Dear Mitsu,
I think I have understood your heart’s desire: you want to improve your writing – including poetry – but you really don’t want to take classes for various personal reasons. I happen to agree with you and believe that you have what it takes to accomplish your education goal, namely, self-expression with integrity.
You love learning new words and enjoy tossing them out – right or wrong – in your sentences. You’ve got to stop that!!! It lacks, you guessed it, integrity. Use your new words correctly. Let your dictionary become your closest, most intimate, friend.
“Integrity” in Japanese has a different nuance than in standard English, the latter being more about honesty and self-disclosure. Don’t start speaking or writing without knowing what you want to say – at least not in published form. Leave that for your singing!
Remember, I am addressing how you can improve your English. Learning to be creative in your writing is another topic and is not your personal shortcoming.
Read, listen, chat to your heart’s content, but when you’re ready to write about it, do so with the greatest measure of integrity possible. There’s a young man who is a master at combing through slews of documents, takes copious notes I’m sure, and writes all his findings in the clearest, simplest, most downright honest manner he can summon. Simeon Edigbe periodically sends out the most succinct descriptions of issues that have been dogging the Christian community for years. Even the staunchest intelligentsia read it for its clarity.
But remember (again) this essay is addressing one thing and one thing only: how to equip you with powerful English writing tools that will enable that marvelous poetic flair that you possess so brilliantly to come through unencumbered and free!
Your friend,
Robin
(Dr. Robin Starbuck)