Summary

The author reflects on the challenges of learning to write, realizing the importance of focused skill development and the need to reorganize their learning process to overcome obstacles and make meaningful progress.

Abstract

The author has been on a journey to improve their writing skills, encountering a wide range of challenges including the distraction of learning new skills, the complexity of writing techniques, and the struggle with writer's block. Despite initial attempts to multitask learning various writing aspects, the author found their progress to be slow and unsatisfactory. This led to a decision to reset their approach, opting for a more structured learning path that involves reading and mastering one skill at a time, starting with grammar and moving on to more advanced writing concepts. The author emphasizes the importance of identifying and overcoming personal obstacles to writing productivity and shares their renewed plan for learning, which includes reading foundational texts like "The Elements of Style" and "On Writing Well." The article concludes with the author's commitment to this new blueprint and the positive impact it has had on their writing, as well as an invitation for readers to support their work.

Opinions

The author believes that trying to learn too many skills simultaneously can be counterproductive and lead to poor results.
They suggest that a more effective approach to learning is to focus on mastering one skill at a time, starting with the basics.
The author values the wisdom found in classic writing guides and recommends them as accessible tools for improvement.
They acknowledge the role of procrastination and other personal barriers in hindering writing progress, emphasizing the need to address these issues directly.
The author reflects on their own experience with impatience and the temptation to jump from one learning resource to another without fully absorbing the material.
They express confidence in their new, more organized learning strategy and its potential to lead to better writing.
The author encourages readers to consider their own learning processes and to support their continued writing journey through subscriptions and memberships.

Sometimes It’s Better to Tear Up The Blueprint and Start Over

Only wiser using all the experience gained along the way

I ‘ve taken some time to reflect, observing my progress and where I am standing now. We all need to pause from time to time to verify whether or not we are making progress towards our goals.

I knew the path to follow, but along the way, I was deviating a lot trying to learn new skills, and cover everything I needed to succeed. As they say in my country: “I tried to squeeze the water as it slipped through my fingers.”

In all this, I am referring to my journey in learning to write.

I’ve discovered many aspects of good writing: grammar, picture format, sentence, and paragraph structure. Leaving for last: writing time, creativity, marketing, procrastination, even dealing with writer’s block, and many other things and skills involved in creating under good writing.

“I want to put all that in a blender and drink the result. Let’s see what it tastes like and its effect on my body and mind.”

I noticed that my results were either poor or slow. (I hope you can relate to this so we can overcome all these obstacles together.)

I started a project and halfway through it; I diverted to another because I needed to master a new skill.

An example:

In the middle of writing an article, I needed to make a decision. I didn’t know if I should use a semicolon or just a comma. I broke my head thinking so much that it almost put me in a coma, and it was such a simple thing that I possibly learned it in elementary school.

“Just to clarify, before continuing; I have no affiliation and don’t make any income from the links I suggest here. These suggestions are just part of the process of my journey.”

So, I decided to buy the book that most writers have read: “The Elements of Style” by E. B. White. Reading it, I felt like I was walking without shoes — I had a lot to review and remember. But that’s just one of the many occasions I had to deviate for lack of a skill. Skills are learnable, it only requires a course, method, or book to learn them.

Books are the most accessible way I have now, thanks to the Kindle’s recommendations I received after buying my first book about writing. And I knew that I needed them to get better, but then, I entered into another dilemma. Every time I received a reference to a book, I bought it because I needed it.

So, I started reading another book before I finished the first one. All because each book contained a different skill I needed to learn.

In the end, I felt like a train pulling its load, but the heaviness slowed it down. I believed that if I kept reading all these books together, somehow, I will get better. I was following the wrong learning process.

I didn’t advance in my schedule of writing a daily article. I was reading books slowly, and I ended up writing on the run, trying to give the train a boost. I was not taking the time to master the basic skills required to have at least decent writing.

Now, the decision I have made is to tear up the blueprints and start over. Only this time, better organize from the beginning. I’m concentrating on reading one book at a time, and taking important notes, starting with the grammar books. Then, I have planned to move to deep ones like William Zinsser’s “On Writing Well”, and from there onto Roy Peter Clark’s “Writing Tools.”

I feel like I have a good plan. A new learning blueprint.

Many times, you have to stop and identify if something is holding you back. Maybe you think you’re not writing enough because of procrastination, or perhaps even worse, you feel like you’re not reaching goals — something is slowing you down.

The reason comes from elsewhere, and that’s why you don’t see any progress. You need to identify that stumbling block and stop blaming the writer’s block.

I’m not telling you to tear up everything you’ve already accomplished, just that you consider estimating your progress. Verify if something is slowing you down.

It was happening to me, so I had to start over, only this time more intelligent using all the experience gained along the way.

All I had to do was press the reset button.

So far, it has been going well for me.

Update in this article

When I first drafted this article, I published immediately before taking time to check for any grammar mistakes. I didn’t recognize them.

You guessed it. It fail flat and was rejected.

In that time, I had already read the first six rules of the book by E. B. White. I noticed many mistakes in my writing and corrected them.

And here it is. It has improved a lot.

I still have a lot to learn, and many lessons to apply. But the best of all is how good it feels to improve and grow in the journey to learn “the Art of Writing.”

Thanks for reading!

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