How well do you write?

Came across this story today and personally I think it's long overdue, but likely won't get much attention or cause much reform.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I suck at spelling...which is exactly why I keep at least one dictionary on my desk*. I use it all the time. I even just bought a cheap thesaurus a few months back. My punctuation leaves lots of room for improvement, too. (I like to use exclamation points, periods and commas WAY TOO much, but it's my style. I don't write like that when it's not appropriate.)

But, while I am far from perfect, one of the fastest ways to turn me off when reading is to find lots of writing errors, especially spelling errors. In searching through some blogs, I've found some of the WORST writing ever. And not because someone can't spell, but because they prefer to write everything in "slang." This, to me, is just flat out annoying!

I know that I also tend to ramble on and on and on.... It's a bad habit, but I'm trying to be better.

I have one other writing problem that wasn't mentioned: legible handwriting. Again, this is a problem for me, and I therefore tend to type my letters and print them, instead. It's not that I can't write, but rather my handwriting is sloppy and I make LOTS of mistakes. I end up re-writing my letters over several times which just causes hand cramping. If it MUST be handwritten, I find it easier to type up what I want to say, then edit and correct without any problems before polishing it up and printing it up. Then I copy it with care in my "bestest" cursive writing.

Writing is not hard to do, it just takes a little more focus, people!

*And yes....I've heard that Blogger's spell-checker SUCKS!