Tips for improving writing skills

Writing can make non-traditional students a little nervous. Really, anybody. Especially if you're going back to school after decades.
Writing can make non-traditional students a little nervous, especially if they're going back to school after decades. Here are 6 tips for improving your writing skills. Brush up before going back to school.

Get back into the practice of writing by starting small. Get a journal and start writing short essays about the things that happen during your day, feelings you experience, thoughts you have. Not only does journaling serve as cheap therapy, it improves your writing in a place nobody but you will see. It's a nice little training ground.

I use a spiral notebook, but journals range from loose pages to blank, leather-bound books.

Julia Cameron talks about Morning Pages in her famous book, The Artist's Way. She advocates writing three pages long hand first thing every morning, without stopping. This kind of writing is called "stream of consciousness."

The idea is to keep your hand moving, even if you have to write, "I'm not sure what to write next..." Your subconscious mind will take over, and I guarantee you'll have days when you'll be entirely surprised by what shows up on the page. The mind is a mysterious thing.

Read. Period. Read the newspaper in the morning, magazines in waiting rooms, cookbooks, fiction, non-fiction, whatever floats your boat. Just read. Turn off the television and pick up a book. The more you read, preferably written by good writers and authors, the more easily you will recognize good sentence structure, proper grammar, rhythm, structure, even punctuation.

Read.

The most famous book on writing probably remains The Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White. It's short, sweet, and to the point. Whether you choose this book or a similar one, books on writing can inspire, teach, and increase your confidence. Stuck? Call a friend in the form of a book.

If you're budget-minded, browse the writing books in your local library. The bonus here is that you can try several books. Choose the book that speaks to you. Not all will.

In Stephen King's book, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, he talks about how important it has been to him to consider his wife, Tabitha, his first reader. By that he means she is the first, and only, person he lets read his books before he begins rewriting and editing.

Choose one person to be your first reader. Choose someone you trust to be honest and kind. Choose someone who knows good writing. Show them your work and ask for feedback. You're not asking them to rewrite your work. You're looking for their reaction to your topic, your use of language, and your mechanics. Are your sentences complete? Grammar correct? That kind of thing.

Writing groups can be both wonderful and horrible. It all depends on how lucky you are in finding a group of writers who are honest and respectful, who are willing to give as well as take. Writing groups are fodder for a separate article, but they warrant mention here because getting feedback from peers who don't have a personal investment in you can be extremely helpful.

While I advocate having one first reader, we often choose someone who doesn't want to hurt our feelings. A group of strangers is more likely to be brutally honest. The key word here is "brutal." Feedback from a writing group does not have to hurt. Choose your group wisely and don't be afraid to move on if it doesn't work out.

Before the very interesting posts about an original 1933 Model T 1.5 ton truck, of which there are only 20 left, as well as yarn, spindles, and other joys, before that...

Last week I started going out in my Ti-lite wheelchair daily, going out to ‘make memories’, and I rejoined the Y because if it were not for sheer will power every single day I would already be unable to leave my bed. It seems I have a small time before that choice/chance is no longer a choice, and I will not go out without fighting.
My scalp is no longer getting blood and hair and scalp are falling out. I do what I can to hide that, at least in pictures. The same is true for my arms and legs. But unless I can get my blood to flow the way it did over a year ago….this is going to be it. My neuropathy has progressed and now with a majority of pain nerves gone and sensation nerves gone, the larger nerves are being destroyed. The right side is progressing faster so on that side my hand, arm is slower. Both sides are slow, and fatigued.

I was to go to badminton tonight but I simply could not. Just going up to the Y and rolling back interrupts my nerves so much that I cannot with both arms hit the button to bring the elevator. I went twice to the Y, then to the arcade the next day, to two farmers’ markets and the next day the RSPCA and did 48 postcards and a few gifts. Those actions almost immediately started depressing my respiration to the point that any relaxation of my general muscles would either result in passing out, or a ceasing of breathing, sometimes for a dangerously extended time.

I would love to know how I can have broken toes or have my hand crushed by a door and not feel it and yet not be yanked awake daily by the pain. My doctor (steady walk-in clinic) saw me and doubled my medication. Um…that’s lethal levels I think, but I get the point doc. Believe me, every minute I am not focused on trying to write, or watching something the pain is not just there, it is pervasive. It hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, it hurts to sit still,and to sit or lay and do nothing, nothing to distract, well that is just a bit too unpleasant. By unpleasant I mean remember that time you had you hand slammed in the car door, or when you fell or thought your ribs were broken or cracked? Remember that and how you were kind of amazed that it is possible to think semi-sane thoughts with that level of pain. Or think and speak at all? Unpleasant.

