I'm a lousy writer

I'm a lousy writer, and I don't particularly enjoy writing. Ideas come to my head in a jumble. I rarely feel like sorting out the ideas and organizing them. I have been blessed with a decent sense of spelling and grammar, but that's about it.

I have come to view good writing as a combination of (1) mechanics, (2) ideas, and (3) organization. Right now Sparkle's writing is in the stage of learning the mechanics: spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc. This is the area of writing where I feel most comfortable. I have less experience with idea generation. Possibly this is why I became a technical writer: I didn't have to come up with original ideas; I learned the concepts from the SMEs. Organization is either easy for me (the answer seems obvious) or difficult (I struggle to find a different way to organize the information).

I am sometimes tempted to add vocabulary, sentence fluency, and voice, as separate qualities of good writing, but I don't. For me, vocabulary and sentence fluency go hand and hand with ideas and organization. Part of a good idea is using the right word. Part of organization is arranging ideas within and across sentences.

I have learned *how* to write a finished piece. (That's how I got the BA & MS degrees.) I can say why a piece of writing works or doesn't work. When I'm motivated, I can even whip a passage into shape. I just choose to not do so.

I plan on teaching Sparkle (and Glitter) to write through these concepts (grammar, mechanics, ideas, organization, vocabulary, sentence fluency). I have picked English programs that support these concepts: dictation, MCT, BraveWriter, Killgallon, The Paragraph Book.

Oh dear, this is such a rambling post. I said I'm a lousy writer. But, I think in words and sometimes typing a bunch of *&^%**@# helps me think. You are not obliged to read any of this.