Writing in English
My English is a mishmash of Danish-English, English-English and American-English. I hope it gives my writing a unique style. It makes sense to me to write in English considering that I lived in different countries and met many people while traveling. My contacts either have English as a first language or as a strong second language. My mother is English, so it’s a strong second language for me. The fact that it’s not my first language and that I am learning to write English now at a later age has some advantages I feel. I think this way I avoid it becoming too sophisticated and academic. I want my writing to be understood by a broad audience.
Creative non fiction
The genre I write is creative nonfiction based on my own experiences and impressions and from meeting people on my way. I revisit the past 20 years of living in the Caribbean which to me is therapeutic and at times it brings emotions that surprises me but it's helpful. It's not meant to be autobiographical but has elements of being a memoir - depicting specific aspects of my life and mostly just from that 20 year period. I can only convey what I know, of course, and I don't always have the full story or only remember details or I just remember how an experience made me feel. During writing my newsletter and in my planned e-book I go from past into present and in the newsletter I will mainly write in the present. I leave the past more to my e-book. I am aware I have to make sure it is something that people want to read and not just what I want to write.
I am very pleased when I get feedback on my writing. Especially around the style of my writing. Regarding the topics and content, while writing just on social media, I was less concerned with criticism as I quickly moved on with a new blog post. There is always something to write about. Now I will try to stick to some specific topics and with the newsletter I hope to improve the quality of the content. On, social media with my blog I would sometimes just write anything just for practice and to get into the habit of writing. The next 3-6 months I hope to develop this newsletter and then in the beginning of 2024 try with a more extended version of it with paid subscriptions. For this purpose I have to develop content there is a demand for.
Editing and proofreading
I don’t have anybody to edit my writing in my blog/newsletter. That is fine as I think it’s part of the learning process to self edit. In Las Terrenas the Dominican Republic, I met a professional American proofreader, an expat living there, who I would definitely work with. She uses the Chicago Manual of Style, and she looked through a text once in the beginning of my writing and again recently - my e-book preview. I like how she works. So it’s American English, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use more British or international expressions. She doesn’t do any editing beyond fixing true errors - spelling, grammar and word usage. I have been using the editing software ProWritingAid but considering just using Google Docs which has a reasonably good spellcheck and grammar check. For my ebook, I would look at working with the proofreader and an editor.