Will I ever be able to write like a native writer?
So a little while ago someone said that I'll never be able to write on a native level because I wasn't born in the UK or America. I did, however, go to elementary school in the US at the ages of 5-10 or so, so that has to count for something, right? I just feel really let down for some reason. I can definitely tell when a sentence is or isn't grammatically correct, but I just feel like there's something missing. I'd like to write a novel one day, but I have no clue where to start or if I'm even qualified to write one.
Can anyone give me some tips? I'm currently a nineteen-year-old freshman in college pursuing a bachelor's. I haven't decided on a major yet, but I've been considering Professional Writing/Technical Communication because I think it would be quite cool to make a living writing. However, I'm not sure if that would be a poor degree choice. A lot of people say that it's not very marketable.
I do read a lot of blogs and such daily, and I constantly try to improve my writing by writing as concisely as possible. I feel like the biggest thing that I need to work on right now is increasing my vocabulary size--which means being good at something so that I actually have material to write about.
Thanks!
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Joseph Conrad was one of the greatest novelists ever to write in the English language. He was born in Poland and did not become fluent in English until his twenties. It can be done.
But writing a novel is not about being able to write a grammatical sentence. It is about being able to tell a compelling story. There is no certain way to equip yourself to tell a compelling story, but reading lots and lots of them, including the very best ever written, is a great way to go about it. I would suggest starting with Joseph Conrad.
There is no way to guarantee that any specific skill will stay marketable. Not even for the time it takes to get a degree, let alone for a career. (I studied to be a teacher because there was supposed to be a huge demand. Only three people in my graduating class got hired. The boom was over by the time we graduated.) If your heart is set on a career that requires specific training, like teaching or law, you should study that, not because it is marketable but because you love it.
You do not need a degree in technical communication to get a job as a technical writer. A degree (or experience) in a subject related to what you will be writing about can often help much more. Tech writing is one of the most diverse fields on the planet. No one qualification will make you a candidate for all tech writing jobs.
You only get to go to college once in your life. Study the thing you are most passionate about. You will be a better student for it, a more engaged student, a happier student. Whether the subject you study will be marketable or not one, five, ten, or twenty years after you graduate will be impossible to predict, but you will be more marketable.
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Yes, you will be able to write as well as a native speaker, in fact you already do. Your written English is already far better than many native speakers, so you now face the same challenge all us native speaking writers do, which is to hone your writing skills 'til they're sharp enough to bleed, find your voice, and then give yourself to getting that first novel penned.
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Bah humbug, the other answers should convince you that you can do it.
Another story to remember is that Samuel Beckett was an Irishman who lived in Paris and wrote in English and French.
I am not convinced you need to live in an English speaking place. And if you did, would you choose Goa or Singapore? Botswana or Cardiff? Nova Scotia or Dunedin?
Whatever you do don't become a bad copy of a New York or London writer.
If you can't live in a city of native English speakers you can mix with them in your local community. While they may not know all the latest tween slang, they will provide an unique and authentic voice for your characters.
A writer writes.
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