Instruction manuals 'tell' things, and no-one reads those for pleasure, neither will they win awards for wonderful writing.
Maybe that's where my tell comes from. Most of my professional writing life was spent doing exactly that - writing technical manuals or editing technical manuals for instructions on a variety of equipment and machinery. Telling was important, indeed imperative. I suspect I will have a difficult time for a long time divorcing myself from more than 20 years of legal documents and instructional manuals.
I'll keep working on it because I want to. When it becomes something other than fun, I'll move to something that gives me more enjoyment because as I get older I want to look back on my life as having been a great ride. But I enjoy writing and, because I am a competitive person, want to improve and continue writing things that make people think and laugh and cry.
As for a novel - we'll see. Right now it is more of a commitment than I am willing to make. Right now I'm just looking at the end of March as my current goal :-)
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Maybe that's where my tell comes from. Most of my professional writing life was spent doing exactly that - writing technical manuals or editing technical manuals for instructions on a variety of equipment and machinery. Telling was important, indeed imperative. I suspect I will have a difficult time for a long time divorcing myself from more than 20 years of legal documents and instructional manuals.
I'll keep working on it because I want to. When it becomes something other than fun, I'll move to something that gives me more enjoyment because as I get older I want to look back on my life as having been a great ride. But I enjoy writing and, because I am a competitive person, want to improve and continue writing things that make people think and laugh and cry.
As for a novel - we'll see. Right now it is more of a commitment than I am willing to make. Right now I'm just looking at the end of March as my current goal :-)
Your examples are helpful, above.
- Erulisse (one L)