and I just had to brag about that.

I, too, find that I do my best writing at 3 in the morning when I can't sleep. The second best time for me to write is when I have my friends over and one of them brought yet another crappy movie that they insist on hogging the TV with and I'm trying to ignore them. The third best time, of course, is when I have something else I really should be doing instead.

I'm probably the only person who has seen their writing skill decrease over the past couple of years. The amount I do read has decreased and while I am able to form sentences I still end up making grammatical errors, spelling errors and run-on sentences. When I do write papers or articles I lack the ability to keep everything organized even when I do have an outline and a plan. My vocabulary has also decreased because I lack the ability to express my thoughts on paper and when writing I know that you cannot use the same words that you would speak on paper.

The only reason I am able to post properly is that I type these messages as I would say them in a conversation. I am not inhibited by having to think of a long or formal approach to explain what I mean. By getting straight to the point in writing for some reason is considered horrible and I never understood why. I had professors at UCSB look at my papers one getting straight to the point and the other trying to be long winded and following all the rules of writing and the shorter paper was always the better one. However my professors always told me that they cannot accept the work because of the length and it covers the topic too quickly.

I really would like to find ways to improve my writing, and vocabulary because now when I try to write anything I cannot even write a simple letter, review, or article to save my life.

I do my best writing in the library at school, as there aren't any distractions that allow me to procrastinate (it's 5 AM and I should be working on my speech due Monday, but I'm not). Also, I find that when everyone around me is working, it's just so much easier to get right through it without thinking about anything else.

I wish this speech could have been assigned for the 12th or something so that I could work on it at school as well. I have to write and memorize the whole thing in a few days, as I've been super busy over break and tomorrow (well, technically today at this point), the 2nd, is the first day where I can work on this without any interruptions. Yay!

When I was enrolled in an American school a few years ago I was barely able to even write in English let alone speak or understand it. Now I'm very fluent reading and writing this language and having respectable success speaking and understanding spoken English. Al thanks to handy dandy labtop and satellite thingy my step uncle gave me before I moved back here. I can actually thank forums such as this for that. Thank you.

I've hit a point in my writing where, in order to improve, I need to read more, and I need to read both to enjoy the story and understand the techniques being used. I feel like I've figured out as much as a I can on my own, and now it's time to learn from other writers.

I always used to think I was wasting my time in English class. I mean, why study a language I'm already fluent in, right? Then I started writing for a hobby, and was genuinely surprised as to the number of writing techniques I'd been taught and am now using subconsciously.

PirateKing:
In the schools I've gone to, I think I'm the only person that knows the difference between there, their and they're.
I'm like...a novelist or something. So, I try to improve my writing skill. Any lack thereof I blame on the public school system.

Thank you, that one really irritates me to no perceivable end.

Here's one a lot of people have trouble with (oh I just used it!): a lot versus allot versus alot (which is not an actual word so please don't use it)

when do you use its and when do you use it's (or should I say "when does one"?)

Grammer vs. Grammar (that's one I've seen messed up repeatedly on these forums over the past three days)

Small things that only bother me because they are sooooo easy to remedy and such simple things to learn that are so frequently messed up usually multiple times in a single sentence. And, yes, it is the 16 and under crowd who is guilty of it most of the time.

It's good to revisit old writing material to see how you've improved and see how silly it looks to not grasp and use basic linguistic concepts, it is usually the point when people dawn on why things like grammar and spelling do matter.

Grade 12 Writer's Craft has taught me one thing: I suck at creative writing. I remember being very self-conscious to the point where I wouldn't hand in a story on time because I didn't think it was good enough to hand in. However, I often ended up succumbing to the need for marks, and handed it in with minimal improvements.

There were assignments that I did like though. We were given certain scenarios, characters, and writing styles, and we would have to combine the three to make a story. For example, we might have been given an assignment to write a minimalist style story in which a drug addict comes across a catastrophic event and reacts nonchalantly to it. Unfortunately, my teacher poorly organized the assignments, resulting in little time to work on/improve them.

Things like essays and writing in general go however, I've always had an aptitude for. I attribute that partially to the additions to my vocabulary that I gained from (*gasp*) video games. Back in elementary school, I got high marks for writing the flowery, overly descriptive stuff that they tell you not to write when you're around grade 11.

