How to Write when you Can’t Spell

There are many things that get in the way of the desire to write.

Perhaps spelling is not your strong point, you’re dyslexic, you read slowly, someone made you nervous about reading and writing or English isn’t your first language.

English is my language but was something I feared.

It’s not easy. Part French, Gaelic, Nordic and Latin makes for illogical spelling. I have friends from other countries who say their written language is self-explanatory and I envy them.

It is easy to be discouraged, being laughed at is the worst. You must get past cruel experiences and find ways to make it happen.

I was in my mid-twenties when I decided to write long notes about things which interested me. I would have never thought of doing it but my boyfriend, at the time, released me from fear.

He had found several screwed up notes in the kitchen bin. They all said the same thing in different ways. The next time he saw me he held up the disregarded notes and asked me what was going on.

I got a knot in my stomach.

He was a student at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCLU, I was a cook in the Student Union. I thought I had been caught pretending to be something I wasn’t.

He said he would have understood all the notes. What perplexed him was my shame and he wanted to know the reason for it.

I told him about the ‘remedial’ classes and my mother’s, apparently, hilarious public declarations about my spelling.

Everything came out, from people asking me if I was going to take another year to read the book they’d lent me, to refusing to apply for promotion because I couldn’t stand the thought of all the paperwork which would follow.

What he told me changed my life.

He said people had no right to laugh at me. He pointed out, some people are good learners but don’t have creative ideas.

He loved the songs I wrote and asked me, if I had had to submit them in writing before being allowed to perform them, would I have written them?

Trapped in a world full of boiling pots and pans, song writing was my only joy. I spent hours describing my thoughts with words I couldn’t spell.

My career and hobby didn’t mix. I often came out of a moment of blissful creativity to the smell of something burning. I was artistic when piping writing onto cakes but came to grief when asked to decorate a birthday cake for a lady called Siobhan. I had to live with not being good at anything.

Change came when, against advice from friends, I attended a selection day for a Journalism course at a Regional College. I sat a written exam and waited for my rejection letter. I was astonished when I was invited to return for an interview.

When the big day arrived my childminder let me down.

Determined not to fail by default, I took my baby into the interview room at the very moment she had, what can only be described as, a bumsplosion.

With nothing left to lose, I spoke freely. I was told I had ‘fire in my belly’ and my acceptance letter was a formality. ”it had happened and I got over it.

I didn’t undergo an overnight transformation. I still find it difficult to spell but it was the beginning of realising there are solutions to difficulties.

I want to share some things which helped me, in the hope they will encourage someone else to forget what they might have been told they can do.

I’ve added a few extras which weren’t available in the nineties. Technology could be the answer for many.

If you know someone who struggles with writing, please help. Don’t snigger at them. Tell them Rome wasn’t built in a day. We all have things we have yet to learn.

Game Changers

·         Defocussing

This means, staring into the centre of a paragraph. You will be surprised at how much information you pick up without having to read every single word.

We were taught this in Study Skill classes because Journalism involves sifting through a lot of information quickly. It made my reading speed pick up beyond expectation.

We would be given large paragraphs and told we had a certain amount of seconds to look into the centre of them.

When time was up we were asked to write down key points we had gathered at a glance. I was astounded by the amount of words I took in subconsciously and practicing this technique stopped me from reading left to right. I began to devoir books and that is the secret to increasing vocabulary.

·         Read as much as you can

Read things which would normally be outside your scope. Make sense of it without thinking you’ve got to understand every word. I guarantee you will learn something, if not everything, the writer intended.

Kindle is really good. It has a dictionary built into it so you can check the meaning of words without leaving the page.

Hold your finger on the word you don’t understand. It will take a few seconds to give an explanation of most words.

If you don’t have a Kindle there is a free Kindle App, which you can download to your phone.

Once you have the Kindle App, it will often open downloaded documents without being prompted and you can use the Kindle dictionary to read them. Bonus!

·         Attempt Crosswords

They are in newspapers and magazines and the internet is full of them. Crossword puzzles are repetitive and will give you both the spelling and meaning of words.

The best approach is to go after smaller, linking words. Going through all the three letter clues first will lead to more success. Don’t be hard on yourself if you can’t complete a puzzle. Try again tomorrow and you will get better. It’s all about training your brain.

·         Learn how to Touch Type

This is the most helpful thing you can do if you want to write a lot.

I hear you sigh, but I downloaded a game where you learn to type by playing Space Invaders.

You start by shooting down basic letters as they appear and end up typing entire words. You learn without thinking about how to spell.

