Words: Friends or Foe? How can writing help you.

[quirkywords]

People can be afraid of words as they have no confidence in what they write. Maybe at school teachers have said negative things about their writing or their parents have said they don't write well.

Some people are anxious to write their first post as they wonder if they will make sense to others.

I believe words are your friends and everyone who can read this can write in meaningful way.

I want to look at how writing can help you

1) by helping you to explain and express your feelings to others

2) allowing you to connect to others through your words

3) by keeping a journal or starting a thread here and learn from your own writing and read others.

4) by helping you work out how to change certain behaviours

and many more we can share with each other.

To start at the beginning : Are words your friend or foe?

When you see a blank page or screen are you filled with fear or are you excited at the challenge.

Does writing words down help you more or in a different way to speaking them?

Everyone is welcome to contribute, first time posters , regulars, people who don't like writing , people who find they go the character limit for the post every time.

Write on

Quirky

PS writing in this context is same as typing , or using voice to text.

I want to look at how words can help you express your thoughts and emotions?

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone reader, writers, users of words,

Tams,

I can understand how hard technical writing would be as you would need to be structured and precise, two things lacking from my writing!!

I keep my texts short and some posts because my chubby fingers find it hard to type on smallf keyboards and I make many typos as you will see in my posts!!

I do agree that so many words are abbreviated these days, and sometimes I find it hard to follow.

Thanks Tams for bringing up interesting points about words.

What writing do you really enjoy?

For me it is free writing, stream of consciousness where i just write and dont stop not worrying about spelling or punctuation and not stopping even if I can't think f what to write next I just keep typing away and hope a thought will come soon and then I am surprised I remember how enjoyable it is not to have restraints on my words to let them flow like lava and enjoy many thoughts being emptied from my head!!

Quirky

[AndyR]

Hi Quirky and Tams

Tams:
I'm so with you on short messages and text, and while I'm trying to get used to friends who only communicate that way I have both an irritation and a sadness at the drop off of real voice communication. What could be done and dusted in a brief conversation seems to take forever in an exchange of messages. We probably do have to get used to it, but whether we get to like it I'm not sure!

Quirky:

Stream of consciousness can be pretty amazing for what it reveals can't it. So many times I've found unexpected nuggets of insight when I read it back when I had passed over them by continuing with the writing.

My preferred writing these days is fiction, my three unfinished novels are testament to that! I started with writing fan-fiction then progressed to my own story ideas. A friend who was reading some suggested little stories called 'flash fiction' - 300 word short stories complete in telling a tale within that word limit. I use them to write the back stories of characters and its a delightful challenge. Writing fictional characters has been great therapy for me because I find I put aspects of unexplored me into them.

Looking forward to seeing what others like to write and thanks for the great question again.

[quirkywords]

Hello people

AndyR, I like the idea of flash fiction. I have tried 100 stories which is a challenge fore a rambler like me!!

I have exercise books of beginnings, of ideas, of endings but rarely finish anything beyond a blog!

3 unfinished novels sounds great compared to my feeble attempts.

Thanks for your comments.

When I was manic I used to think I was a great writer and now more stable , I lack any confidence in my words and see so much talent around me that I wonder why I bother.

Maybe I should write a book of questions!!

Quirky

[Lici]

Hi all 😊

I really dislike doing research reports for my psychology assignments. If it was just writing I'd probably be fine, but I always end up reading 100 odd research papers for references and they're all really dry and bland and hard to understand! I find I procrastinate on those assignments the most because I don't enjoy doing them.

I love fiction writing though! I'm also studying creative writing so I get to do short story assignments which is great. I struggle to keep to the word count of a short story assignment though because I have so many story ideas and once I start one I could write a novel! I've written horror, romance, sci-fi, historical fiction and a personal essay so far. Writing the sci-fi was my favorite. Being able to create your own world is a great escape! One day I'll have time to turn my sci-fi short story into a novel. Unfortunately I've still got another semester of research reports and other short stories to do before I can get to that though. I'm looking forward to the short stories I think I'll have a bunch of novel ideas at the end of it! Gothic fiction and dystopian fiction next semester by the looks of the set readings, so I'm super excited to learn about writing those genres!