Okay, in pain, fatigued, yes, but so what?

Well, I want to live. I do. And if smashing against the wall of my body to find a way into extending the time before I can’t leave the bed, then so be it. I have been working and monitoring almost everything I do at 15 minutes intervals for months to stave this off. Talk about burnt-out! I need to get to Hawaii and I need to do that in my Titanium Chair. To go to the Big Island and Cremate myself if that is what it takes. I have Cheryl and Linda to restrain me from acting on those types of thoughts. I still plan on going to see the lava and the stars.

I would do so much, would have done so much more, if I had known how much energy it takes to simply be held upright and breath in a $24,500 wheelchair just made to support me...could I have gone on? The fatigue is a cruelty. So to do that for 10 or 12 hours a day takes a lot of energy, makes me so, so tired.

And to do that, shower, dress, go wheeling uphill, go out if not every day then several times a week, to prepare to externally retake my life of last year. Why? So I can get back into boxing. Because that is where I sweat before and if I don’t sweat soon I never will. I will risk the daily seizures, the daily mini-strokes, the stopping of breathing, the pain, God why did you make the body have this many ways to hurt, to achieve that. And I am only a couple steps away.

Yes, the last few months have been me faking it, pretending that I was in better condition than I was. Sorry. I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn't want the disability community to move on because I wasn't any type of disabled they could identify with anymore. Plus I didn’t want to be stopped (the PLAN!). Do I pretend so I can continue to make a difference or because I am selfish in the extreme: both.

In the west, I am trying to track down a saying that ‘We don’t do suicide missions’ but all other countries built suicide subs or human guided torpedoes, even the UK and Italy. There is a culture which does not lay it all on the line – isn’t that the service to the British Empire, Gordon holding off the hordes, to lay one’s life to the better land? So what will I sacrifice to stay disabled instead of dying?

Sanity.

Fuction of limbs. The limbs themselves.

I never ask people to do what I ask of myself. Why not? We are all human. If they feel agony, then can I. If they can feel pain and loss then so must I. If they grieve over what is lost, then so do I, so do I. Except I can’t grieve for the losses which occur in a week, a month much less a year so I don’t talk about them, don’t write about those losses much.Who would understand anyway?

Why not rest? Because I have a progressive disease that never rests. And because I am only holding on that will power to get me out of bed and into my wheelchair by a thread, the one that lets me push that bit further. That 'thread' and routine get me out of bed, that and planning get me out the door. That and vanity to appear ‘okay’ to anyone passing by or that I met makes me expend a half days’ energy in a half hour. The fact that I can spend the energy that helps me breathe doesn’t make me bright when I do it, but I do.
Whenever there is a disaster, or when people start running, there is one person, me, who starts running toward the problem, and that’s the way it has always been. Even now, I still want what I recognize is the easy way: to die for another. A bullet to the head for me, to save someone, to save me...that is the easy way.

That’s why I like Terry Fox, because for him it was always hard. The training was hard. The days of cold were hard: minute by minute. The blisters on his stump end were hard. The pain, yes, the pain was hard and maybe if he had been offered regular check-ups they would have caught it early enough for him to live. But that would have meant someone, somewhere taking responsibility so while he shook the hand of the Prime Minister, he didn’t receive medical care while running 3,339 miles, more than the breadth of the USA in 143 days but only when he could not go on another day.

Tonight for the first time I read the letter, the first one he sent for fundraising, to the Canadian Cancer Society of those in the ward he left:

“There were the faces with the brave smiles, and the ones who had given up smiling. There were the feelings of hopeful denial, and the feelings of despair. My quest would not be a selfish one. I could not leave knowing these faces and feelings would still exist, even though I would be set free from mine. Somewhere the hurting must stop...and I was determined to take myself to the limit for this cause.”

