Where can I get online writing practice?

January 8, 2022 5:21 AM

I read some of my old posts from a decade ago and they were quite good. Now it appears that due to lack of use my writing ability has waned and suffered. I'm writing shorter and simpler sentences. Where can I get practice writing non-fiction?

I look at some reply posts on Reddit and they're long with great detail and flow. It would take me a whole college semester to research and put that together.

When I reply to posts these days I barely eke out two sentences. Is there a place I can practice writing non-fiction? Perhaps a site that provides free content for websites or somewhere similar?

posted by Coffeetyme to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

Best answer: Honestly, this is a large reason why I started a blog.

Mind you, I also had some experience in the past and knew that exposure helped me - I had a cheeseball column in my college student newspaper, and they'd honestly run just about anything I wrote, they were more worried about filling column inches. So no matter what I wrote (save for some obvious grammatic errors) they'd publish it. And I had friends who were honest enough to come up to me sometimes and say "So, I saw your column this week....that one took you only five minutes to write, didn't it?"

That kind of situation - knowing that even when a column was dogshit, people still were seeing it - got me to focus a lot more on quality over time, and the regular schedule kept me in practice.
Granted, Reddit posts and comments here are also public. But in my head, this is a different enough platform to a more formal blog or column that my brain sort of thinks it doesn't count. A blog, though...that's more of a thing, you know?

I'd already gotten a free account on Wordpress, and I randomly picked something that would keep me on a somewhat consistent schedule and give me a reason to keep writing - I picked the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die movie list, and started watching all of the films and reacting to them. I've been at it for about 4 years now and it's grown into being more of A Thing, and - I'm getting back into a writing habit again.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:31 AM on January 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Make sure to write on a keyboard when sitting comfortably. My writing got worse when I started using a laptop in bed and then worse again when I started thumb-typing on a phone. Your body has an effect on your output.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 6:21 AM on January 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Writing shorter and simpler sentences is not bad writing. I'd argue that it's good writing. Perhaps the best writing. Too many people produce shitty writing because they think they need to use big words and complex sentence structures. They're under the mistaken belief that complexity equates to intelligence. From my experience, the opposite is true.

Great writing conveys Big Ideas using the simplest methods possible.

Having said that: Yeah, this is a great reason to write a blog. Pick a subject that you're passionate about (roller-skates, birds of Canada, whatever) and write regular articles about that subject. Do it just for yourself.
posted by jdroth at 7:05 AM on January 8, 2022 [11 favorites]

Best answer: I agree with jdroth. I have a notoriously florid and prolix writing style. Although I enjoy writing this way, I am aware that my overuse of unnecessary descriptors and parentheticals (see what I mean?) can make my writing seem obfuscating at best, and pretentious at worst. The best tool I've found is the free Hemingway Editor, which ruthlessly highlights these things so I can remove them. You might try running some prose through it and see if, after all, your writing is better than you think.
posted by ananci at 8:14 AM on January 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

Would it help to hang out with other writers? I recently learned of an online coffee shop of sorts called The 24-Hour Room that is meant as a space to write side-by-side with other writers. I think it incorporates Zoom. There is a quiet room to get your work done and a lounge to meet other writers and talk about what you're up to. I have no direct experience with this space, but it caught my eye. I'm sure there are others out there. Oh, and it's free.
posted by baseballpajamas at 8:33 AM on January 8, 2022 [4 favorites]

As the saying goes, writing is re-writing. The technology discourages editing comments and replies, but you can get around that. Write and edit your comments in a text editor like Notepad, then cut and paste into the app as desired.

It might help to take writing that is not up to the desired standard, put it into the editor for edit and re-writing, just for the practice.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:19 AM on January 9, 2022