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Showing posts from March 25, 2012

A Writing Journey: Undoing Everything I Believed About Writing

By Angela Bevacqua, Senior Communications Specialist, Community First Foundation I used to think that writing was a natural talent. You either had it or you didn’t. A talented person could just conjure up lovely “turns of phrase,” as I’ve been known to call them. My frustration with writing would mount when these lovely “turns of phrase” didn’t naturally flow from my pen. No--I would belabor every sentence. My writing would become more and more convoluted, dry, and awkward. I focused on perfect grammar, which only added to the struggle. I was trying so hard to impress. So of course I started to loathe writing and my confidence plummeted. Thank goodness for a best friend, and stellar writer, who became my writing mentor. I traded sushi dinners for writing lessons. I marveled at what he taught me. His writing was simple but meaningful. It flowed. In his books and essays he wrote about complex ideas (psychology and spirituality) in a way that anyone could