Looking back on my writing and others

I worry that my grammar is not up to standard. Who doesn't? I also worry my sentence and vocabulary is too simple, too naked, too bland. When I do edit my writing as I am doing down as I enter what I wrote in a notebook into this blog, I notice that I also have the tendency to be wordy. I think I tend to use 25 words when half that number would suffice.

As so many other writers, I read other writers and marvel how well they describe a summer day, a woman in labor, a man walking alone at night or the underground tunnels under London. Some writers that I read wrote just a few years ago and others from a few hundred years ago.

I try different things when I write to see when I read it later if I can understand what I wanted to portray. I have mentioned in these posts that a pencil is a writer's best friend, but the delete key has replaced it.

There is no doubt that the computer has made my life easier as a writer as it made me a better college student. I don't think in words and often don't know what I htink on any given subject until I write about it. Other writers are this way.

Some writers when they write, ooze their personalities all over their work. One such writer is Richard Rodriquez. It is good he writes personal essays instead of fiction. Some fiction writers include themselves in the narrative of the plot. I am re-reading "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens and although I am enjoying it I am hearing Dickens loud and clear as if he is using a megaphone.

Some writers have been accused of writing in too simple prose such as John Steinbeck. When I read that a while back, I picked up a short story and looked at the writing and found it beautifully crafted. The critic that I read was totally wrong. Steinbeck's sentences and vocabulary are clear, polished and beautiful. Some writers are read in translation and the reader is never sure if the prose is the result of the writer or the translator.

I am going to continue to write, but I am also going to continue to read. I think one can always improve. I will keep the delete button close at hand. What else can I do?