I can think of no better summation. To continue to live, to keep going, to take the pain as I can't get out of bed. To go on even after speech and other functions have failed, as long as words can be recorded is my future. I will take risks to extend it, even though it is going to be hard.I don’t know what else I have to offer but my story, my day to day life, the truth of that, and the reasons why I put on the face, why we all do sometimes. And to explain why I keep going, and will keep going. I depend not on a miracle cure, or even the treatment I have been promised by the neurologists of British Columbia (still yet to appear – hello, IVIG? I’m over here!). I have had my home care reduced because my medical conditions are ‘too complicated’ and ‘there is no GP oversight.’ No one wants to take responsibility, not even those who would help me to pee, to shit, to eat, to sleep.

I take responsibility. Because someone has to start. Someone has to care. It isn't about just me but dozens to hundreds of people in this town alone dying THIS YEAR because of the poor care, the lack of equipment and tests which would be available in a first world country. I am just articulate and have access to a computer.

Medicine isn’t about ego’s, or a failure to take personal or larger responsibility but the opposite, with the opportunity to help or hurt others lives come the responsibility to do so proactively. When the staff has ‘birthdays’ for annual stays of seniors citizens (people, real people who are only a decade or two or three older than you) who are filling hospital beds because there is no place ‘to shift them’. Something is wrong.

Yes, your province may be great...today. Yes, your GP in British Columbia may be super...today. Because if you plan to live longer than a few years, you need to worry about it too. When 50% of the people GIVING me care who come in, including the temps (HALF!) have no GP of their own, then it is a story that needs to be told. And to tell that story I have to live it.That story is written on and in my body and within the DOCTOR’S charts and documents my last GP had the receptionist box up. That administrator then called Linda to tell her if she did not pick it up that day, over two years of extensive tests would be destroyed. That is how I found out I didn’t have a GP (again). Last time I went into see the walk-in clinic doctor there (for the third or fourth time) I heard her ask the front desk for my chart.

Doctor, “Well, this IS a walk in clinic and she DOES keep coming here so why don’t you start one (so I don’t have to take her history every time she comes in…).”

Yeah, I could sue the owner, a doctor, for discrimination at the BC human rights court. The last trial lasted about five years. Do you think I have five years?

I am not ‘inspirational’, nor am I ‘courageous’, 'heroic' or ‘defiant against the odds.’ I know the odds, I know I will die; I am just willing to risk further impairment to extend the time before that death.I didn’t know what desperate was until now. And I will probably say that again a few months from now....if I have a few months.

No one has ever beaten death.

Why Women Need Health Care Reforms?

