How to Write Better Than a Fifth Grader

I am an award winning author but would like to learn to write better.

When I say award winning, I mean that in 6^th grade I won a writing contest using all of our spelling words in a story. It was about fast food hamburgers and french fries coming to life and getting revenge on humans, (The Big Mac Bites Back.)

The class voted on the best stories and mine won. I still think that the other kids only liked my story because it involved a homicide committed by carnivorous food items. The award was a U of M sweatshirt. I didn't like football but hey an award is an award.

Of course my one and only triumph was about 30 years ago so I may be a little rusty. I am going to brush up on my writing skills.

Since I am not only old but cheap, I am going to sample some of the various free learn to write sites on the internet.

Hopefully I will polish my writing skills and strengthen my mind in the process. So then I can utilize my new shiny new brain by watching Project Runway and Top Chef.

O.K. here we go. First I search on "learn to write" on Google. This is too general and I am getting many fake pay-me-and-we-will-publish-your-book-sites. Time to type in what I really want.

"Free online creative writing." Much better. There are a lot if sites to sift through, of course that is the beauty of the internet. I could spend five hours searching for a recipe for egg noodles. I learned how to unclog the drain hose in my fridge, that you can get rid of asthma symptoms by infecting yourself with an intestinal parasite, saw a kid break a pane of glass over his head, found ceiling cat and the meaning of goatse.

Since I now have no time to make dinner I order pizza. If I were Sandra Bullock I could probably order pizza online but in my small town the pizza place doesn't even have access to use a credit card. After using smoke signals to place my order, when the pony express stops in my driveway, I pay for my pizza with cash and the sticky change I pulled from the bottom of my kid's toybox.

Where were we? Oh yeah, we were looking for free writing classes. Well I was looking while you were living vicariously through me. Which is O.K. if you want to spend your days changing diapers and sorting socks.

My general rule is never to use a website that uses a common noun for the domain name. Photography.com, Writing.com, Painfulboils.com. It is usually a pay site or a search page because someone is parking on the domain name. Besides, Writing .com scared me off when I found the Choose your own adventure stories.

Moving on, I did find some useful sites. The first is Creativewritingprompts.com. While not technically a learn to write site, it does have an amazing list of story starters. Just click on one of the numbers and an idea for a story will pop up.

Idid.essortment.com has a great list of steps to take to create interesting characters. That is assuming your family is sane and you have to make up fictional characters. If you have any problems let me know. My brother isn't doing anything right now and could really spice up your life.

Quite a few good creative writing sites are geared towards teachers and homeschoolers. You can easily apply these to yourselves. Most of them are free, because you know that teachers don't get paid enough. Or at least enough to be able to explain to my daughter how to carry and borrow. They have enough time to mark on her paper a message explaining that my student doesn't understand the work and for me to go over it with her. Uh sure, no problem, I was only in 2^nd grade about 30 years ago. We still used an abacus back then. The only math I know is shopping math, 20% off bad, 50% off good.

But back to school. The best site I found that includes a lot of links to story ideas, writing motivation, grammar and general writing skills was Web English Teacher.com. I know it's a noun domain name but rules were made to be broken. Yeah, thats how I roll. I am an grammar rebel.

Searching on Google also brings up many workshops in which you can have your creative efforts critiqued by other people. Of course the other people might just be Sidney who lives in his Mom's basement and hasn't had a job in two years but the internet can be funny that way.

The best advice I found was to write everyday. Every stinking day. Even if you have two little ones who have colds, the washer broke down and the kitchen faucet is leaking. No matter what it is, you could just write a character study but it's still practice. It keeps the creative juices flowing and pretty soon you will find, well I don't know because I am just starting myself. But I am sure it will be worth the effort.

Myself, I am beginning a murder mystery about a husband who suddenly disappears after he refuses to fix a washer and a leaky faucet.