It’s the second day of NaNoWriMo, and my first November blog! I figured since it’s the first NaNo Special, I’d talk about something unique to me: my writing style, particularly how it varies between chatting applications and story writing. You see, I write very differently depending on what I’m writing. A message to a friend will often include a lot of typed out smilies and tildes at the end of sentences. You won’t find those in my fiction, however, except occasionally in author notes I include, including placeholders.
But did you know? There’s a method to my madness. I change my writing style drastically based on situations for a number of reasons. That’s what I primarily want to share with you today.
For those of you that don’t know me, I think it’s best to start out by telling you this: I’m an editor. I have severe OCD when it comes to writing and reading- any spelling errors I see, any awkward punctuation, it all makes me stuck when I’m reading something. When I say stuck, I mean my focus is glued to it, and cannot be unglued until the issue is fixed. It’s gotten me into a lot of trouble with all sorts of people: teachers, therapists, doctors offices- I’d notice their errors and start correcting them just to get out of the quicksand I felt myself engulfed in.
So, when I chat, I started doing something therapeutic: I started purposely making spelling errors of my own, altered my grammar to be something far from perfect, and used chatting with friends as a form of shock therapy on my own side of it. I still have trouble with forms when there’s errors, but I can at least hold back a little bit now. I still stop and stare, but I don’t feel like I’m going to miss every detail from getting glued to a page with problems.
And that’s why I chat the way I do. I find the tilde endings cute for some reason, too, though. It wasn’t just for therapy- it was to feel cuter, because my self-esteem sucks, and it was just getting worse with each day that I sat unable to take in anything people talked about around me because of a missing comma or the wrong use of there, their, or they’re.
But, there’s something else that I didn’t think of when I first started using this method of finding some self control: I didn’t think of how it would effect others that I wrote that way with. I had an ex who absolutely hated it. He sarcastically called me his tilde princess, but I didn’t realize he was demeaning me at the time. I thought it sounded sweet. It’s not that surprising though- I mean, I’m sure plenty of people find it irritating, but I would’ve liked it if he said it plainly rather than giving me what I thought was a cute pet name in his irritation.
Actually, it makes me worry sometimes that people may just be being nice for not calling me out for my somewhat weird writing methods. However, there are also people who do think it’s cute, which encourages me to continue doing it, as I feel my best and most like myself when I do this therapeutic facade. I know better than to use it when doing work of some sort, of course. But still, there’s some times where it’s okay not to be perfect. That’s what editors are for!
Well, that’s all for today’s ramblings. Do you find your writing methods change when you’re chatting versus writing fiction? How do you find yours differ from one another? What are some similarities? I’d love to hear your viewpoint and experience on the matter. Well, until next time! Take care~!