Many of women's problems stem from the fact that to get anything close to decent private insurance, you usually need a full-time job, which women are less likely than men to have--52 percent versus 73 percent. (The flip side of this problem is that linking jobs to insurance leaves many women tethered to full-time jobs they'd rather not have, given their other responsibilities. In fact, 60 percent of full-time working mothers would prefer part-time work, according to a 2007 Pew poll. While some keep their full-time jobs for the income, many others stay because they have no other way to get health benefits.) Many women who work part-time or stay at home have become a sort of medical underclass, stuck without insurance, paying dearly for it out of their own pockets or, as was Jemilla Mulvihill's experience, begging desperately, and unsuccessfully, for the opportunity to pay dearly for it out-of-pocket.
A 38-year-old yoga instructor and personal trainer, Mulvihill was uninsured when she recently discovered she was pregnant. She had made do without coverage throughout her adult life, relying mostly on luck and over-the-counter remedies. This time, she knew she needed something more. Even without the cost of prenatal care, a standard in-hospital delivery typically runs between $7,000 and $10,000. If anything went wrong, the costs would be way higher. So Mulvihill resigned herself to buying private insurance, hoping to put it on a credit card and pay it off at some point in the distant future. Yet, after spending hours calling private insurance companies, she found none would take her. The reason? Private insurers can legally reject pregnant women on the grounds that their pregnancy is a pre-existing condition. While federal law forbids group health plans from playing this sleazy trick, on the individual market, companies face no such restriction. Given the loophole, seemingly all insurers jump through it. Even though not getting prenatal care is a technically a violation of the law (according to family law experts, women could be prosecuted for neglect, though they rarely if ever are), private insurance plans for individuals aren't required to help them get it.
When looking for real help, many uninsured pregnant women encounter this utterly useless advice: get a policy before conceiving. Yet planning ahead doesn't necessarily solve women's insurance problem. Many women couldn't afford whatever care they find, since companies often charge women more--in one case as much as 140 percent more--for the same health coverage, according to a 2008 study by the National Women's Law Center. And only the lucky have the privilege of paying even these high prices, since companies can simply reject women for anything from having been subject to domestic violence to having had a C-section. Meanwhile, the vast majority of individual plans don't even offer maternity coverage. Only 7 percent of women get insurance through the individual market, yet its unwelcoming practices clearly contribute to the fact that another 18 percent are uninsured.
So what's a pregnant woman to do if she can't afford insurance? Some women take their chances, skipping the doctor's visits and hoping for the best. (A startling 15 percent of American women receive no prenatal care in the first trimester, a fact that contributes to our appallingly high infant mortality rate). Other women "spend down," forgoing income to qualify for Medicaid. Even then, they can wind up without prenatal care for long periods, since twenty states lack laws allowing pregnant women to receive time-sensitive coverage while waiting for approval of their Medicaid applications. Mulvihill took this route, and is still grateful to the benefits worker who granted her a Medicaid card, despite the fact that her income was slightly above the cutoff in New York City at the time. "I wanted to give her a hug," Mulvihill said later. "It was either have an abortion, or I'm going to have this child and the decision was in this woman's hands."
Still other women spend their money on the bogus health companies that have slithered onto the scene to exploit uninsured pregnant women. These faux insurers should be Exhibit A in what's wrong with our current system. You can find two of them listed on PregnancyInsurance.org, a website that purports to offer solutions for uninsured pregnant women and heavily promotes two companies: Affordable Health Care Options (AHCO) and Ameriplan. Unfortunately, despite the website's name and the companies' sly advertising, neither actually offers insurance to pregnant women. It turns out Pregnancyinsurance.org is run by a "life-affirming Christian ministry," which helps explain its relentlessly money-is-no-object tone when it comes to women having children they can't afford. (Among the money-saving suggestions it offers uninsured pregnant women are signing up for Medicaid, eating well and looking into home births, which are "considerably more economical than hospital births.")
Ameriplan, a huge multilevel marketing company, capitalizes both on women's overall lack of health insurance and their need for part-time employment by setting up work-from-home businesses selling "discount medical plans." (According to the company's website, the fact that seven in ten Americans is either uninsured or underinsured "presents the opportunity of a lifetime!") Unfortunately, women haven't had much luck either selling or using the cards. In 2006, the Montana State Auditor sued the company, charging that it didn't actually hold up its end by contracting with local healthcare providers, leaving the Montanans who bought discount cards from the company out of luck--and their monthly fee, which ranges up to $59.95. Ameriplan gave the state $200,000 as part of a settlement of the suit, which charged the company with conducting a pyramid scheme, in addition to engaging in insurance and securities fraud.
As for AHCO, the company is not only not an insurance company, it's a blatant fraud that exploits pregnant women, according to the Texas Office of the Attorney General, which sued AHCO in 2008, alleging that, while the company sells a "Maternity Card" that it says offers maternity services, such as doctor's visits, hospital stays, lab work, sonograms and prescriptions, "in truth and in fact the Maternity Card offers none of these services."
Healthcare reform shouldn't harm Trig Palin, as Sarah Palin has suggested it might, but it would put a knife through the hearts of the bottom-feeding companies that prey on uninsured, pregnant women. By forbidding real insurers from denying coverage on the grounds of pre-existing conditions, as four of the five proposals now floating around the various Congressional committees would, reform should eliminate pregnant women's desperate search for coverage. Most of those bills would also outlaw the practice of "gender rating," or charging women more for the same policies, though the Senate Finance Committee version would reportedly allow insurers to charge companies with more than fifty employees more for women.
It's still unclear how much money the government would offer to help pay for insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Since women still struggle more to cover these expenses, the size of the subsidy will determine whether they'll really be able to afford the insurance they'll be required to buy. The biggest question of all, of course, is still whether any version of health reform will pass. In part, the answer will rest on whether women remain silent or, worse, contribute to the twisted version of events offered by groups like Concerned Women of America and (the sadly co-ed) Conservatives for Patients' Rights. The best hope for the more than half of women who are uninsured or underinsured would be to lend their support to groups like the National Partnership for Women and Families, the National Women's Law Center and Moms Rising, who are actively fighting for reform--and against the misrepresentation of women's experience. If they don't, women's prognosis for escaping the medical underclass--and the sleaze that comes with it--is grim.