All Comments on 'Admissions'

I graduated from the Naval Academy and Washington and Lee Law school and I think your writing has much merit. It was easy to understand and it did not ramble on. I send the following not as criticism, but as advise.

1. Keep practicing. I do not write easily nor quickly. At law school, I noticed it took me twice the time as most of my peers to write. But it just meant that I had to plan to spend twice the time as my classmates. Since I do not have the talent, I have usually have to edit my writings at least three times.

2. Learn to edit.

a. Get a good English grammar book. This book should be laid out so you can easily find the answer to your question. The book that I have is the "Hodges' Harbrace College Handbook." If you went to college in the sixties through eighties, this is the book your English professor usually had you buy. I am always impressed on how often I see this book in my colleagues' offices. You can find a used one for sale at Amazon.com. I usually have to look something up at least once per composition.

b. Paragraphs are your friends. A hundred years ago , it was common to see paragraphs over a half page long. Modern writing has moved to much shorter paragraphs. Our brains are trained to read short paragraphs, so when it is long you are automatically placing a burden on the reader.

b. All good writings are edited. One of my friends makes well over half a million a year as an attorney and he tells me that he spends more time editing his writings than he does composing them. He also has his junior attorneys edit his work, because a fresh set of eyes sees things that the writer cannot see.

2. Write to the audience. Some people like "adjectives and feelings" and others want bare facts. Some professors are so simple minded that you have to agree with their political beliefs. My son is very conservative and he had a professor who is extremely liberal. I told my son to use the class as a science project: see if he could write things that he did not believe and make it believable. If you read some of my son's papers from that class, you would think he is a card carrying socialist. For a college course, unless it is against the law or violates your values, who cares?

P.S. Please excuse me for the roughness of this post, I have not taken the time to edit this, because I need to get to church.

Don't let the naysayers discourage you.

Writng is your window into yourself. Even fictitious characters grow from your imagination, which is really just from the sum of your inner thoughts (fantasies). I can see once you stop focusing on technique and let the words flow directly from your mind to the keyboard, your technique improves, becomes natural and interesting. Stop worrying about what anyone else thinks. Do it for yourself. You go girl.

College professors can be such absolute assholes. Had one myself in English Literature, got a C, when I should have had an A because I was not there for the last day of class. Of course the asshat left that gig to move to another college. He was every stereotype of a pompous college prof that you have ever heard.

Please keep writing, but do a story this time, not a personal history.