The Fascinating Hobby of Writing

 

What can be said about this amazing hobby? Since its inception people have been fascinated by it. If it weren't for writers we wouldn't have History, and that's kind of important, am I right?

It is said that every famous Writer started writing as a hobby, as a way to express their creativity, an outlet to an imaginative mind.

Being a writer is not all about being published and recognize and have your books turn into movies by Warner Bros or having the greatest TV show in History adapted from your Books by HBO.

 

Being a writer is about expressing yourself in whatever way you want, novels, blogs or even this article, behind it could be some who started writing as a hobby and now writes articles for various sites, but I digress.

Writing as a hobby should be an outlet for you, a way to express your feelings to put your thoughts into words, sure it could lead to a new a career, but that shouldn't be your main focus.

 

Remember Julie Powell? From the movie Julie & Julia with academy award winning actress Meryl freaking Streep?

 

She was a failed author who took her thoughts to a blog, not to be published, but to have a sense of completion with herself, of finally finishing something and she did it with so much passion and dedication that at the end it was rewarded with movie rights and everything else we know.

For some people, it's very difficult or nearly impossible to express their feelings vocally open, picking writing up has a hobby allows them to express this feeling with pen and paper or on their computers and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I personally regret discovering this hobby so late in life, I would've loved to document all the major aspects of my life growing up and being able to recall them today.

 

This personal regret always makes me answer the same thing when asked: "What would you do if you can send a message to your past self?" "Wrote all down, every little thing".

Honestly, this is one of the greatest hobbies you can pick up and the source material or inspiration is right in front of you, in the form of your family, grab your grandparents or parents, sit them one afternoon with some coffee and biscuits and ask them about them, where they come from, how was their childhood, make them tell you every anecdote they can remember and write them down.

The written word will endure the test of time, your thoughts and your history will forever remain in those pages, unchanged and unforgotten.

You don't need much to start doing it, pen and paper or your laptop and that's it. There are, however, a few things that may help you, Writing Workshops at your local library, some online courses to help you polish your writing style.

Don't hold back if you want writing as your hobby, take it, do it, be constant, be passionate and maybe one day you'll be jet-setting alongside J.K. Rowling, George Martin or Stephen King. 

 

The Best Free Resources for Getting Started With Writing 

Clarity in writing is a skill. Often, great words lose when it comes to ease of readability. Sentences that are free from grammar errors and typos, can still very much be difficult to comprehend simply because the reader fails to understand it. If writing is hard, writing clearly is far more difficult.

 

Even writing in schools is more focused on analysis. Prose or poetry or even novels, students have to sound smart with words and not make it meaningful. The purpose of writing is to communicate information. But, if you haven’t quite distinguished between writing smart and writing intelligibly, here’s how you can learn.

 

Avoiding errors in punctuation

To improve your writing, that’s not a problem at all. You want to avoid mistakes such as using a period after sentence completion or inside brackets, but even though it is useful to know about these errors made by those starting out, these make little to no difference as such to your copy.

 

When writing as a hobby, it is important to build the skill to ensure readers understand what you’re writing.

 

Choose to write for your reader

In fact, there are many teachers whose prime focus is to write perfectly sounding English. But, the same sentences when written in a simple way explains its purpose in a more defined manner.

 

The true essence of your writing is lost, even if it sounds intelligent if it is hard to read. Readers prefer a text that is easy to understand.

 

Speak first before writing

Do you struggle when writing as a hobby and is speaking simpler for you? Just work it round about. Film yourself speaking first. Use your recording to build sentences with the video transcription.

 

To do that, one of the best tools to record and transcribe your speech is to use SpeechPad. This will also allow you to do user testing. Try reading out aloud so that you can edit any further changes to the text.

 

Using apps to improve writing

A common mistake that most beginner writers make is to write long and complex sentences. Remember that the longer your sentence structure, more prone is it to the risk of errors.

Hemingway is one of the best tools out there that gives you the liberty of using longer sentences, if you prefer, or even simply run a check through your text to extract suggestions for improvement. It works like a second pair of eyes, which is always better for any writer.

Knowing that your writing has been assessed before sending out gives you the much needed confidence boost. Before long, you will be making lesser mistakes with sentences and particularly in making it sound meaningful for the reader.

Grammarly is perhaps one of the best proofreading tools and greatly handy for those pursuing writing as a hobby. The excellent app points out to those mistakes in the text that you may have overlooked. 
Another similar app that does most of the proofreading work for you is Ginger. The free app is easy to install and helps you keep up with writing better so that it is free from grammatical errors. 

 

Using books as a guide

There are many books that teach you how to write, but very few of them guides you through the basics of writing. When stepping into the field of writing, it is important to keep your notions about grammar aside! That’s right, you don’t really need to be following punctuations to the core as your only aim when starting out is to write simple and gradually transform into a better writer.

Here are some of the books that may prove to be useful:

 

The Elements of Style by Strunk and White

The later half of the book, written by E.B White exactly tells you why it is important to write clearly and how to do so.

 

Keys to Great Writing by Stephen Wilbers

One of the best books that you can read to enrich your journey into writing as a hobby. It teaches you the mechanics of good writing.

 

The book explains the techniques of writing concisely that actually works! Even if you have just started to write English at the beginner’s level, you will find this book rather appealing as it provides an understanding of the much required framework of writing.

The book encourages writing in simpler and concise manner. Instead of using difficult to read terms, the book emphasizes on replacing them with every day words of English.

The Elements of Eloquence by Mark Forsyth

Read this book to understand the technique of writing great phrases. This is a technique that is commonly found in different types of writing such as song lyrics, marketing writing, and poetry. Also, this book doubles as an audiobook too.

The Sense of Style fuses the cognitive form of writing that makes your text more intuitive. It gives you an understanding of how writing works.

Writing Tools – 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark

Discover the literary techniques of writing. In fact, once you do, you’ll be able to spot it in other people’s writing too.

 

Practical guides to improve writing skills

The Purdue Writing Lab

The online writing lab provides users with an enriched pool of writing guides and resources. The website features APA and MLA style guides used worldwide for thesis and dissertations publishing.

 

It covers two aspects of English – general writing and writing process, both focusing on the most common issues faced by people when writing.

Thesaurus

One of the most vital tools that is a must have in a good English writter’s arsenal of writing better English, Thesaurus helps you build your vocabulary by providing more insight into essential alternative words and phrases so that you can express yourself better in English.

 

When looking to simplify your English, look no further than the website that helps you sharpen your language skills with this powerful tool online.

Writing as a hobby is a skill and goes even beyond the apt use of grammar. While grammar is an essential part of writing, there are other aspects that you must take care of as well.

 

 

Overuse of complex phrases, adverbs, and clichés are just some of the poor styles of writing English that can be improvised and through perseverance in your craft, you will learn to improve it vastly. 

 

Related hobbies: Reading 

 

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