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone,

Lici, what an enthusiastic post and what a talented writer with so many ideas.

I agree that if you don't like writing something you will procrastinate.

Quirky

[White_Rose]

Hello Quirky and Everyone

Ah words. I am disappointed when I hear our language being Americanised. So sad. I wonder if the use of those words and others will just fade away. Such a shame.

Words I do not like include 'gotten', where on earth did that come from? Being a public servant I am used to writing formal reports etc. It's not a bad thing to do as it teaches us to be very precise in our language. I love all the words you have written above. It is different to writing uni assignments and different again to writing fiction. I am a member of a book club but I do not recall reading any of the authors above.

To answer your question near the top of the page, is writing for yourself different to writing to others, then the answer is yes. When writing for myself I can spill out all my feelings, good, bad or undetermined, and find it quite cathartic. No need to worry about grammar and spelling or whether something is phrased properly. The joy of writing to myself is that I can read it later on. It never fails to amaze me how well I have written. Not necessarily a gripping story but instead how well I have described what was happening at that time.

The other point of writing instead of speaking is that your words are less likely to upset or offend others. We open our mouths and blurt out what we are thinking. Writing it down brings some order to our thinking. We write far more slowly than we speak and I think more slowly when we write on the computer. It is a matter of speed. Handwriting makes us think more slowly and write down what we want to say more clearly. It may only be micro-seconds but that's enough.

Mary

[quirkywords]

Hello everyone

Mary, what a concise, precise, detailed thoughtful post.

I am interested in your last paragraph about writing is less likely to upset than speaking is because writing brings some order to our thinking and we write far more slowly than we speak.

On one level I agree but also I have been hurt by letters and emails sent to me because unlike spoke words I can read them over and over again no the pain is still there. I sometimes write letters to people which I will never send so I can work out my thoughts towards them, If I sent them my words would hurt them.

So now I am confused . I think I may have inadvertently in my past hurt as many people from my spoken words as my written words. I will have to think about what you write some more , maybe I am just different.

Quirky

[Summer Rose]

Hi Quirky

I think angry words are angry words. Full stop. It doesn't matter whether they are spoken or witten.

How many of us have fired off an email, text or message in anger and then regretted it? I don't think I'd be the only person to put my hand up.

I think angry written words cause more pain and damage than spoken words. They last forever. The process of writing things down does slow our thoughts but it doesn't necessarily blunt the message. It comes down to the author's intent.

[quirkywords]

hello everyone,

Summer rose I think that an angry word is an angry word but maybe when delivered in a loud angry voice it has more power.

Also I can see that as Mary says when we speak we do it faster than writing so more chance for us to be impulsive than in writing when we can edit.

The written word does last longer but also I am sure all of us remember some hurtful words someone said to us decades ago, I know I can.

I think there is a need to think about how people will interpret our words whether written or spoken.

The words have a power of their own and sometimes one can mean the word to have one meaning but others will see a different meaning.

I ended an email by saying take care and was told that was patronising. I mean it as being caring.

Quirky

[Lici]

Hi all 😊

I agree with Mary that writing slows down our thoughts (although I'm always making spelling mistakes because my brain is going too fast and is three words ahead of what I want to write!) But Summer Rose is also right that the intent of the author is important. If I'm writing out of anger my words will be angry, but if I'm writing with the intent to solve an argument diplomatically, then I'll think about my words more. Intent is everything when it comes to writing anything really.

I used to think that writing was something that just came naturally and you didn't really think about it, but since studying writing at uni, I've really had my eyes opened to how even fiction writers will choose their words on purpose to convey certain emotion etc.

I think what it comes down to when writing letters etc is that most people write as if they're talking so it's mostly unconscious as we're not really consciously thinking about what words we're using. What gets really interesting (in my opinion) is when you start actually thinking about what words you're choosing to convey a message. I never used to do this, but with having between 1000-3000 word assignments to write a polished story, I've had to really start choosing the words I use. It's harder than you'd think (and more frustrating lol)