: Re: Finding it difficult and stress provoking to write a long post For the past few weeks, I have started to write about random things in an attempt to improve my language skills. I figured

@LarsenBagley300

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Autobiographical writing is difficult, because you know exactly what happened. You can't fudge it. Plus, you're writing about emotions and psychological issues, which are notoriously difficult to get right, even in fiction. Combining the two, it isn't surprising that you are having trouble. So, don't stress. Keep at it.

Here is an exercise you can try. Pretend you're a talented 10-year-old, and write something quite dorky and stupid and childish, just for laughs. Write whatever comes into your head, almost stream-of-consciousness, the way you would if you were an older kid telling a bedtime story to a younger kid. Then go back and edit it: fix the spelling and grammar, and the sentence structure, and the word choices. Then analyze it, as if it were a real attempt at a story. Probably it is mostly plot. Find the places where you tell instead of show. Find the places (if any) where you put in characterization, and find the places where you could have put in characterization. Do the same for setting. If you think the story is any good at all, put in some of that characterization and setting. Fix the plot holes, and fix the ending (which was probably stupid and/or trite). All of this should take you about two days.

Your last step is crucial, and the hardest: delete the whole thing. Why delete it? Because you will never be a good writer if you fall in love with every trashy thing you write in two days.

Then do this exercise all over again, but with a totally different story. After doing this exercise a few (3 to 5) times, try your hand at writing some things for real, for keeps, but not commercial.

Ideas: a thank-you letter to a loved one; an angry tirade about injustice; an impassioned but reasoned opinion piece suitable for a newspaper; a how-to article about something you like to do; a meditation on a natural scene; a funny story about your family/friends; a chapter for a fiction book (starting in the middle, or wherever you want).

Some of these you will find easier to do. Ta-da! You just discovered your niche. Write some more stuff like that. Edit, edit, edit.

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