Continuing my self-education

I had to run to Sam's club today.  I always try to run through their book section whenever I can, which is about 99% of the time when I run into Sam's.  I picked up a book today by Taggart & Wines titled, "My Grammar and I... or should that be me?"  Even though I have a couple of graduate degrees, I still feel the need to cultivate and nurture my mind.

More to the point, I'm continually striving to improve my writing abilities.  Presently, I don't have the time, money, or really even an interest in going on to further my formal "higher education."  So how am I growing my skills as a writer?

Over the past couple of years (along side reading some classics) I've read a host of books on the craft of writing, composition, and several memoirs written by authors.  I'm looking at this season, or chapter of my life, as my self-education.  It's probably a slower process than going back to school, but nevertheless, I find myself growing all the same.  

I realized some time ago that my oration skills as a preacher improve as I work on my writing abilities.  Though the written & spoken word vary in the delivery, there seems to be some symbiotic relationship in increasing their quality, at least as I see it as a communicator.  I've also noticed a weird correlation in higher education and ministry...  Some of the best educated "theologians" I knew (not all!) had the least amount of people skills.  Maybe I'm cautious that this is true of writing as well...?   BTW: William Faulkner never graduated from high school, and, Kurt Vonnegut didn't finish his college education which was in anthropology...

I feel very blessed to have had several wonderful writing opportunities open up this past year.  I feel my blogging has suffered recently (I'm blogging less lately) even though on the other hand I hope to have more quality ideas to blog about.  Since I don't have as much time to blog, when I do, I want to be more selective in what I blog about, and do it better than ever!