Personal blog for me to write about my life, share my artwork, and post random stuff I like
Getting serious about improving my writing skills
So I bought myself a new English grammar book. I'm sure all of its content is already available online in one form or another, but it's useful to have all that information collected in one physical tool I can easily grab and refer to whenever the need arises.
One thing that Imzy has helped me with is getting me motivated to write again, and to put my writing out there for other people to read. It's kind of a challenge, because I can get very insecure when it comes to expressing myself. I'm already self-conscious and hard on myself when I write in my native French; unfortunately, writing in a second language only exacerbates those feelings. I'm constantly afraid I'm going to make some glaring mistake, and being so much of a perfectionist, I find it hard to simply relax and give myself time to improve.
But I love this site and the creative communities that have sprung up on it, and I really want to participate! I will never get better by lurking alone; besides, it's more fun to get to know people by actively interacting with them. I have shared a few short pieces in a couple of communities, and so far the stress hasn't overwhelmed me, and people have been supportive, so yay! I'm off to a good start (I think)!
I wish I could write a bit more, but my emotions have been all over the place these past months, and I can't get myself to write when I'm not feeling well. I guess I just need to accept where I am now, and be willing to go at my own pace.




I do hope you write more. Good content for a website like this doesn't have to be perfect as much as useful, honest, or organized.
I remember some of the most useful content from reddit being people creating lists of combos for video game fighting characters.
Over in /philosophy, I'm trying to get people to read Nietzsche a few sentences at a time. I'm not worried that the writing is perfect. I'm more worried that it gets done.
Thank you for your encouragements. I agree that honesty makes for good content. I have been practicing being more and more honest with myself and others. It's not that I was lying my ass off before so much as I have spent a good part of my life hiding who I truly am, even to myself at times.
For example, while in therapy for my anxiety, I have discovered that I have a lot of unprocessed anger bottled up inside. I was aware of it on some level, but I have spent my life trying to ignore it, pretending I was fine. I did this for so long I didn't even know how to deal with the anger anymore. I would lie to myself, telling myself everything was okay even if that was not true. One thing that has been suggested to me, and that I have found very useful so far, is to keep a diary in which I can note everything that has upsetted or disappointed me during the day. Even if in all likelihood I'm the only one who will ever read that journal, I sometimes find it hard to write down those things that have disappointed me; I feel ashamed that so and so is bothering me, and feel the urge to lie to myself again. But as I keep choosing to be honest with myself, more and more I find that honesty is addictive. The more I write, the more I want to write; it makes me feel like I'm healing, in a way.
Anger isn't the only thing I have been hiding to myself and others. When I'm around others, I tend to downplay how sensitive I am. I try to conceal my nerdy side so I look more in line with what I have been taught is socially acceptable. I try to hide all those little things I'm ambarrassed about. I have spent my life hiding who I am, but deep down I long to be truly seen.
Um, I kind of went off in a tangent here, didn't I? I hope I'm not boring you with my ramblings.
Anyway, I also wanted to add that I feel good content ought to be original, too! But that's sort of what you were saying when you mentioned people making lists of video game combos. On a side note, one thing I love about this site as opposed to Reddit is that you when you post a link to another website, there is a text box in which you can add your own comments, or tell people about why you wanted to share the article. It's a small thing, but I find it much more personable than posting a link you find interesting, but never commenting on it at all.
I went ahead and joined /philosophy. I admit I only have a passing familiarity with Nietzsche, as well as most other well-known philosophers. I do spend a lot of time pondering about life and the universe, but to be honest (haha) I have such a short attention span that it's hard for me to read through an entire philosophy book. It sounds like your bite sized excerpts may be right up my alley, actually!
This is a beautiful, honest, thorough response. I'm happy for the tangent, and will try to get things your way that might help with the writing. Thank you so much for sharing!