The one tip I’d like to submit and hope that many will listen is to forget those fears. I’ve found that so many people are intimidated by their lack of ‘proper English’ skills and let that stand in their way. Rather than allowing it to be a hindrance, they could even turn it into a niche. I’ve seen a few blogs that play on those faults rather than allow them to detour them from fulfilling a dream of writing.
Regardless of a persons education level, I believe everyone has an opinion that’s valuable or a story to share that others would be interested in. It doesn’t take the fame behind those on Pajamas Media to mean their views are valuable.
If they can’t overcome that fear, I recommend creating their entries in a word processing program so they can do spell and grammar check. It may not be 100% full proof, but at least it will ease the intimidating factors enough to open doors for possibility and to never be afraid to ask for help!
I’m helping a girl now who has struggled with her writing skills and let them keep her from writing and blogging. We’ve finally gotten her to the point where she’s ready to take the chance and she’s off to a flying start.
Darren here again – I thought I’d kick off the comments on this one here by saying I think Gayla is onto something that should be talked about more. I am often approached by new or potential bloggers who are very very nervous about their English skills but who wish to write in English. Sometimes their concerns come out of the fact that English is their 2nd language and other times they’ve just struggled with it through the years (like I struggle with arithmetic).
While I have written here from time to time about making your blog as professional as possible and working on issues of spelling and grammar I would advise someone who struggles in this area to not let it stop them. In fact I know of a couple of different bloggers that I’ve encouraged to blog to help them improve their language skills.
While from time to time they do get a hard time about it I think the exercise of blogging in and of itself both gives them new skills and practice in their language but also gives them confidence to have a voice in ways they may never have discovered in other mediums.
I also think the rest of us who sometimes get picky about grammar sometimes need to loosen up a bit and rather than getting too condemning need to remind ourselves that others come at blogging from different backgrounds and perspectives. Anyway – that’s just my two cents worth – nice post Gayla – sorry for hijacking it, didn’t mean to write this much but you triggered something.