If all this Seems too Difficult

It doesn’t matter how you make notes. The most important thing is to get the words down as they come to you.

To this end, most phones have a recording feature on them. Tell your phone what you want to say and it will spell for you. You could download one of the following

·        Dragon by Nuance (Android. iOS, macOS,     Windows)

·         Gboard (Android, iOS)

·        Google Docs voice typing (Web on Chrome)

Did you know there’s probably a Read Aloud function on your computer? There are YouTube videos about how to use it.

YouTube is good for spelling too. Lots of helpful people have taken the time to tell you the difference between words like disgust and discussed. You shouldn’t ever feel stuck.

Whatever you want to write, I hope you find the courage to do it.

If you were enticed back to my Journal by the promise of a Curry Recipe and cleaning tips, here they are.

Happy writing, Rachel x

Chicken and Sweet Potato Curry

(Chickpeas can be used instead of Chicken)

Ingredients

 1 Onion

2 Chicken Breasts (or 1 can of Chickpeas)

1 Sweet Potato

2 Tomatoes

2 tsps. Coconut Oil or Coconut Cream

1 Cinnamon Quill

5 Green Cardamom Pods

4-5 Cloves of Garlic

1 heaped dspn Medium Madras Curry Powder

1 Thumb-sized piece of Fresh Ginger, peeled and finely grated, or liquidised.

(Ground Ginger Powder will do!)

½ tsp. of Harissa Spice

Garden Peas (a small handful)

Salt and Pepper, to taste

A kettle of boiling water

Method

1/Cut the onion into medium to large dice and fry on a low heat with vegetable oil and the Coconut Oil. Do not let them brown, they only need to become translucent.

2/Add large dices of chicken breast or chickpeas to the pan. Please make sure chickpeas are well drained as water and oil can make a pan fire.  Add the Cardamom Pods and Cinnamon Quill at this point.

3/ Add the ginger and the curry powder. It will stick to the bottom of the pan. Keep it moving, scraping it from the pan with a wooden spoon, whilst allowing it to char a coat the chicken/chickpeas.

4/ Cover with boiling water and add the Harissa Spice and Peas.

5/ Peel and cut the sweet potato into large chunks and add them to the pan. Make sure that some of the sweet potato is cut into slithers, this will help to thicken the liquid to make a thin sauce (if the sauce becomes too thick and sticky during cooking, you can add a little boiling water to thin it down)

6/ Cut the Tomatoes into 4 pieces (I prefer to remove the seeds, but it’s not essential)

7/ Crush the Garlic and add it to the pot with the Tomatoes

After 20 minutes, check the largest bit of Chicken is fully cooked in the middle. If you are using Chickpeas, make sure they are soft. Add salt and pepper to taste.

When you are sure the Chicken/Chickpeas and the Sweet Potato are cooked properly, serve with Basmati Rice and thinly sliced slivers of Cucumber, with or without Natural unsweetened Yogurt.

This Month’s Cleaning Tip

Stubborn stain on your enamel sink or bathtub?

There’s nothing more annoying than seeing a stain on enamel when you’ve scrubbed it for hours.

Things like cans of Shaving Foam leave rust rings. Hair dye and fake tan take to small scratches on enamel just as easily as they do hair and skin.

Here are the dos and don’ts if your bathroom is looking less than perfect.

Don’t

Use harsh cream cleaners. They only make more tiny scratches for stains to cling to.

Don’t use metal or coloured scouring pads in bathrooms. Metal pads make grey scratch lines and coloured scouring pads leave their colour on grout.

If limescale is attracting dirt, don’t use harsh chemicals or damage your surface by trying to scratch it off with scrapers or knives. Malt Vinegar is perfect. Just pour it onto the scale or soak cotton wool with it and stick it to the scale.

You may have to do it twice but you’ll see an improvement

I would not recommend leaving it on for hours. You don’t want to ruin the finish on your taps or shower head but applying it several times for a couple of minutes, then rinsing thoroughly will work, especially if you buff the area with a dry cloth immediately after.

Do

Use TOOTHPASTE with a dry cloth. It’s designed to remove stains from enamel and works so much better than most chemical cleaners.

If you feel you must use a scouring pad, use a white one.

There are other beauty products in your bathroom which are useful for removing indelible marks.

HAIRSPRAY on a dry cloth removes felt-tip pen marks from bath panels and silk or gloss finish surfaces. It takes a bit of effort but it’s sticky and grabs the dirt.

NEXT MONTH: How to cook perfect rice without a rice cooker and a nifty trick to get your silver jewellery clean in minutes.