Since blogging is also surreptitious writing practice, I thought I would write about the challenges I face in my writing. The biggest challenge in writing a blog is coming up with sentences that don't start with 'I'. If I were not paying attention, I would begin every sentence with it, which would be understandable because a blog is, by nature, a personal account. But, it can be terribly tedious to read. As a new (or rather reborn) blogger, I also feel the need to qualify almost everything thing I say with "I think" or "I feel". Maybe as I gain confidence, that will reduce.
Another challenge is overuse of 'and'. 'And', of course, helps in lengthening sentences, which is useful because a succession of short sentences feels like the staccato burst of machine-gun fire. Not ideal at all. Of course, neither is having a series of long sentences, which can tire out the reader. The best option is to have long sentences interspersed with pithy short ones for relief. The alternative to using 'and' is using a comma, followed by a verb in present continuous tense. For eg. this from my last post 'Life can be exhausting if you are trying to be perfect all the time, leading you to police your feelings'. I tried to avoid using 'and' here but find the resulting sentence awkward.
I, also, find myself using 'thus' and 'hence' a lot, even in my academic writing. Both words are good to convey effect and emphasis, but I am trying to be more conscious of using them because they have started to sound antiquated to me.
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