[...] simply the best post I’ve read in years! [...]…

Shinya sketched his first plans for the device on January 8, 1969….

Figures show that African American men are at greater risk of dying from prostate cancer than white men and most statisticians are in agreement that the risk for black men is about two and a half times that of white Americans. But, are these statistics…

Extremely interesting post. A little bit different from my point of view but neverless an interesting opinion….

Your site looks great! I have seen many other so-called sites and they have been far from good quality.Your site has all the key ingredients to pulling in visitors….

My intention there was not to discourage, but rather to encourage. Don’t put that kind of pressure on yourself when you sit down to write. Strive to do the very best you can do and learn as you go. That is the main ingredient to becoming a better writer; the desire to do so.

The hacks I referenced are that because they choose to be, not because they couldn’t learn to write well. It just doesn’t interest them enough to apply themselves to the learning process required to become a competent or good writer.

I think most educated people in our society are probably competent writers. And that is all well and good. Their skills and interests in life just lie elsewhere. They reached a certain level of proficiency in their writing skills and said, “enough, this is as good as I need to be.” Most of them are successful to varying degrees and may use a certain level of writing in their acheivements. Most journalists and business people fall within the scope I am talking about here. Their grammar is good, they use spellcheck, their points are clear and concise, but it lacks lustre — like the high school history book. Years later you know you read it but can’t really remember much of what was said.

Then you have the good writers. I count in this group ALL writers, whether famous or not, that have the desire to take their writing to the next level. King, Clancey, Koontz, Brown all fall into this category, albeit at the end of the scale in most cases. Perhaps I fell short and should have listed an extremely good category as well. There are millions of good writers in every genre out there. They have earned that title through hard work and dedication, along with the tenacity of a bulldog. They are the successful copy writers, up and coming novelists, accomplished poets and what have you. I believe you are only limited by yourself in how far you go with your writing; or anything else in life for that matter.

So you see, I DO agree with you, more or less. Again, thanks for your review and I wish you every success in your writing.

Mike
http://www.appalachianwritersforum.com