This is probably the best poem I have ever written: Advice to someone who contemplated writing a love poem for a girl he liked.

...make that second best.

mark_n_b:

PirateKing:
In the schools I've gone to, I think I'm the only person that knows the difference between there, their and they're.
I'm like...a novelist or something. So, I try to improve my writing skill. Any lack thereof I blame on the public school system.

-snip-
when do you use its and when do you use it's (or should I say "when does one"?)
-snip-

I'd like that to be cleared up for me as well. I currently use "it's" as a shortened way of writing "it is," or when making a noun belong (eg. It picked up it's apple), however I'm not so certain that I'm using it properly.

EDIT: One Pinata, Many Pinata or One Pinata, Many Pinatas?

It was annoying the heck out of my when I was writing my Viva Pinata review.

I'm rather good at writing argumental pieces essay-wise. I consider myself to be above-par on the creative writing front, although my handwriting never got neater from Primary school, so it's now computer or nothing for me.
Logic is often used throughout my writing. Also, I tend to ramble.

I love writing, i wrote my first 50 page epic in 8th grade.

I used to be relatively good in English(compared to my classmates). This year we've changed the classes, so now I'm great :D Other than that, I still have a handwriting frequently referred to as abstract art of some sort and I still get accused for using a too advanced vocabulary.

Im not the best writer everm but its gone *phwoomp* down and down. Mainly due to the fact im arguing with my english teacher and too stuborn to back down.

I'm ALMOST a published author. I'm just waiting on verification of my galley.

As for improvement, I have a notebook of a story I wrote in 6th grade. It's atrocious, but hilariously so. Something about a boarding school in space and a fight against the principle (whose title is appropriately changed to Darth whateverhisnamewas) and giant robot fights.

I remember it being very fun to write because my friends were in awe of the work itself--sheerly because of the length. It filled the entire marble, and the sequel filled two, though it was never finished.

In tenth grade I wrote a whopping 132,000 (approx.) word story that I've been slowly refining and redrafting since. I'm actually about halfway through the current draft, and it's awesome. I'm new, so I figure I'd be frowned upon for just throwing a couple chapters up for the hell of it.

That which is being published, (Dynasty, available through AuthorHouse currently) is one of several other novel-length projects I've completed, but beside that which I'm writing now, the only one I'm proud of.

For those fledging writers, I offer this bit of advice: write in every genre you can. Sci-fi, Fantasy-fi, Humor, Research, Poetry, and most importantly, stream of consciousness (yes I'm aware that I just ignored a ton of genres. Thanks for noticing; the aforementioned are the ones I've found most enjoyable).

My writing has a very fast metabolism. What sounds like a good idea one night may sound ill thought-out when I attempt to write it the next morning. I tend to get most of my inspiration from songs or cultural references (Which is probably not a good idea, as they often already have stories). My style is influenced a lot by what I've recently read, but as a rule it tends to be stream-of-consciousness first person or very narrator-based. I tend to write tangents to fill in the lore of my stories. Oh yeah, and I love science-fiction comedy. I'm going to shut up now.

I can barely read my own writing and yet I already have an AS in English at 16 and I'm taking the A level exam in about 11 days. Revisions not working so its all down to fate. God my writing should have improved from year 7 but it hasn't

Always found it was a bit like lifting weights. You make tiny little improvements with almost every piece you write, but you can only really tell the difference once a year or two has gone by.

Your best bet is to always keep trying new kinds of writing. Journalism, fiction, sci-fi, character stats, research, and schoolwork are all great practice. Hell, I've been doing tarot cards recently and learning a lot of great skills from it.

Like anything else, it's just practice, practice, practice.

If you do something a million times, then you'll start to get good at it. The whole 'practice makes perfect' line is a lie though. No writing can be perfect.

mshcherbatskaya:
I've hit a point in my writing where, in order to improve, I need to read more, and I need to read both to enjoy the story and understand the techniques being used. I feel like I've figured out as much as a I can on my own, and now it's time to learn from other writers.

Similarly, but I also need to stop getting distracted by "The Next Big Thing", which I just failed again...

I used to write poetry down in Junior school (7 years old, not sure what that would be) but that was all sorts of rubbish. I did that quick piece earlier of Dexter Morgan meeting House M.D., which I'll reprint.