...and I'm off and running.

...and I'm off and running. I spent about four hours writing today, getting almost 1,200 words written in that time. Introductions are always the hardest part I find, but I think I did a good job creating a brief overview of everything I want to cover, with enough sneak peeks to entice readers to follow the text. I'm hoping to turn in the first 20 pages, or about 6,000 words by Friday, and I feel confident I can make that goal. The hardest part seems to be blocking everything out and getting the words to start flowing.

I guess this is my first paid, professional writing gig, and it boggles my mind to think it's actually happening. I spent most of high school and college struggling through english and literature classes, and I distinctly remember my SAT and GRE verbal scores being lower than classmates that didn't speak english as their first language (thank god I aced the math and analytical portions). I never liked sitting through english classes, and hated being forced to write and read on command.

There was an interesting post at Kuro5hin the other day, by a high school student wondering why he couldn't just keep a weblog to learn the finer points of english and grammar. I've found that practice does indeed make perfect. If I had to point to one thing that allows me to write well today in comparison with my college-aged self, it'd have to be email. After seven years of churning out thousands of words a day, I've grown a lot as a writer. Keeping a weblog here and with MetaFilter has also helped, especially in terms of learning how to make a point and structure an argument. Maybe blogs have a place in education, I know just the daily act of writing has immensely helped with expressing myself.