Letters and pen-pal stuff
Seriously, my handwriting is actually god awful. The FBI would never catch me because they could never read it.
So, I got interested. Started sending a few letters here and there, poorly formatted, poorly written, it was pathetic. Back then, you were lucky if you got even 500 words out of me. Because I was just NOT good at writing letters, not even a little bit. Sure, I could carry a conversation as much as I needed to, but the substance wasn't THERE.
There wasn't much personality, you might find off-color jokes in some of these. You might find that even though I'm mostly accurate grammatically, it's still not quite perfect. It's got its own character. Well, BECAUSE of me writing these letters in this early stage, I actually started to use mostly correct punctuation, and grammar.
Just like Lars Ulrich in the 80s. My style isn't unique by today's standards, but it's undeniably my own.
Some people might be unimpressed by the idea of writing a letter to someone, or having a pen pal. Because you grew up in a time where it was still a VERY popular method of communication. But I'm Gen Z, I was born in 2004. While I am in a lower income bracket, and was in an even lower one around then, the technology I had was still FAR more advanced than a pen and paper.
But to me at the time, this was such a refreshing idea, and rewarding way to talk to someone. I quickly found that the process of writing to someone, waiting for them to read it, and then waiting for their reply, was MAGIC. It was AMAZING. And when their response finally arrived, it was like opening a Christmas present. Seeing someone's proportional response was exhilarating.
So, I started getting serious. Because of the letters, I started to understand women more (huge topic for another day I had MAJOR issues on my view with women back then), and I started to actually write in a way I felt good about. I felt good that my writing felt easy to read, and understand. I felt good that I still wrote in a way that shows my character, whether goofy, or just kind of deeper than you might expect in a way.
Oh, and yes, I had 10:1 the amount of women/men pen pals. It was disproportionate actually, the amount of women to men was fascinating.
So, a year goes by, and I've become quite the writer. I mean SERIOUS. My first letters to people are averaging 2,500 words if their bio is detailed enough.And the thing is, PEOPLE LIKED IT. People were AMAZED by the effort. People opened up to me, people liked me, people wrote back as fast as they could. Most "good" correspondences were about 5,000-7,000 words send and receive. The "GREAT" ones? 10,000 words.
Yes, I've spent years of my life on a platform, sending 5,000-10,000 word letters to people. (I think this is my fourth year on there.)
So, if you want to get better at writing, maybe try going on Slowly, and writing some letters to people. Hey, maybe you'll even see ME on there. But be warned, 10,000 words takes QUITE a while to write, even if you're just replying to what the other person said, and not actually adding anything to the conversation yourself.
Oh, and no matter what you do, write them on a computer, AND SAVE. ALL. THE. TIME. SAVE, SAVE, SAVE. You will lose SO much work if you're playing around too much.
So, that's why I write the way I do. I got into pen pal-ing, and letters, and here we are.