All Writing Counts As Writing

How much writing do you do in a day? When people ask me this question, they don't like my answers. Right now, at the bare minimum, I write one blog post, respond to emails, have at least a few conversations on IM, and post on a few message boards. According to most people, none of that is writing. Why?

All of this is colloquial writing; it's informal. We aren't writing about writerly things. Unless we are writing a story of some kind, we aren't really writing. I call bullshit.

All writing counts as writing. Writing is telling a story. Your story may be a fictional work about characters you create, or it can be about your own life (like in the creative nonfiction genre). Suppose you had a crazy experience when you went out to go bowling with your friends over the weekend. If you wrote those experiences down as a short story, then you would be writing. If you wrote those experiences down in an instant message or an email, how is there any difference? At best, the difference would be that nobody is requiring you to use standard written English. And if you believe that's the only difference between writing and nonwriting, I don't want to be your friend.

Even still, suppose that standard written English was required for writing to be considered valid. There is no reason to not use it. In fact, when I write my emails, IMs, and blogs, I am pretty much always using perfect English. I may lapse in capitalization with instant messages, but that's about the worst of it. That means that I am still writing when I do these inferior forms of writing.

At its core, writing is storytelling. An effective writer will tell a story that people will understand and will tell that story in such an entertaining way that the audience will want to listen to the whole thing. Even if you are talking about the most mundane things like the weather outside or your drive to work, you can be entertaining, interesting; you can be a writer.

Treat all forms of writing as legitimate writing and use them to practice your writing skills. The lessons you learn for formal writing are always useful for any kind of writing. Don't repeat words. Use varying sentence length. Use strong words to make your point. Avoid weak words and unnecessary phrases. If you have trouble with the rules of spelling and grammar, then practice using them with all the text messages, instant messages, emails, and everything else you regularly write in. You'll be amazed how much you can grow if you practice being a good writer every time you write something.