Writing is an art.
It’s not as flashy as a painting, and it doesn’t make your heart immediately skip a bit like the performance arts. However, it’s how you write that makes this skill a personal art form.
Writing for fun is an entirely different experience compared to writing university essays. When writing a university essay, you’ll have to expand upon particular points when required. On the other hand, it’s something I’m struggling not to do when writing purely for my own pleasure.
I write like I speak, and it’s easy for me to get sidetracked when I speak. This is actually my third attempt at writing about writing.
Yes, I’m going meta with this. I’m fully aware of it.
(The first two versions of this post involved me writing about how to best use Grammarly. You can imagine how long-winded those drafts ended up.)
As with any other form of art, the only way you can get better at writing is by practising. Sure, you don’t have to share everything that you write. As a casual writer, I’ve halted work on several potential posts for my website. I’ve also junked my fair share of guitar riffs and progressions as a musician.
Don’t overthink things and get sidetracked. If it’s snappy to throw together and you’re satisfied with what you’ve got, stick with it. While I’m not encouraging you to burn yourself out, near-constant practice will help you get better at your chosen art.
That does remind me - I need to start practising playing the bass guitar again.
(EDIT AS OF 22ND AUGUST 2022)
If you are planning on using Grammarly as an editing tool, please do so on a computer. If you already have your own preferred writing style, the desktop browser version will allow you to set your stylistic goals, and take that into account when suggesting corrections. To the best of my knowledge, the implementing of this tool is inconsistent on iPadOS; it’s definitely available on my 11-inch M1 iPad Pro, and I’m pretty sure the regular iPad is big enough to display the feature, but it is not easily accessible (if at all) on an iPad Mini as the screen is not big enough.