Suck at writing? You might want to read this

I failed high school because of English class.

To be honest I sucked at high school in general.

My head just wasn’t there. I wasn’t interested in what was being taught and the way it was being taught. I didn’t read a whole lot growing up and I rarely turned in an accurate or even complete book report.

I was much more interested in socializing with my friends or tinkering in the garage, then doing anything that resembled school work.

Doing rather than Reading

I was more of a tinkerer like my dad. I liked to play and tinker around with my own experiments and projects. I took electronics apart, learned how they worked and tried to put them back together. Sometimes I could, sometimes not so much.

I started tinkering with computers in my early teens. My first one was a TRS-80. An old beast of a computer that stored games on a tape deck.

It was computers that really sparked my thirst for knowledge. It’s where I really started reading and actually enjoying it. I could learn a new skill, put it into practice and see and immediate result.

Ultimately, I could learn by doing.

Fast forward to today and, I’ve been writing for a living for over 15 years.

Emails, proposals, ad & sales copy, blog posts, web content, resumes, analysis papers, agile stories, requirements documents, product specifications and formal letters of all kinds.

I’ve written so many technical and business related documents I think I could have written War and Peace by now.

I write for a living but, I’m still learning.

I’ve worked as a project manager, business analyst, and marketer for a decade now. The writing doesn’t stop.

I’m blogging here on this website because I like to help people by sharing my experiences and the tools I use to work.

Recently, I found my all time favorite writing tool; Grammarly.

Writing with the Grammarly Chrome plugin helps me produce an all round better deliverable. Whether that’s a blog post, an email or a proposal, It quickly tells me where I’m making spelling and grammar mistakes and shows me how to fix them.

It’s like having your 8th-grade teacher fixing your mistakes over your shoulder but, without the bad breath and intimidating feelings.

Writing is something you just have to do a lot of to get better at it. You can only read so much before you have to sit down and write.

Write and then edit, and then write, and then edit again.

It’s a process that you just need to go through if you want to produce a good piece of writing.

The better you edit and clean up your writing, the more credibility you will have with your audience. It doesn’t happen overnight. You just have to keep at it and you will improve.

When it comes to editing, you can hire a pro to review and edit or you can do it yourself with Grammarly.

What is Grammarly?

Grammarly is an extension that you install on your browser and it checks your spelling and grammar as you type.  It provides suggestions to make your writing the best it can be. It looks like this.

It’s not just a basic spell checker either, it’s so much more. It makes sure everything you type is easy to read, effective, and mistake-free.

Not Just for blogging

Adding the Chrome Extention means your spelling and grammar will be vetted on Gmail, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr, and nearly everywhere else you write on the web.

My favorite Grammarly Features

• Contextual spelling checker –  Grammarly detects correctly spelled words used in the wrong context. You can stop worrying about miss-using homophones like lose/loose, affect/effect, lie/lay, there/their/they’re, and many other commonly confused words.
• Grammar checker – Grammarly can fix hundreds of complex grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement, article use, and modifier placement, to name just a few.
• Adapts to you – Grammarly adapts to your needs and writing style, giving you the confidence of mistake-free communication every time you write.

When it comes to communicating with your audiences, writing is everything!

Through mistake-free writing, you can be better equipped to get the right message across.

Quality writing can improve blogger-to-follower communication, and also strengthens the quality of your blog and website.

I hope you found this helpful and it helps you become a better and more successful writer.

Find any mistakes? 😉