Should I give up my dream or should continue because I enjoy it?

[Justice wanted]

I've always love to write. In college I started writing a story just as a stupid challenge and it seemed serveral people enjoyed it-at least that is what I'm told.


The problem is I have a learning disability. I have always struggled with grammar and I can come up with ideas and dialog and all BUT when it comes to making it look right and correct I think that is my biggest failure.

I don't expect to become Steven King or anything like that. My only goal really is just to see ONE thing I've written published.

My husband has encourage me to a least try and publish something now that I am between jobs. I have been looking for a job but with the market being what it is -it may take some time.

A so call friend-distant relative said I should give up the idea all together. That I'm just waisting my time and shouldn't even waste time writing as a hobby let alone ever thinking I could get something published.

This person saw something I was working on. It is a story for young adults/teenagers and it just kind of has been coming to me.

This is the page as my friend saw it mistakes and all. I hadn't even thought about correcting it. the idea was just to get the story out first on page/computer.

Is the Grammar and story idea really that bad?

Edit: Notice the paragraphs aren't indented like they are in the word document.





“My life is completely over”! Hannah Cantu groaned
as she watched her best friend, Amelia Abney, step off the grey city bus onto the sidewalk beside her.
“Maybe they will forget about it by Monday”? Amelia suggested in but the doubt could be heard in her voice. She pushed her long dark brown hair off of her face which was blown forward as the bus pulled passed the curb and down the main road.
“Forget about it”! Hannah repeated annoyed by Amelia suggestion. Her chestnut brown eyes rolled upward. “Do you realized that in my business math class there are five varsity cheerleaders six football players five basketball players and three other people who are just popular and they all want to kill me”.
Amelia nodded understanding the situation her best friend was facing. “You had no control what Mr. Maxwell did,” she reminded Hannah. “You didn’t go to Mr. Maxwell and tell him everyone was copying your homework and they shouldn’t have been doing it in the first place”. Amelia words became slow as her dark brown eyes noticed a black Toyota Camry pulling along side the curb.
(more to the story thought it would be to long.)

I am looking for honest views don't want to put anyone on the spot.

[intaglio]

1. Do NOT give up

That is all

[Justice wanted]

2. thank you.

[Duer 157099]

3. I often have the attention span of a gnat

and I read that whole thing, but knew after just 2-3 sentences that you had talent. You need an editor, so what? The point is that you have talent. Getting somebody to read past the first line, imho, is a huge accomplishment.

Don't give up.

[Justice wanted]

7. Thank you for reading it.

[dimbear]

4. Lots of writers start out with others helping them. And others are willing to help.

There's a long list of famous names that needed a boost up. T S Eliot, for starters.

Get into a writing group for a start. And lots of luck, tough field and nowadays mostly just for personal enjoyment, not money.

[Justice wanted]

8. I will find a writing group. Thanks for the advise.

[whistler162]

5. You need to give a cheer to the so call friend-distant relative

Find a partner who is strong in grammar but weak in story ideas. Online sites abound for writing collaboration.

[Justice wanted]

9. I will look into those.

[WillParkinson]

6. Give up...

and you will regret it. Trust me. I used to write, but someone close to me said something and I gave it up. I regretted what I had done years later. And continue to this day.

[Justice wanted]

10. thanks.

[alphafemale]

11. No one should expect to make a living from writing....ever.

You understand that.

But you shouldn't ever stop writing if you enjoy it.

And there are many writing forums and clubs you could join.

The "getting" published thing is an increasing hard nut to crack if you mean as a hard copy by a major publishing house or magazine. I sincerely doubt there are any publishing houses willing to take the risk on an unknown or new talent anymore. That world is gone.

But, there's a new world.

A world where a thing like "Davy After the Dentist" can get 37 million hits in a week.

I think the internet is giving an option for people to create blogs and things and get recognition and feedback. For writing too (not so much as video maybe) but still a place where people will forward things they like to friends.

I also think that modern printing houses allow for cheaper and smaller numbers of self-printing. You used to have to pay thousands of dollars for what used to be called Vanity Printing and have to order a minimum of a few hundred copies. But I think the outlay is much less now and you only have to order a few dozen at a time.

Create a blog though and do what you enjoy, build a following.

Or at least join one of the writing forums and get feedback from other writers.

Never stop.

[noamnety]

12. I don't see the advantage of giving up.

It's not like you are giving up your job or your family to run away and risk everything on being a writer. This sounds like something that you do in addition to the life you already have - so there's no risk or sacrifice at all, right? All it does is enrich your life, keep your brain active and help you feel fulfilled? I don't know why anyone would have a problem with that.

side suggestion if that's okay - you use a lot of color adjectives for such a short segment, I would take about half of them out (maybe more) for a segment this long. It became distracting for me, like something you rely on because you've learned to describe things visually.

I would also think about joining a writer's group so that you have people who can give you feedback that's constructive and supportive.

[nuxvomica]

13. Don't stop writing

What you've posted needs some work but I had no trouble following it or getting the gist of what you are saying. Mostly I detected that you enjoyed writing it and that's fundamental to the process. Readers can sense that and will reject work that doesn't have it. I also detect that you seem to instinctively vary the structure of your sentences, working toward a kind of rhythm. That's another fundamental that I'm not even sure is teachable.

Read up on the rules of dialogue. You're not far off on how to use it, just some trouble with where the punctuation goes.

Overall, I think you have a good ear, for both dialogue and prose rhythm. But you need to edit what you have for more precision and work a little on the grammar, but just a little.

[NV Whino]

14. Check out your local community college

They usually have community classes that cost little or no money. My writing group got its start that way. We have now been together for over 20 years and just published our second book on Create Space.

With community classes you can bone up on story structure, grammar or just plain get inspired. But, most importantly, if you enjoy writing, don't stop.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

15. ...

[hunter]

16. What would you do instead? Watch television? Buy stuff?

Most everything we do is a "waste of time" most especially the activities our deeply twisted and environmentally destructive society calls "work."

Writing has a very small environmental footprint and exercises the mind. I like that.

You talked about the mechanics of writing so I'll tell you my favorite way to write: Markdown

I use a plain text editor (gedit) with the spellcheck on and then I just let the words spill out of me, hitting enter twice between each paragraph. Markdown lets me add headings, bold, italic, etc. without any fuss at all.

The completed document is then easily converted to HTML, EPUB, PDF, or any other distribution format. I use pandoc for that.

[Justice wanted]

17. THank you all for your encouragement and taking the time to read my post.

[surrealAmerican]

18. If you like doing it, why would you give it up?

It's not as if you're talking about quitting your job to do this. It's not exactly an expensive hobby, even if you never earn a dime from it.


... and if you know you have trouble with grammar, you will need someone to proofread and edit your work. Don't ask your "so call friend-distant relative".