I was combing through my archives this past week and noted the different writing style I now have from my original essays back in 2011.
Clearly, maturing as a writer comes with the territory I suppose.
However, it’s far more than first meets the eye.
My writing style was much more conversational in its structure whereas today I’ve fallen into the trap of writing to please search engine optimization (SEO).
It was really apparent that my initial writing style was much more aligned to who I am in real life.
The first sign was the structure of my work. I initially wrote in paragraphs versus today when I tend to write in only sentences.
Shit, I’m doing it again…
It’s so hard to break out of the narrow writing rules that apps like WordPress, Yoast and others want you to use so search engines will pick up on your key words etc. Actually, I think the reason that my essay was so popular prior to me moving to my own website in 2017 was the fact that I used the Google blogger platform to host my weekly essays.
Ah, the good old days when I was being read by up to a 1,000 people per day as it was instantiated with, at the time the Google browser.
So, I guess another aspect of why my writing style has changed but the other important thing has more to do with the composition in which I wrote then versus how I write now.
Today, as mentioned it’s all about small bite sized and punchy sentence structure. However, then it was all about the texture and emotion of my thoughts at any given time. Some of you may say rambling, but I’m going with textured…
The final part of my writing style was the content. When I first began my objective was to document and write down all of the stories from my life to that point so I could pass these memories onto Zach and Sam because up until that point I’d been the absent parent as I travelled every week for work.
A lot of emotions were swirling around when I decided to write my first essay. With my marriage imploding, my father’s recent death, my impending hike across Papua New Guinea and the uncertainty of my job everything was in absolute turmoil.
There were just too many things being hurled at me at once, but there was no choice but to stand and fact whatever was going to be thrown at me.
Through all of this my one and only concern was for Zach and Sam and the impact that all of this had on them…
Initially my plan was to capture a number of the original essays and transfer them to my private storage so that I had a record of all of my past posts for posterity’s sake. However, as I began to transcribe them, I noted the significant change in my writing style.
Not just visually as the stories flowed one after the other but the content of these little gems (yes, my words). I then began reading and re-reading these essays and what I discovered was that my original style of writing was funny and free flowing, and indeed my natural style of writing.
Let me give you a little excerpt from one of my original essays from the series – Kokoda Preparation published in 2011:
On our final morning, just before we started our hike Ron and Aaron had their backs to the group and were looking off into the jungle, they spoke a few quiet words to each other and in that moment of quiet reflection they put their arms around one another, oblivious to the world around them. They had made the journey of a lifetime and were about to conquer the Kokoda track together – what an accomplishment! Clearly this was a very special moment for them and one they equally cherished. It was at that moment that I felt the loss of my dad more than ever, knowing that I would never get the chance to do anything like this with him or to be with him again brought tears to my eyes. If only we’d had the chance, I thought……but as I reflected on our relationship, I realized that even if he were alive, he wasn’t that kind of dad. Nope, he was a no-nonsense, non-emotional old-fashioned gent who kept everything in check, and he definitely wasn’t sort of dad that would head off on an adventure like this with his son. I thought how lucky Aaron was to have a dad like Ron.
This short series was to set me on the path to becoming a writer and author.
For the most part I’ve written about my childhood memories, then documented my travels with Zach and Sam as well as stories from my dad. Most recently, without the day-to-day contact with Z+S I’ve reverted to writing most about mindset, self-love and the importance of developing your emotional intelligence and related topics.
Trust me these are all good topics, but I do feel as though something is missing.
Perhaps it’s time for me to revisit some of my early essays and re-introduce you to them… Could be fun!
Until next week
Ciao!
0 Comments on "Writing style…"