writing style

I wonder how hard it is to change one's writing style/voice?

Whenever I read a particularly well-written book I think about how I should change my writing to sound more enjoyable, to sound more like the author that I am reading that day.

I'll be honest, I don't put that much time and energy into these posts. I sit down and write and just let it flow and very, very rarely do I edit. Some of my friends write beautiful blog posts but since they put a couple of hours into each post, that means they rarely find the time to post, maybe two a month.

I'm not going to change my style because this is me and it's better to be me (flawed as I am) than a copy of someone else. Though, perhaps I could use a few more descriptors. A well-constructed sentence can be such a pleasure to read. A few of those wouldn't hurt. We'll see.

I write like I talk. Simple. To the point.

I think this is a direct result of having to (or rather trying to) read Madame Bovary in French in college. It's not a bad book. But it is one of those books that takes two paragraphs to tell you that there is a vase sitting on the table.

Here is one quick example...
"To reach the nurse's house, they had to turn left at the end of the road, as though going to the cemetery, and follow, between small houses and backyards, a little path bordered with privet. It was in flower, and so were the veronica, the eglantines, the nettle and the young brambles that sprang out of the bushes. Through the hole in the hedge, they could see, around the hovels, a pig asleep in the sun on a dunghill, or cows with their wooden collars, rubbing their horns against the tree-trunks. Together, side by side, they strolled along, she leaning on his arm and he slowing his stride to the measure of hers; ahead of them, a swarm of flies drifted along, humming in the warm air."

Now imagine trying to read that in French. You end up looking up about every third word, because believe it or not, "eglantines" and "dunghill" are not your typical third-year French vocabulary words.

After taking fifteen minutes to read just one page, I began to pray for a simple sentence or two. I believe that is a big reason why I write in simple sentences now, even when writing in English instead of French.