Breaking all the rules of writing.

One of the biggest things that keeps me from writing is all the rules.

I don’t mind breaking rules most of the time… but I don’t like conflict and I don’t like letting people down.

I’m ruled not by rules, but how I think others think of me.

“Ugh, what a mess.”
“This writing is an abomination.”
“I would read this, but he clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing.”

And yet.. the best writers seem to make their own rules.

They play fast an’ loose with the English language or just dump a lot of it all together.
====> James Joyce?
===> Kurt Vonnegut?
=====> Cormac McCarthy?

I know there are others, but I can’t be bothered to research them right now.

I would like to think that if I could just have the confidence to break the rules and just write however I want to right.. something magical would happen. I would become a REAL writer. People would want to read what I write and well.. something would happen.

See the “..” there.. that drives people nuts. There are supposed to be THREE periods in an Ellipsis.

My spell checker says “there” is incorrect.. but won’t tell me why. If I right-click on it it asks if I would like to look it up on the Internets. Why? What?

For me, writing is about usability. That’s why this is broken up into easy to read and digestible sections. If I was writing something more fun and engaging I wouldn’t do it. I’m not sure I can do that yet.. but it wouldn’t make sense to me.

So, I’m left wondering yet => Is this really my problem? Is this why I’m not a good writer and no one reads what I write.

Or is that I really don’t have anything to say? Or what I have to say is being said by everyone else in a more compelling way?

Without any sort of feed back I guess I’ll never know. I’ll just “show up” and throw more word salad into the digital abyss.

But, it’s probably time to stop caring so much about what people think.

Or, maybe I need to start trying harder to produce content that people want and need?

Hmm.