Hi all, Writing this first ever post here gives me the wobblies in my gut. I'm slightly anxious, true to my nature, and it is gifted by my third cup of coffee for the day. I've been dreaming of writing since I was young. I've dabbled in it from time to time. I've helped my mother publish her last book - she was a poet. But recently deceased. I ultimately want to learn how to express myself using my own voice. I blog but my voice stays inside when I share publicly so in my opinion I come off sounding plasticky or insincere. I need to learn my English skills better, I'm a native speaker of English but I have no idea why a verb goes there, a comma goes here or what actually needs to be capitalised where and when. I find that whole process painful and defeating so I don't write. I have three books that I reference on occasion, but I don't know that they are conducive to positive blog writing. They are:The Little Green Grammar Book by Tredinnick, Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose, and The Bedford Handbook - 5th addition. I am here to seek help and when I get better I want to help others. If you have any links or suggestions where to find such help in the English arena, it would be greatly appreciated.
Welcome to the forum! Check out free grammar tools like Grammarly and Jetpack for Wordpress. Grammarly gives you a brief explanation on why what you wrote needs to be corrected. Google grammar rules. That should give you some help! Most of the people on this site are here to help. A few will be jerks, but welcome to the internet. Good luck!
Welcome aboard! I teach English for a living, but even so, I can get muddled at times. My go-to for simple, down to earth explanations is the Grammar Girl website. I've got no connection to it, but I've found it useful on more than one occasion. Before you rush off there though, don't get too worried. Your posting here didn't ring any alarm bells in my head, so you're off to a decent start. Look around, get a feel for the forum, and have fun.
Thanks! I've chased Grammarly down to find out what's wrong with my program and I have gotten that fixed - although their engineers are working on some problems as I write this. :/
Thanks Ian! I look forward to checking out that website but I will make myself more at home here and check things out as also suggested. I'm glad there were not screaminly obvious signs of torture to the English language.
