Did you hate grammar at school? Today’s guest blogger Viviana MacKade tells us it’s even worse when English isn’t your first language.
My love for writing sways from absolute thrill for a new idea and all the pre-writing work to the hatred first draft. Still, I love it. All of it.
Does it mean I have no issues and I love in this perfect writing world? Yeah, right.
I’m Italian. Born, bred, and lived there for the first 26 years of my life. A world with zero English.
When my husband and I moved to England we spoke no English, and for many, many, many months my morning prayer was, “Please, make it so I step outside the house and everybody speaks my language.” It never happened.
But I did learn, at some point I started writing and oh, it was English. Which I love, deeply and completely. I love the sound of it, its rules, its history and how it keeps changing.
Can you guess my trouble, though?
Grammar.
The first draft is a war with bigger dragons than a verb or a word. Then the story is over, and I have to start taking into consideration which past tense I’m supposed to use; pronouns; finding that word that’s right. And I’m not even starting with dangling modifiers, parallel structures, who or whom.
I get paranoid. I check any sentence. Any word. I second guess anything I wrote. I get confused, so I study some. Fix this, polish that.
And damn, when the draft comes back from the editor and it’s not bad, not bad at all, it’s a huge satisfaction. So, I pat myself on the shoulder, buy yet another grammar exercise book, and get ready for the next trip to paranoia lane.
Viviana MacKade. Beach bum and country music addicted, Viviana lives in a small Floridian town with her husband and her son, her die-hard fans and personal cheer squad. She spends her days between typing on her beloved keyboard, playing in the pool with her boy, and eating whatever her husband puts on her plate (the guy is that good, and she really loves eating). Besides beaching, she enjoys long walks, horse-riding, hiking, and pretty much whatever she can do outside with her family.
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I’m born and bred an English speaker and I’m horrible with the rules. You probably know them better than I do.
Tweeted.
I’m born and bred an English speaker and I’m horrible with the rules. You probably know them better than I do.
Tweeted.