What do I hope to achieve by joining this group? A very simple thing…but with a complex back story.
I've always had an artistic streak. As a child and on into my adulthood, I drew and just had an overall artistic outlook on things. I have always been broke as well, so that might be attributed to my artistic nature. I started writing poems when I was in my early twenties. I wrote out of boredom because, at the time, I spent a lot of time being homeless or at least close to it. When I actually started to work "real" jobs, the writing went away. In the late nineties, I went through what could only be described as a nervous breakdown. I asked for and received a divorce and moved into another house alone. Aside from work, I rarely went out, and then only for Mountain Dew and cigarettes. I started to write again. For almost exactly a year, I taught myself about the computer, I taught myself native HTML and I wrote…a lot. I really don’t remember too much in detail as everything from that time seems quite hazy. I then met a woman and shortly thereafter, she became pregnant. Feeling that I had something to do with it, I came completely out of my self-imposed stupor and tried to prepare for the imminent arrival of my son. I stopped writing altogether. Last year (almost exactly a year to be precise) I fell ill. I went for a battery of tests, which found that my pulmonary systems, my cardio systems, my cholesterol, my blood sugar, my blood pressure and everything else seemed to be that of a man in his twenties. I'm forty, smoke two packs a day, drink 2 two liters of Mountain Dew a day, eat every sugar filled cupcake I can lay my hands on, and if I could find a way to make a meat sandwich with bacon on a steak bun, I'd be all over it. O.K. All my tests were fine, so that left my brain. The neurologist said that she thought that I may be having mild strokes and that they would progress until I finally blow a brain gasket. The insurance company told her that she didn't know what she was talking about and said it was probably my ears, which had already been tested. They then promptly cancelled my insurance. I could probably fight it, but I'm really not good with agencies and red tape and all that. I'd end up like Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" except with more anger and better aim.
Alright, the point of the whole health thing is how I ended up here. With the inability to do anything more physical than running my mouth, I was driving myself absolutely insane sitting at home…so I started writing again. I wrote blogs and then I got the bright idea that maybe I could write articles for the newspaper. With a completely fictitious resume' I actually wheedled my way into a writing position. I now interview celebrities, musicians and comedians. I write book reviews. I write about topical events and even some social commentary. I have managed all of this without even the assistance of a formal high school education. Here's where the problem arises. I have an incredibly low self-esteem and am very unsure about how to proceed, what direction to go in or even if my writing is worth honing. This is not to say that I want accolades and praise to rain down on me. Quite the opposite. I don't even know whether or not I'm writing "correctly"…as in "freshman English" correct. I know the methodology that I use to write is wholly incorrect, but that is more of a character flaw than anything else. When I write, I start at the top and write to the bottom. I give a cursory read through to correct any glaring mistakes and then I ship it off or post it up. I don't self-edit. I have a huge problem working with quotes for newspaper articles. All of the lead-ins sound fake and when I write, "During a recent phone interview, So-And-So had this to say…", there's like the world's cheesiest news anchor reading that line in my head and it sounds horrible! There's tons of stuff that I need and want from this group. First and foremost…direction. Secondly…glaringly honest critiques. Other groups seem to want to tear apart a story on the basis of content or technicalities and not for the way it flows. What I mean by that is, I've had critiques that dealt only with the reader's disagreement with the content and not on the story itself. That or an arbitrary rule of English that may be a pet peeve of the reader. If it's real, I definitely want to know about it. I just feel somewhat alone in my writing where I have no one around me to give me an honest, unbiased critique as to whether it's good or absolute crap. I'm posting a chapter (?) of something I wrote today and maybe I could get some feedback on whether it's worth developing into something or if the mechanics are off or whatever. Also, when writing me, remember that I have no clue what you are saying if you use lingo utilized in the field of writing or English. I have no clue what an infinitive is or why you're not supposed to split it. Break it down into moron speak. Thank you in advance!